[sunra1081]

what if a customer wanted 10 dark t-shirts for $12 a piece? the tee shirts cost $3 a peice(blank), the design is (lets say) slogan plus simple artwork???what would be the best method???

 

[selanac]

In my opinion, screen printing last longer. You can use transfers, but then you have to print, cut around transfers, and heat press them. Don't burn your fingers, lol.

 

[csw]

If the design is simple enough you could use cut vinyl

 

[chobay]

You said simple design, but didn't mention the number of colors. Low runs like these are great for DTG. Will screen printers even bother with a 10 pc. order?

 

[sunra1081]

exactly you guys, i assume screenprinters have minimum orders and have set up fees which cut into the profit, i dont have a vinyl cutter, so cutting around images may become alittle complicated, and wouldn't outsourcing to dtgers be a little expensive too??? im just wondering what would be the bes way to supply a customer with this kind of order considering, turnaround time, profit, price, and quality???

 

[somil]

well i would suggest that you go for heat transfer... have the background colour match the tee colour so that ways you will not need to cut anything... well it may look a little untidy because of this...but guess wat its only 10pcs and 12$. If the client wants good quality screen print is the only solution.

 

[sunra1081]

well i would suggest that you go for heat transfer... have the background colour match the tee colour so that ways you will not need to cut anything... well it may look a little untidy because of this...but guess wat its only 10pcs and 12$. If the client wants good quality screen print is the only solution.

so, your saying if the shirt is black, then print the background black, and the design say white, or what ever color the design is????

 

[IYFGraphics]

Small quantities are easily done in solid color heat press vinyl which has great durability, another option would of course be DTG......since your talking dark shirts in small quantity these are really the only two options that I can see to hit your price point, of course the DTG aspect would depend on your artwork and number of colors involved.

JMHO

 

[Louie2010]

Could someone give an educated guess as to just how many shirts does it take to where the cost of printing becomes less expensive than pressing vinyl? In other words is the cost of pressing vinyl less than printing six shirts, or twelve? At what point can presssing vinyl no longer compete with printing? Thanks

 

[IYFGraphics]

Could someone give an educated guess as to just how many shirts does it take to where the cost of printing becomes less expensive than pressing vinyl? In other words is the cost of pressing vinyl less than printing six shirts, or twelve? At what point can presssing vinyl no longer compete with printing? Thanks

IMHO if you own a cutter and heat press I don't think there is a process that would be cheaper to produce than solid color heat press vinyl, that said if you were doing lets say 100 shirts both sides (200 prints) then I'm sure screen printing would be right there as far as the cost per shirt, as with most any process the more pieces you have to do the cost per unit should come down, the problem with heat press vinyl is the labor involved in doing that quantity (100 shirts), a screen printer with a auto press could crank them out in less than a hour once set up at a cost per shirt that would be very very close to vinyl, while cutting the vinyl, weeding, and pressing 100 shirts would take hours and hours.

So it would really come down to the labor costs making the difference IMHO


Hope this helps.

 

[selanac]

Most screen printers will have a setup cost, but not all. If someone needs the business, or thinks this work can turned into more work down the road he or she will do the work, and might not charge for setup, screens, color changes or flashing. It doesn't hurt to Ask.

In another thread someone gave an example of a short run for $120 total. If you're talking about 10 t-shirts at $12 each, that's also $120.

DTG screen printers can charge what ever they want as well as screen printers. Not saying they have the market, but no ones holding us to a price. Some printers just don't want to mess with short runs.

Also, heat transfers on Darks, are different then light colors. For one think, most heat transfer printers don't print white ink, so you either have to make the white colors a real light gray, or make it the color of the t-shirt. If you have any circles, you have to cut them out. Some Vinyl cutters can do contour cuts, and do the cutting for you.

 

[sunra1081]

okay so, it seems that dtg is a little expensive if im tring to make a profit, and some one above said that i would be sacrificing quality if i used the transfers, so it seems that you guys are basically saying i need to ivest in a vinyl cutter, yes??????

 

[Celtic]

I'm not sure if I missed the number of colors you're talking about here.
If it's just a one color print, a dozen shirts is no problem with a screenprinter and it would be reasonable. The rule of thumb with most screenprinters, me included, is a dozen shirts per color. I will do more colors if a smaller run, but the price would increase.
What area are you in?