|
SCREEN PRINTING
Diversifying Your Shop Through TechnologyThese growth strategies can help take your decorating business to the next level.Aug 1, 2008
Whether you're a new decorator looking to launch a business or a seasoned veteran who intends to expand your shop, you have something in common with countless other business people: You want to grow your company. Achieving this goal can take many forms, but one proven path for growth is to add new capabilities. However, adding a new decorating process to your company isn't just about purchasing some new equipment. It's about understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your company — and of the various decorating processes you're thinking about adding: screen printing, the "granddaddy" of the industry; indirect imaging, where an image is printed to a medium, which is then applied to a substrate (digital transfers, for instance); embroidery, which offers the industry's highest perceived value; and inkjet-to-garment printing. The following discussion about each technology assumes that you already have a computer and graphics software. If you don't, add at least another $3,000 in costs. And never forget the 50% rule: When you add a new decorating process, you will spend at least 50% of the initial capital equipment costs in attachments, supplies and miscellaneous. SCREEN PRINTING This decorating option is the ideal choice for volume production, meaning it's well suited for large orders. Of course, many decorators also screen print jobs with as few as 25 pieces, so "volume" is a relative term. In any case, you'll find that most of your time is spent making screens, not printing. Count on spending 30 minutes to make a single screen. Then, with manual equipment, you'll print that first garment in about one minute. The second garment will come off the press 30 seconds later, and the third, 30 seconds after that — depending upon how your equipment is set up. But you will always have that hard-and-fast setup time for screen printing, no matter what size the order. Cost of entry. Manual screen printing has a low financial barrier to entry. For just a few hundred bucks, you could buy some screens and build your own — albeit crude — equipment. Of course, the lower cost of entry means lots of other people already are doing it, so count on plenty of competition at this level. Or, you could spend about $2,500 to become a well-equipped hobbyist or weekend printer. With this level of investment in equipment and supplies, you can print much faster than with a homemade press. Likewise, you could increase your speed by a factor of three or four if you shell out around $25,000 for commercial-grade manual equipment. Adding automatic screen printing equipment to an existing shop can be done, but should not really be considered a simple addition to your apparel decorating tool box. It is an entirely new business with investments starting at $50,000 and up. Keep in mind that screen print production speed is directly related to your initial investment and remember the 50% rule! Learning curve. Some people perceive screen printing as an art, or something like black magic. The truth is, it's relatively easy to do. If you pay attention to the details and learn from your mistakes, you can get quality, repeatable printing results — and that's important, given that much of your business will come from reorders. When Joe's Bar & Grill orders 25 medium T-shirts, he wants them to look just like the previous batch of 25. You can learn screen printing by working in another shop, getting vendor training, attending industry events and training, or simply going the "trial by fire" route where you dive in and start printing. Profits. Generally a T-shirt that costs you $2 to print will sell for about $8, giving you a $6 gross profit — not including overhead. INDIRECT IMAGING While screen printing makes great sense for larger runs, it's less efficient for small orders of, say, six to 12 garments. However, customers will pay handsomely for small, personalized runs, which makes indirect imaging — particularly using digital transfers — an appealing option for many decorators. A heat press gives you lots more options beyond applying transfers. Suffice it to say that if you look around any room, you'll find numerous substrates that can be heat printed, if properly treated or heat pressed with the compatible materials. For instance, if you're sublimating an image onto a metal award plaque, the item must have an ink-receptive polyester coating. Or, if you are heat pressing a waterproofed nylon jacket, you must use a special material designed to chemically bond to that surface. Cost of entry. Your equipment and supplies requirements are fairly minimal. You could purchase only heat transfers, a heat press and a cutter, and use those items to create souvenirs for sports tournaments, for instance. Expect to spend around $500 to $1,500 for a heat press, depending on the equipment's bells and whistles. Don't hesitate to purchase a higher-end unit with at least a 16" x 20" heat platen, as it is an essential tool for almost any decorator, just as a computer is. You'll also spend roughly $500 to $2,500 on a cutter (only), which usually comes bundled with some basic graphics software. If you have deep pockets, you could get a printer/cutter combination unit for $11,000 to $20,000-plus. A printer/cutter greatly widens your options in terms of what you can print on and the type of graphics you can print. You generally are limited to simpler one- and two-color graphics if you have a regular cutter in the workflow. However, you can do photographic four-color process designs with a printer/cutter. In any case, you'll also need to purchase media — the material you print on and use to transfer the image to a substrate. Again, remember the 50% rule! Learning curve. In many ways, indirect imaging is incredibly simple, as you're basically heat sealing an image to a substrate. However, it can be confusing to understand the different types of media used in output devices, such as inkjet printers and color laser printers. This is an important point, as transfer paper that works in one output device probably won't work in another. Further, you'll find different types of transfer papers for different substrates — and they all may have different heat settings and dwell times. You'll also need to get a handle on which types of indirect imaging look good on which substrates, and with which type of artwork. Profits. Indirect imaging has the shortest path to profits; you can be decorating and selling items within a few hours. Remember the $2 investment you made to screen print a shirt? That same investment would give you a higher return of about $12 or more. That's because you can charge more for small runs and personalized items. Never mind that your labor is minimal; you're charging customers a fair price based on the item's higher perceived value. Don't devalue your product by comparing it to the mass market price points. EMBROIDERY This decorating option is generally perceived as the one that produces a higher-end look. On the downside, though, it's a slower one. Even if you purchase an embroidery machine that can run at 1,500 stitches a minute, you're not likely to run it that fast — just as you're not likely to drive a car at 160 miles an hour, even if it could go that fast. Cost of entry. You're looking at a higher initial investment for embroidery than for other decorating processes. Remember, though, that a higher barrier to entry can mean less competition. Increasing embroidery capacity significantly isn't a question of running your machine faster, but of buying more machines so your investment will continue to grow as your business does. You can choose from many different configuration options. For instance, you might purchase a singlehead or a true 4-head. Or you might invest in a 4-head that also can run as two 2-heads, meaning the machine's software allows two heads to sew out one design as the other two heads sew out a different job. Keep in mind that four singlehead machines cost more together than buying a single 4-head machine. Buying the single 4-head allows you to run slightly faster on larger jobs, while investing in four singleheads give you more flexibility because each can run a different design — an important point if you're doing lots of smaller orders. Also, some brands of singleheads can be networked to operate like a 4-head or two-2-heads, or even as a singlehead/3-head. Software and equipment for a commercial singlehead 15-needle machine generally runs about $8,000 to $15,000. Why purchase a machine with 15 needles, you might wonder? Because you can load 10 cones of your most popular thread colors on the machine and leave them on there all the time. Then, you still have the room to switch out five colors on an as-needed basis. You'll also spend anywhere from $500 to $2,500 or more on supplies such as thread, backing, hooping aids, specialty hooping fixtures and needles. There's that 50% rule again. If you choose to handle digitizing in-house, state-of-the-art software can run $25,000, though there are much less expensive (and less sophisticated) digitizing programs on the market. This is not an area you should rush into; there are plenty of contract digitizing services available, and you can build in the cost and turnaround time in your job estimates. Learn to sew first, then learn to digitize. Learning curve. Embroidery may seem simple enough, but don't think you're going to buy a machine one day and be cranking out orders the next, even if you've spent a few years sewing or quilting on a hobby basis. There are numerous factors that affect the way embroidery looks, ranging from thread type and machine speed to digitizing quality, backing choice and type of fabric. Expect to burn some serious midnight oil, as these many variables add up to a tremendous learning curve. As with anything new, expect to make lots of mistakes and waste some supplies until you get the hang of it. Profits. The same $2 investment mentioned previously would get you about 8,000 stitches, and an item you could sell for about $15. Remember, though, that you'll be spending more production time embroidering a $2 item. It might take 15 minutes to sew an 8,000-stitch logo, which is a lot longer than the 30 seconds required to manually screen print a shirt. INKJET-TO-GARMENT This technology has been soaring in popularity the past few years, with numerous manufacturers offering solutions that let you print directly onto a garment using inkjet printers. And while it's unarguably an impressive technology, the reality is that it's still growing and improving. Sometimes, the eye-catching shirt you see on the trade show floor had 10 or 20 hours worth of work behind it to make sure the artwork translated well to the technology. When you're printing grandma's photo full-front on a garment, the enlarged image might not look as nice as the original snapshot. Cost of entry. The investment here is similar to that of embroidery: anywhere from $8,000 to $23,000. You'll also spend about $500 to $2,500 on pre-treatment equipment, inks and a heat press, unless you use a dryer — remember the 50% rule. (This technology generally uses water-based inks, and that moisture or solvent must be removed before the ink can bond and cure.) Industrial-scale inkjet printers can run 24/7, but initial capital investment will be $90,000 to $200,000-plus. As with an automatic screen printing shop, if you are thinking of adding something at this level, it is not an expansion but a whole new business. Learning curve. While inkjet printers aren't too complicated to use, they're certainly not desktop inkjet printers that you'd use to print office letters, so there's some learning involved. Additionally, you must make a commitment to the new inkjet technology in the form of giving it a proper place to live and tending to the regular, ongoing maintenance required for optimal results. You'll spend some serious time learning to tweak artwork for the best results. You also will need to become a competent, if not expert, user of Adobe PhotoShop and/or CorelDraw Graphics Suite. Remember, this is a leading-edge technology, if not cutting-edge, so the reality is that there will be a few bumps along the way to success. Profits. As with indirect imaging, the profit potential with inkjet-to-garment is substantial. Your $2 investment could easily return $20, and you can produce each shirt in about three minutes or less, depending on the design. If you're in the right market with the right business plan, you could pay off your investment in a month, at least in theory. Also, as the market and technology matures, prices for equipment and ink will almost certainly fall as competition increases. START MAKING SENSE No matter which technology you're thinking of adding to your business, it must be one that gives your customer what he wants. It's easy to get caught up in machine lust, so make sure you're getting into a new technology for what it can do for your business, not for how cool it seems. Understand each technology's strengths and weaknesses, and how they interact with those of your business. By doing that, you'll ensure that your next addition is a positive one. Greg Kitson is founder and president of Mind's Eye Graphics in Decatur, Ind. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Greg at greg@mindseyeg.com or visit mindseyeg.com.     
RECENT SCREEN PRINTING HEADLINES
Shining Stars
The Next Level: A Business Expansion Case Study
The decorated apparel industry, despite substantial challenges in the U.S. economy, is alive and…well, we could be doing better. Wall Street — and the economy in general — are on a wild roller coaster as the credit crunch continues and decorated apparel is not exempt. While no one can predict the future with certainty, this survey-based analysis suggests we'll be along for the ride, but perhaps on a smaller coaster that doesn't rise as high or plunge as fast as the monster whipsawing the rest of the U.S. economy. December 01, 2008
Ink-Matching Tips
How to Handle Dissatisfied Customers
|
    
Plan now to attend ISS Long Beach!
The Long Beach Convention Center Workshops: January 22, 2009 Exposition and Conference: January 23-25, 2009 Click here to register.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
||||
|
||||
|
Impressions is the one-stop source for authoritative information and education on the decorated apparel business, including embellishing on wholesale apparel and promotional products. This resource is crucial to apparel decorating professionals seeking to establish and grow a profitable decorated apparel business. Every issue of our decorated apparel magazine, both print and online, is geared toward providing how-to instructions needed to perform the four major processes that comprise the decorating apparel industry marketplace — screen printing, embroidery, heat-applied graphics and digital printing. Impressions also provides business and trend information unique to the decorated apparel and promotional products industry. Impressions Home | Embroidery Business News | Decorated Apparel News | Screen Printing Apparel News | Embroidery Apparel News | Digital Apparel News | Promotional Products News | Apparel Trade Show Events | Apparel Performance Analysis | Apparel Business Publications | Imprinted Corporate Gifts | Promotional Product Advertising | Apparel Buyers Newsletter | About Impressions | Contact Impressions | Sitemap | RSS |