Adding Digital Garment Printing to your Embroidery Busines

By: Joseph Smalley

In today’s digital age, customers are asking for more from their vendors, and looking for one stop solutions to their needs. This fact is becoming more and more evident in the Decorated Apparel industry, with customers looking for ink printed garments and products from their embroidery shop. Enter the Direct to Garment printer (DTG), providing the ability to print directly on garments through ink jet technology, and eliminating a number of the challenges associated with conventional screen printing.

Having grown through the challenges of infancy, DTGs have proven to be a valuable addition to an embroidery shop. With the ability to print on light and dark garments through the evolution of the white ink process, embroiders now have the ability to easily reap the rewards of a previously untapped yet existing market with their customers. That being said, there are a number of reasons that adding Direct to Garment printing to your embroidery shop can increase your exposure and profitability.

WHY DIGITAL?
The direct to garment printing process allows you to easily accommodate the small runs that are turned away by screen printers. With no/minimal set up, photo quality prints can be produced with quickly, as opposed to having to burn a screen for every color in the screen printing process. This allows your customers to enjoy a full color print and make future modifications to a design with relative ease. While the DTG technology today might not be right for every application (i.e. large runs), there is definitely an unexplored market for additional profits.

EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS
As noted above, this process will allow you to add avenues of profit with existing customers. Additionally, you can grow your non-embroidery customer base with new clients that are in need of garment printing. Tom McKeon, President of TNT Enterprises of Largo, Fl states he has been able to create more business by “satisfying not only my customer s embroidery needs, but also short order runs of less than 50, that tend to provide the greatest margins.”

KEEP PROFITS/WORK IN HOUSE
A lot of embroidery businesses will outsource this type of work, and add a nominal margin. Bringing the process in house will allow you keep the profits in your business. Furthermore, you will have complete control over the quality and timeliness of your jobs. This is key as the product you put out is a reflection of you, and your business to your customers, so it is important to create a lasting impression.

COST EFFECTIVENESS/TRENDS
Another advantage of offering digital garment printing is the ability to print large designs that would be too costly if embroidered. Take a 12’ x 12’ design that would take 60 minutes of machine time to embroider, and necessitate a hefty price tag to your customer. An ink jet print of the same size can be produced in under a minute, with a very nominal ink cost. The fashion trends of recent have been leaning more towards multi media, incorporating both ink jet printing and embroidery, as seen in the Forever Spa Resort sample. Adding print to embroidery dresses up the garment, and allows you to charge more per garment.

Overall, the Direct to Garment printing process has come leaps and bounds over the last three years. Now more than ever, embroidery shops are able to benefit from bringing the process in house through expanding their business, keeping job profits in the company, and keeping up with the ever changing trends in the industry.

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