While today’s online shopper is in love with the ability to buy one, full color, custom t-shirt and have it delivered in 24 hours… today’s corporate buyer has different needs. They are often requesting somewhere between a few dozen but less than 500 units.
DTG Printing Strengths and Weaknesses
Today’s online shopper has their eye on the instant gratification of DTG printing. As Terry Combs often says, “We live in an instant gratification world where companies like Amazon deliver whatever we want to buy, sometimes the same day. The new mantra of the modern consumer is: I want one, I want it custom and I want it now!”
The strength of DTG decorating has been and will continue to be the ability to print nearly instantly a completely custom product, full color, on any color garment. We often refer to this as the, “Power of One.” The weakness of this production method is its scale. The on-demand nature of DTG printing is not efficient with time when the buyer needs more than 100 units when compared to screen printing.
Prior to these new industrial, production oriented DTG printers, production times for DTG prints averaged two minutes per shirt. Screen printers can produce hundreds per hour. DTG ink costs were higher, averaging $2.00 - $3.00 per garment, while screen printing ink costs are often under $0.30 per print.
New DTG Capabilities
New developments in inkjet technology have created a new class of production oriented, industrial DTG machines that are shrinking the gap of scale. These new DTG printers offer bulk ink delivery systems, lower ink costs as well as faster production speeds. For example, a high quality, full sized, full color graphic printed on a dark garment could cost under $1.00 and be completed in about 1 minute. That’s a significant advancement! What does that mean for the midsized apparel decoration shop? These new DTG machines are more efficient and better aligned with corporate buying patterns without giving up the “Power of One.”
Higher speeds in DTG have been available for quite some time, but at a very high cost of entry and they come with a huge footprint. These earlier machines often cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars -- even up to ½ million-dollars or more! This new class of production oriented, industrial DTG machines are a fraction of the cost and are smaller than an entry level, 6-8 station automatic screen printing press.
Faster production speeds and new lower ink costs allow for increased production, flexibility and growth opportunities for apparel decorators.