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Are you doing DTG?

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blue moon:
Just curious what ppl are thinking about DTG. There's a big discussion going on about DTF, but not much is said about DTG. To me it feels like it's on par with screenprinting if it's an option. We have the look, feel and durability so close it's hard to tell what's what. At the same time, I've seen so many horrible prints that it does not surprise me ppl are not adopting it more.
Thus the poll. Let's see what the prevailing thoughts are...

thanx,

pierre

zanegun08:
I currently subcontract to a company that has an M&R Polaris, and for images that make sense to be done DTG, like photorealistic images and short run I think the results are decent, however it fails at sharp text so it's more so for artwork and not the best for all types of art.

I've basically had samples from every pro grade DTG printer over the years, and for photo realistic stuff they work decent, but for spot colors they work not so great.  M&R Maverick was better than Polaris as it had a wider color gamut in my opinion.  Soon will have ROQ Now in the near horizon, but DTG is only good if used in the right way for the right image, same with DTF, same with screen printing, same with Hybrid.  No tool is one size fits all.

Pierre post some of your DTG prints so we can take a look.  Post some that have big blocks of spot colors if you do anything like that.

The biggest missing thing about all this conversation is that DTF, DTG, any transfer all work best for low quantities, but if you aren't automating your low quantity sales you are going to be bogged down to make a penny instead of dimes.  As well as word of mouth is the best advertising, so when you pass off DTF as a good product, your business may get known as a low quality business.  There is a fine line

https://shop.onxmaps.com/products/hunt-midwest-whitetail-lp-tee is an example of both DTG for the main image, and Hybrid Transfer for the Logo so it's sharp.  This was printed on the Polaris

GraphicDisorder:

--- Quote from: zanegun08 on February 22, 2024, 11:10:46 AM ---The biggest missing thing about all this conversation is that DTF, DTG, any transfer all work best for low quantities, but if you aren't automating your low quantity sales you are going to be bogged down to make a penny instead of dimes.  As well as word of mouth is the best advertising, so when you pass off DTF as a good product, your business may get known as a low quality business.  There is a fine line

--- End quote ---

This, this, this and more this.

GoWestRob:
I'm starting to warm up to DTG.  Last year we had a client want to do a full color comic book cover on black shirts, tons of colors, photoshop effects and fine detail so we couldn't have screenprinted it.  300 shirts.  We did Supacolor transfers, the image was perfect but it was a giant rectangle transfer and probably pretty uncomfortable.  For this year's version with similar artwork, also 300 pcs, they specifically asked if there was any other method different from what we did in 2023.  We outsourced it to a shop with a Polaris but our cost was crazy, $19/ea for front and back, hard to mark that up to the client at a price they'll pay.  The lack of economies of scale with DTG is still difficult.  We ended up simplifying the artwork so we could DTG the front and screenprint the back.  Gotta say, the image quality and handfeel of the Polaris is really a step forward for DTG. 

With that said, I doubt we have a Polaris or Maverick in our future.  We'd have to get to the point where we're outsourcing DTG work daily to consider bringing it in house, and for now it's only a few jobs per year.

tonypep:
The Polaris is listed at $829,000 so........how would your ROI be on those low quantity orders (assuming you live to be 1,000 ys old). What are the cost of consumables, any info on that?

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