jdr8271 said:
You will save money if you buy the garment yourself from a wholesale distributor, and then have them printed by a screen printer. If you have the screen printer buy the garment, they will be marking up both the printing, and the garment, raqther than just the printing.
Depends.
We markup the garments to cover our handling of them not to make a profit off them per say. The profit comes from the total job not so much the garment. That said, we have one contract price list for small quantity CCSG (contract customer supplied goods) that actually charges a higher print rate on small quantities, less than 288 pieces and another price grid for large contract customers.
Some printers build their pricing structure this way and others will build the profit all into the print charges. Bottom line is whether you know it or not, that printer is going to cover their expenses on handling your supplied garments. By handling, I mean sorting, counting, stacking and folding. Those types of things. This cost is normally covered in the garment markup if a printer uses that price methodology.
The other issue you need to consider if you supply the goods is that most all printers will have a reject rate. Industry standard is 2%. That means if you bring in 100 items and the printer gives you back 98 good ones and 2 that are screwed up, you still pay for 100 and the printer will not replace the 2% loss. There is also the issue with garments having defects from the mill. If the printer supplies the item, they will cover the defective items. If you provide the garment, then if 5 out of you 50 have defects right out of the box, it’s your loss.
This is not to say its better to have the printer provide the items over you providing them but just to give you an idea of how it normally works. You are going to pay for that printer to handle those items one way or the other, you just may not know it.
I used to print for a big contract customer until he was murdered in the Caribbean’s. He supplied all garments and would get these discount deals. He would come in to pick up an order and I would have a pile of defective shirts with rust stains or holes in them right out of the box. It was his loss on those items. I surly was not going to replace and item I did not provide.