I remembered blogging this after Bobby and Jeff at Zazzle recorded a podcast at Stanford.
One thing I found VERY interesting was the talk about direct printing. They have actually developed their own process. One of their employees, Robert, was set out to R&D the direct printing process, which involved a lot of research into dye chemistry. Nothing was about at the time, Hanes spent 50 million dollars to develop the same thing and got no where.
I think the clear answer is the founders of zazzle say that they developed their own process.Thank you for your reply. But as a newcomer here as well as T-shirt print business, I found myself still wanting for a clear answer.