[RobFlaherty13]

Hello experienced T-shirt forum members,

My name is Rob, I am in the process of going into the world of Self-Employment and setting up/managing my own business here in Manchester in the UK.

I have a good vinyl cutter, quality heat press, means to outsource embroidery, a website and a few customers like Schools and Sports Clubs who use my current services that I offer.

Sales are not rolling in but I do get a few orders a month. I'm not sure how to utilise the equipment that I already have to the best of my ability if I'm being honest.

How do you generate most of your sales? Face to face? Web based?

In addition, I'm not too sure where to take my business next in terms of DTG, Screen printing, Large Format Printing or doing my own Embroidery, so, I wanted to ask what peoples thoughts were on which of the above arms of their businesses they have found the most profitable?

Strengths and weaknesses of each?
Initial capital required?
Leaning curve associated?

Any comments/questions welcomed and I would like this to develop into mentorship if possible?

Best regards,

Rob

 

[PatWibble]

If I were you I would maximise the equipment that I have first. Outsource anything else until you are busy enough to invest in other forms of production from turnover.
Your vinyl cutter can be used to make signs, your heat press can be used to apply transfers. Buy a couple of mid priced Epsons for sublimation and ordinary transfers. If the budget allows get a small (20 - 24") solvent print and cut machine for printable vinyl. This would be great for logo printing with the heat press, and also signs and stickers.

I tend to specialise in screen printing rather than offering half a dozen methods of decorating the same garment.
However much of my screen printing is correx signs. I find that the garment market in the Uk is either for very large fashion industry orders or for small stag night/workwear/club orders. The former is very competitive and the later is not always suitable for screen printing. There is very little in between.
You can achieve high volume with screen printing, but the margins need to be lower to secure the mid sized orders (50+ garments). There is a steep learning curve. For less than £1000 you could get a basic set-up that would pay for itself within a few orders.

DTG machines need to be used very regularly or the ink can clog, so unless you have an established business then I would not consider this yet. It is new technology and is developing very rapidly so in years to come it will probably be the route to take. At the moment the equipment is very expensive and some of it is not particularly good. Most of the cheaper machinery is based on re-purposed inkjet printers. Epson have just introduced a purpose built DTG printer for £15000. Good ink is very expensive.
You could easily spend £10000 on a used machine an get a load of cr**.

You have a source for embroidery. Do you use it enough to be able to fund your own machine? Your sales wont increase just because you have bought a machine.

By large format printing I take it you mean signs and posters. There is a lot of competition in this area, but also money to be made. One of the problems is the lack of versatility of the equipment. Different substrates require different types of ink, and you would usually need separate printers for each.

Websites are not very good ways of generating new business in themselves. They are a very good way of adding an air of legitimacy to your business when used in conjunction with other forms of marketing. Word of mouth, personal contact, a listing on google local are all cheap ways of spreading the word.
Decide who you want to target - Schools, clubs, businesses etc and get some flyers printed by vista print. Send a flyer along with a letter and business card to any potential customers. Don't be tempted to send postcards as these tend to be lumped in with the junk mail an tossed. Print a different flyer for each potential market segment.

 

[joey1320]

Before you decide to invest a lot of money, why not try to line up more customers? How did you get your current customers, can they recommend others who may need your services?

The biggest problem with offering a bit of everything, is the fact that you become a jack of all trades and usually a master of none. Or you may get super busy, which is great, but then you will probably have to look into hiring others to help.

So since you already have a cutter and heat press, I would recommend adding to that with some transfers. Either plastisol or printed ones, or both.

This will be targeting small businesses, family reunions, churches and such. You can either print the transfers(jpss) with a good midlevel Epson printer with a refillable ink system(ciss) or get the plastisol transfers made by a large company and press them on.

If your cutter has an optical eye, you can cut around the printed transfers in order to have a great finished product.

Best of luck!
Sent from my HTC One X using T-Shirt Forums

 

[binki]

Source everything for a year or two first. It doesn't cost anything to do that. Get the sales and then place the order.

 

[RobFlaherty13]

Thank you so much for your comments.

I did have an Epson WF-7015 (I think it's called a 7010 in USA) set up with an ink system using pigment inks, but I did not like the quality of the print and at the time I didn't have a vinyl cutter with an optical eye.

I now have a Roland GX-24, so I have the optical eye to be able to cut printed media. Can you recommend a printer/ink combination to go with to make use of the GX-24 optical eye rather than investing in a BN-20 or similar? (Are there any cheaper non Roland versions of the BN-20?)

Sublimation or not, I guess is the question?

I think that I would prefer on to heat applied vinyl which can be applied to cotton t-shirts rather than a sublimation set up because of the limitations on t-shirt types due to the need for poly.

What do you think?

Rob

 

[PatWibble]

Get hold of a couple of A3+ Epsons, set one up with pigment ink and one with sublimation ink to keep your options open. There are plenty of other items that can be sublimated, such as mugs and mouse mats.

The Epson 1400 is no longer made, at least in UK, but you should be able to find used ones on Ebay for about £100 pounds. If not then the 1500 is £250 at PC World.

You already have an optical eye on your cutter so to get a BN20 would be unnecessary duplication of cutting capacity. Aside from the cutter the only other advantage of a BN20 is the ability to use solvent inks.
Instead consider a small Solvent ink printer so that you can print onto vinyl. Great for stickers and small signs as well as more durable logos for workwear.

 

[RobFlaherty13]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for your post again.

Is a small solvent ink printer different to the 2 epson set ups that you suggested?

I know you mean get two Epsons, one to be used for Sub. and one for Pigmented prints. But what difference would a solvent based printer make compared to having both of the epsons?

Can you give a few names of example machines in the solvent based category for me to take a look at?

I could spend about £500 GBP on the right machine and I am looking for quality prints/reasonable ink costs.

Any thoughts?

Rob

 

[PatWibble]

Only mentioned the Solvent printer because your original post mentioned wide format printing.
You only need solvent inks to print onto vinyl (both t-shirt and sign/sticker).
Although cheaper than a BN20 they are still a lot of money. The Mimaki cjv30-60 print/cut is about the same price as the BN20 but 4" wider.

Its not really needed for your current set-up so save your money, and maximise what you have.

In a years time you will have a better idea of the direction you wish to take.

 

[InkThreadable]

Hi Rob,
Investing in a new printing method to offer can be expensive, especially if you're to go for quality equipment. As others have previously mentioned it is probably best to offer these services and outsource them to a contract printer or drop shipping company until you have enough orders to make the investment worthwhile.
We offer both contract screen printing and DTG drop shipping if you'd like any further information whilst exploring your options. Feel free to give me a call.

 

[Printavo]

Completely agree with this. I also wrote this blog post a while ago on my lessons learned How to start a screen-printing business « Printavo - Manage your screen-printing shop easily.