[Stitch-Up]

Hi guys,

We've often toyed with the idea of buying a DTG printer but the pricing really puts me off.

I would want one of these printers to make a profit and wonder if anyone has done the figures on this?

At circa £10 to £15k for the printer, plus consumables and other costs, one has to print one hell of a lot of shirts just to break even!

I should sit down with a spreadsheet and work it out but being lazy, I thought I'd ask here first. Has anyone worked out the nitty gritty? I'd be very interested to see the figures.

Cheers

John

 

[CUSTOM UK]

Hi John. As you are talking in pounds sterling, I may be able to assist. I have researched dtg print costs recently and taking into account VAT and delivery costs, you are typically looking at a minimum production cost on white shirts of about £1.70. For dark shirts you are going to need to lay down a white underbase together with the extra cost for dark blanks, bringing the cost up to about £3.30.

Your profit per shirt is obviously wholly dependant on what price you are selling them at. But from my (very) basic costings, you would need to sell over 3,500 tees just to get your money back on a £10,000 investment.

Unless you are already established and currently selling tees, I'd be tempted to test the market with some pre-printed items first, before you part with that amount of capital.

Hope this helps.

 

[Stitch-Up]

That's a lorra shirts!

I just calculated that based on 146 secs to print each shirt, you'd have to work flat out for about 18 days to produce that number of shirts. That doesn't include teh photo production bit, the prep or the drying.

It's a huge investment that to me just now, doesn't add up.

It would be interested to hear from someone who is making a go of it.

Cheers

John

 

[prometheus]

I think this article is a good help to explaining what part DTG printers can play: Printwear - Digtial Direct 2008

 

[CUSTOM UK]

It is finding the 3500 customers, rather than how quickly you can print up a shirt that will be the real problem you will encounter. You would need some stunning designs, or a lot of passing traffic to drum up that level of trade in the short term.