[royalAtom]

So I'm currently working on a few designs for a t-shirt line and I have a question to those that are already established about printing.

Do any of you print in house rather than outsourcing to a printing company? If so what are the advantages/disadvantages to this? I'm the type of person that likes to have as much control as possible when it comes to my business. ( I DO know when to let go and let other people do the work which is why I'm asking these questions) I know there is a learning curve involved and if you do do it in house how long did it take you to get comfortable with it? Or do you not even bother with the process and have someone else handle the printing for you?

Thanks!

 

[lazographics]

Doing all your own printing in house means having total control of the whole process and more importantly more money in your pocket. IMO.

 

[treefox2118]

Printing in house means maintaining the equipment, paying the rent to store the equipment even when you're not using it, and also maintaining supplies for the equipment, many which have a shelf life.

Better to outsource designs until you have a constant flow of sales to cover the costs of owning a printer of some type. Plus, not all designs can be done with just one print method.

 

[royster13]

...more importantly more money in your pocket.

Not all the time...Some folks can make far more per hour out selling that they can printing....

 

[lazographics]

I've done it both ways. I see more money not being the middle man. But I'm also not the best sales person either as far as talking to a customer. I let the product speak for itself. IMO, if your gonna outsource, do it with someone that you can trust and someone that allows you to see the operation rather then do it all by email with someone who's nowhere near your area, if you can help it.

 

[royster13]

I've done it both ways. I see more money not being the middle man. But I'm also not the best sales person either as far as talking to a customer. I let the product speak for itself. IMO, if your gonna outsource, do it with someone that you can trust and someone that allows you to see the operation rather then do it all by email with someone who's nowhere near your area, if you can help it.

I must be doing it wrong since the early 80s......I sold all my printing gear back then and have been outsourcing ever since.....And when I outsource the suppliers are all so far away I could never stop by and "see the operation"......

 

[lazographics]

Tree fox also makes sense though. Sometimes not all designs can be done with just one print method so building a relationship with a trusted company to outsource to can help. Like myself, I do dtg and sometimes will outsource to a local screenprinter for large one color jobs. They will do the same and have me print small to medium jobs with lots of colors.

 

[lazographics]

I must be doing it wrong since the early 80s......I sold all my printing gear back then and have been outsourcing ever since.....And when I outsource the suppliers are all so far away I could never stop by and "see the operation"......

Why so defensive? So many defensive people on these forums. Lol. Just give your opinion and move on.

 

[royster13]

Why so defensive? So many defensive people on these forums. Lol. Just give your opinion and move on.

My apologies for coming across the way I did.....

 

[lazographics]

My apologies for coming across the way I did.....

No problem. My apologies as well. I can never tell if someone is being sarcastic or genuine on here. Smilies always help.

You obviously have been in business longer then I have and I'm sure theres a lot that you can teach me and others on here. I just try to be honest and offer opinions that I think may help people.

 

[NoXid]

As you can see from the replies, there is not AN answer to your question. You will have to find what you are comfortable with.

Some people out-source the design and printing and ... make me wonder why they picked T-shirt printing as a business. They could be in any business and do essentially the same paper pushing and organizing work.

Others do it all (the direction I lean), because they like all the different tasks, can't give up control, or want to keep all the labor (and profit) in house (though some will argue about the cost effectiveness of that approach).

As others mentioned, you should consider what processes you need/want to use to print your shirts. You may want to invest the time and money into the main (or only) process that you plan to use and out-source the rest.

If your designs (and goals in terms of hand feel) allow it, you might start off with having a 3rd party produce Plastisol transfers that you heat press onto the shirts yourself. That limits your initial investment in equipment, and you can always decide to buy and learn screen or DTG equipment once you get your business off the ground. I would do that myself, but I want the soft hand of discharge ink.

 

[royalAtom]

As you can see from the replies, there is not AN answer to your question. You will have to find what you are comfortable with.

Some people out-source the design and printing and ... make me wonder why they picked T-shirt printing as a business. They could be in any business and do essentially the same paper pushing and organizing work.

Others do it all (the direction I lean), because they like all the different tasks, can't give up control, or want to keep all the labor (and profit) in house (though some will argue about the cost effectiveness of that approach).

As others mentioned, you should consider what processes you need/want to use to print your shirts. You may want to invest the time and money into the main (or only) process that you plan to use and out-source the rest.

If your designs (and goals in terms of hand feel) allow it, you might start off with having a 3rd party produce Plastisol transfers that you heat press onto the shirts yourself. That limits your initial investment in equipment, and you can always decide to buy and learn screen or DTG equipment once you get your business off the ground. I would do that myself, but I want the soft hand of discharge ink.

Makes sense I realize it wasn't going to be a question with just one straight forward answer. There's no way ill outsource my/my teams designs they mean too much to me to throw in someone else's hands. We are still very early in the process so I'll consider what was said here and continue to research.

Thanks everyone!

 

[royster13]

Makes sense I realize it wasn't going to be a question with just one straight forward answer. There's no way ill outsource my/my teams designs they mean too much to me to throw in someone else's hands. We are still very early in the process so I'll consider what was said here and continue to research.

Thanks everyone!

There are very few people that are "great" at everything they need to do to be successful.....Despite your apparent "distrust" at some point you will have to decide what is best for you to do and what you need to let others do for you...At a certain point you simply run of time in the day and your growth comes to a grinding halt if you do not....

 

[treefox2118]

I won't mention what print method I'm talking about, but a certain industry in Chicago is covered extremely well by minimum wage laborers who know what they're doing. They produce work that is 90% as good as what I can do, and I won't work for minimum wage.

Now, take a customer who wants 50 of something. Let's say the labor is 35% the cost of production in this case. They can pay $9 an hour to the companies that use minimum wage labor, and get 90% of the quality, or they can pay me at $60 an hour to do something at 100%.

Does it make sense for me to challenge the competition, when my costs are 600%+ higher for 35% of the cost of the job? Or, put it this way, my competition can sell the job for $3500 and I can sell the job for $5000.

Where do you think the customers will go MOST of the time?

In this case, I decided not to compete in that market, even though I knew I could "do a better job".

The same is true in many print markets -- if the labor/quality differential is extreme, you might not want to be rolling your own.

That being said, I can sometimes sell the customer on using me as a middle man. The competitors are happy to take my jobs because I set them up PERFECTLY, whereas the customer might end up sending them a bad file and the output quality will match the input. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[royalAtom]

There are very few people that are "great" at everything they need to do to be successful.....Despite your apparent "distrust" at some point you will have to decide what is best for you to do and what you need to let others do for you...At a certain point you simply run of time in the day and your growth comes to a grinding halt if you do not....

I think you are misunderstanding what I was saying or maybe I just didn't say it correctly. I understand I cant do everything and I know when to let go.

If I was a huge control freak I would be doing everything solo but I am not, I'm not the best artist in the world that's why I have two others on my team that are just much better than I and we always bouncing ideas off each other. I was just initially curious as to what everyone did with their line of t-shirts and what some benefits and or disadvantages where to printing in-house instead of outsourcing.

If anything I still want to be able to understand the process that way I can have a better relationship with the people I choose to send my designs too.

 

[royalAtom]

I won't mention what print method I'm talking about, but a certain industry in Chicago is covered extremely well by minimum wage laborers who know what they're doing. They produce work that is 90% as good as what I can do, and I won't work for minimum wage.

Now, take a customer who wants 50 of something. Let's say the labor is 35% the cost of production in this case. They can pay $9 an hour to the companies that use minimum wage labor, and get 90% of the quality, or they can pay me at $60 an hour to do something at 100%.

Does it make sense for me to challenge the competition, when my costs are 600%+ higher for 35% of the cost of the job? Or, put it this way, my competition can sell the job for $3500 and I can sell the job for $5000.

Where do you think the customers will go MOST of the time?

In this case, I decided not to compete in that market, even though I knew I could "do a better job".

The same is true in many print markets -- if the labor/quality differential is extreme, you might not want to be rolling your own.

That being said, I can sometimes sell the customer on using me as a middle man. The competitors are happy to take my jobs because I set them up PERFECTLY, whereas the customer might end up sending them a bad file and the output quality will match the input. Garbage in, garbage out.

Thanks tree, that gives me some great information to think about, appreciate it.