[Textile Eng]

I have heard through the grapevine that there is a company introducing T-shirts where the fabric yarn has been prepared as it is in traditional textile printing preparation and then cut and sewn into T-shirts. I understand that testing is being done now on the garments and once testing is complete sample products will be available for customers to test. This would allow printing anywhere on dark colored T-shirts without having to spray pre-treatment. Treatment, since in the yarn itself, would be uniform enhancing image quality and preventing waste due to the variability of pre-treatment today. Would anyone be interested in this concept? I believe it would revolutionize the DTG market. I heard pricing per shirt would be in the $4.25 to $5.00 range. Thoughts?

 

[edwrench]

To pricey for me.

 

[Textile Eng]

From what I understand they haven't officially set pricing, etc.. The shirt quality is similar to a Beefy T which usually is a heavier weight cotton. I think these guys would be interested in knowing what the popular weights are, target pricing, etc... Comparing one T-shirt at $2.00 which is a 5 oz material to another that is 6.5 oz isn't a fair comparison. If we think this would benefit the industry let's get these folks the information they require to provide us what we need.

 

[treefox2118]

This idea has been done before already but the inventory levels were lacking. At one point, one of the companies only had large sizes in stock, I believe.

In order for this to work well, there has to be a combination of 5 things if a DTG printshop wants to be profitable:

1. Comparable price to what it costs to pretreat yourself. Of course, since ALL of the fabric is pretreated, there's the benefit of being able to print anywhere, but it is also an added cost if you're only printed a pocket print.
2. Solid inventory of blanks ready to ship -- and a wide network of shipping warehouses. This will be costly to keep thousands of garments in stock.
3. More than just black garments. Red and navy are very popular colors.
4. Testing of the garments with all the ink manufacturers. Dupont, Epson, Resolute, etc. Not all ink works with all pretreat
5. A reasonable quality sew job. I've tried some unknown brand cotton shirts (not pretreated!) and they fell apart after a few washes. Replacing garments for customers is very expensive if they fail early.

 

[Lisa-marie]

Wow! That would be amazing! I would gladly pay as the time and cost of product to pretreat would most likely balance out. I would, however, be interested in a more fashionable shirt, not just a basic t as I find that the nice quality shirts with a better hand print much better and feel better as well. And, of course, inventory would be a huge issue. You can't sell what you can't get. Looking forward to seeing the product.

 

[Textile Eng]

Wow! That would be amazing! I would gladly pay as the time and cost of product to pretreat would most likely balance out. I would, however, be interested in a more fashionable shirt, not just a basic t as I find that the nice quality shirts with a better hand print much better and feel better as well. And, of course, inventory would be a huge issue. You can't sell what you can't get. Looking forward to seeing the product.

Hey Lisa-Marie, I agree, especially for women's apparel. I do not see many fashion-forward women wearing Beefy-Ts. Typically, I find women (my wife and daughter) looking for a much lighter weight and/or different types of knits (slight slub, burn-out, etc) that follow whatever tread is popular. Do you agree and do you think that type of shirt would sell in a customized environment like DTG?

 

[Lisa-marie]

Hey Lisa-Marie, I agree, especially for women's apparel. I do not see many fashion-forward women wearing Beefy-Ts. Typically, I find women (my wife and daughter) looking for a much lighter weight and/or different types of knits (slight slub, burn-out, etc) that follow whatever tread is popular. Do you agree and do you think that type of shirt would sell in a customized environment like DTG?

Absolutely!! I wonder how a burnout would print though? The ink might just pass right through the shirt.