 Re: One stop shop VS. printing shop VS. buying your own...
As Rodney stated, most of the big boys don't print their own shirts, but outsource the printing to large print shops. Most of the really big jobs are going to Mexico and other Latin American companies. The shops that I consult with in Mexico are printing GAP, Old Navy, American Eagle ... you name it. They print up to fourteen color designs onto supplied garments for as little as $0.12 per print. The most I have seen anyone getting on these large orders is $0.30 (again for up to fourteen colors).
Coca-Cola was having their screenprinting done in the Far East the last time I checked. Hanes has their tagless transfers printed near Monterrey Mexico and then shipped to Turkey and other countries for application on the shirts.
A small manual shop set up will cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to do it right. You can actually print T-shirts in your garage with a set up that will cost you less than $50 total. The shops that you will probably want to go to are automatic shops that will have as much as $250,000 invested in the their equipment.
You can choose from having a few shirts printed up on a direct-to-garment machine to test the waters and if the designs sell well, then you can go to a screenprinter to get them printed in larger quantity.
I would think buying your own equipment would not be a good idea. Equipment purchases are those who want to get into the screenprinting business and not just print their own line as a general rule.
Hopefully, this will give you some food for thought. |