January 2009
Cheat Sheet
Direct-to-Garment Printers
Examples of digital printed shirts from Clearwater Graphic Works (asi/97280).
Q: A lot of people are talking about direct-to-garment printers. As a distributor, what do I need to know about them? Should I buy one and keep it in-house to create samples or to do short runs for clients? What are a printer’s capabilities? What are its limitations? I just need a broad-brush look at garment printers since I know next to nothing about the technology.
Don Copeland, digital products manager for SWF East, a supplier of direct-to-garment printers, has a favorite saying. “The adage I’ve always used is that promotional products people have never produced anything but an invoice,” he says. “But the promotional products industry is waking up now.”
Copeland is talking about direct-to-garment printers, a tool that actually puts control in the hands of distributors when it comes to samples and on-the-spot marketing. “This changes everything in the marketplace,” he says. “It used to be that you basically had four tiers. You had the salesman, the decorator, the broker who’s bringing stuff in and the manufacturer. Ultimately, that top tier was very small and limited.
“However, today’s ASI guy is a little more independent and is looking to do things. They’re starting to say, ‘Hey, why am I adding a third or fourth tier?’ Garment printers fit well, even if they’re just to do sampling.”
Chase Roh, president of AnaJet Inc., a manufacturer of direct-to-garment printers and author of the new book The T-shirt Revolution: Building Your Business Using a Digital Apparel Printer, cites a 2007 Decorated Apparel Universe study that reveals that 60% of distributors decorate garments in-house. “Most of the in-house decoration, however, is embroidery,” Roh says. “Most garment printing is farmed out to screen printers, because the screen-printing process is fairly messy. Screen printing isn’t suitable for a home-based operation.”
“The new direct-to-garment printers are an answer to promotional distributors’ printing needs,” Roh says. “The new digital printers are compact, quiet, low cost and use non-toxic, water-based inks, suitable in commercial as well as a home-based operation.”
A Solid Investment
Investing in a garment printer makes economic sense, according to Roh. “If you farm out the printing operation to screen printers, more than half of the profits are given over to the printers,” he says. “By printing garments in-house, distributors can more than double their profits.”
Copeland says garment printers don’t necessarily require the company to hire an additional employee just to run it – which is crucial, since nearly 40% of ad specialties distributors run their businesses from their homes. “A lot of times, promotional products people are husband-and-wife teams that work from home, and it’s logical that one of them does it,” he says. “If you eliminate a tier, all of a sudden that dollar number goes up, because you don’t have another mouth to feed.”
Garment printers can also save money by saving material, Copeland says. “The higher the number of colors and the more tonal the printing is, the harder it is, which means the fewer and fewer screen printers who can address it, and the higher quantities you need for it to make sense [financially],” he says.
Copeland adds that a garment printer will also save distributors money on small orders. “When you start to look at the numbers, if it were a six-color job on a light-colored shirt, it’s going to cost you a $120 to $150 setup fee. On a light-colored shirt, you can’t spend that much on ink on 144 shirts,” he says. “Multi-placement types of prints are much easier to do on a direct-to-garment printer than on a screen-printing machine. The phrase we throw out there is ‘mass customization.’”
Great for Small Jobs
Roh says garment printers are terrific for churning out a quick sample or doing a short run. “By bringing the decoration printing in-house, distributors can respond in a more timely way to customer needs; also, the distributor will be able to respond to customer needs with more flexibility and diversity of products,” he says. “Chief among [the benefits it delivers] is the printer’s ability to run short runs and micro runs as small as just a few shirts, as opposed to a minimum of 50 to 100 shirt runs needed for screen printing due to setup costs.”
Roh adds that garment printers can print photo-realistic images and full-color graphics, which appeal to corporate marketing departments.
Garment printers “empower the artist,” according to Copeland. “The artist doesn’t have to think within the screen,” he says. “Artists aren’t used to being bound inside of a limited number of colors. That’s a huge difference – the art that the customer provides is more useful for a direct-to-garment printer than a screen printer.”
For orders in which a client needs photographic images, or for any type of order in which a broad size range is required, garment printers come in handy. “You don’t want one shirt to have a postage-stamp-sized print on it,” Copeland says.
Limitations
Garment printers can be a bit less manageable than screen-printing equipment, however. “You’re not going to be precise, because you’re printing on an imperfect surface,” Copeland says. “T-shirt brands are going to vary. It comes down to some degree of acceptance. You can always generate color palettes, print them out on garments and carry them with you, and let the customer choose which red and which blue they want. It’s not as controllable as a screen-printing job, but what do you need, a 16-tone job?”
But once a distributor sells a client on the flexibility that garment printers provide, they’ll be hooked, Copeland says. “If you’re selling a T-shirt at retail, or if it has something to do with an event with multiple sponsors – from a giveaway standpoint, they’re more likely to sponsor your event again,” he says.
Brand names
So, which printer brand is best? That depends on the distributor’s needs and budget, says Jimmy Lamb, senior manager of marketing services at Hirsch International, which sells two brands of direct-to-garment machines, including Kornit. “If you start out with a Mimaki, the inks are really cheap,” he says. “If a shop is an existing business and is adding digital, and they’re already like a big-skilled screen printer, they might start off with a Kornit.”
Most distributors don’t need the more high-end printers, according to Lamb – just the opportunity to present samples and do short runs in a timely manner. “They’re buying the lower-priced machines, such as the Mimaki, a Fast T-Jet or a Brother,” he says. “The key to digital inkjet garment printers is their capability to service customers quickly.”
And although a printer’s footprint may be small, its price tag isn’t. Machines can range from $16,000 to $22,000 and entry-level setup costs can reach up to $30,000. That would include a heat bath or dryer, additional software programs and other options, as well as training, set-up, and shipping. Top-end setups can cost even more.
Roh cautions people to avoid photo printers modified to run as textile printers and instead seek a purpose-built textile printer. As for the return on investment, some business owners say it takes one to two years, depending on the printer purchased.
Pros and ConsHere’s a quick snapshot of the advantages and disadvantages of direct-to-garment printers, as compiled by Chase Roh, |
Fabric AnswersWhat types of fabrics are best suited for a garment printer? “Some important things to know are that 100% cottons print the best, 50/50 blends are just okay and 100% polyesters are tough,” says Scott Hopper, digital sales manager for Hirsch International. “You can print on leather, silk, canvas – basically, anything that waterbase ink will bond to.” |
Shane Dale is an AZ-based contributing writer.
