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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: tonypep on March 30, 2016, 10:17:24 AM
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Says it all. Ginormous support issues
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http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/TeeSpring/internet/TeeSpring-Crowdfunding-t-shirt-and-apparel-Providence-Rhode-Island-Internet-1189292 (http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/TeeSpring/internet/TeeSpring-Crowdfunding-t-shirt-and-apparel-Providence-Rhode-Island-Internet-1189292)
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There is a lot of that on their page
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I went to their page and couldn't find any complaints (of course I wanted to). Their site is impressive though, I can see them hauling in the "entrepreneurs"...
Steve
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Their site gets an enormous amount of traffic. Checked their Alexa rankings and they surpass Customink by a substantial margin. Ranked 1,203 in the USA....that's up there boys. They also have 8 UltraSeps licenses so they're good to go with that. LOL! Sorry...couldn't resist. :)
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Never heard of Teespring until yesterday as I was looking through the gigs on Fiverr.com. Shed loads of folks offering designs for Teespring. What`s the quality of the prints and garments like they offer? Hopefully not nearly as bad as some of the stuff Threadless sells.
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Their site gets an enormous amount of traffic. Checked their Alexa rankings and they surpass Customink by a substantial margin. Ranked 1,203 in the USA....that's up there boys. They also have 8 UltraSeps licenses so they're good to go with that. LOL! Sorry...couldn't resist. :)
Amazon is getting into the tshirt business as well. I believe it is going to be huge.
https://merch.amazon.com/landing (https://merch.amazon.com/landing)
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Their site gets an enormous amount of traffic. Checked their Alexa rankings and they surpass Customink by a substantial margin. Ranked 1,203 in the USA....that's up there boys. They also have 8 UltraSeps licenses so they're good to go with that. LOL! Sorry...couldn't resist. :)
Amazon is getting into the tshirt business as well. I believe it is going to be huge.
https://merch.amazon.com/landing (https://merch.amazon.com/landing)
Yes, they bought something like 14 big Kornit DTG units for that purpose.
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Amazon will struggle for a bit then I bet they get it figured out. I wouldn't be shocked if that gets to be a big thing. Ive been saying for awhile big money is going to start looking at screen printing as investment or ways to expand.
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14 Kornit? I had to checked and found this article.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-tech-aids-amazon-with-its-new-target-the-t-shirt-business/ (http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-tech-aids-amazon-with-its-new-target-the-t-shirt-business/)
Did I read it wrongly? Read the last paragraph. One company selling 9 million shirts per year just for the US market alone.?
Several years ago, I heard Amazon's plan for books were to set up several plate-less print shops around the world and print on demand..... It seems they are using that model to it with garments.
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They will probably take off but I don't think it is going to be that simple. Customers want different things (Poly 50/50 tri-blend) and each presents it's own problem. Even though the Kornit is a fast machine with great quality I still see bottle necks all over the place with this model. They still won't be able to keep up with demand and will have a lot of the same issues as Teespring. Plus they're going to need a hefty rate to make it worth their wild and I just can't see the average person dropping $50+ on a custom shirt and I think for it to be profitable they would have to charge even more. Just my thoughts.
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Why would they have to charge $50 for a shirt? Is the ink cost crazy on them?
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Because many of the customers will want just one shirt..or 5 shirts. When the quantity is that low, I can see $50.00 for 1, and 2-5 being in the $35.00 range and so on. That's retail end user price.
There is a lot left over on the table from the screen print world to the retail world.
A custom Ink or a Tee Spring will have to cover overall cost to handle that one shirt order (and profit well) with that kind of overhead so I can easily see a $50.00 cost for one shirt.
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Maybe I should raise my DTG prices haha.
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I just went through the merch by Amazon.
They use Anvil and have a sample pricing in a section when you log in with your customer ID.
The cost for a tshirt is $19.99, and the artist/seller keeps about $7.68 per tshirt for a one sided print.
I don't see printing 1 shirt cost more than 10 shirts. It is a computerised production line.....
A guy could be looking after 10 machines. Labelled Boxes would arrive with the right tshirt (may be loaded by a robot). He would load it up and move to the next printer. Once the shirt is printed, he would return it back into the box and send it off to packaging on a conveyor belt, where they have automatic folding machine with auto labeling. Then they would send it off to shipping.
He would put it into a folding machine and the the auto system would send it off.
If Amazon is not losing money, they have the resources to increase the amount of machines.
They already have the bargaining power in shipping, they might also already have the bargaining power of buying tshirts.
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That sounds more in line.
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There not going to be doing 1 shirt for $10 no way in hell. If they do then it will be a short business life. Employees cost money and then you have taxes and possible insurance on top. So if they pay an artist to tweak the artwork for DTG (I doubt it's as simple as hitting print) then another guy to watch it and dry it. So how many one shirt jobs do you think they can do in an hour?
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With everything that is coming down the pipeline with regards to technology and Amazon and other "giants" it really is the time to find your niche market. And become really freaking good at it.
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With everything that is coming down the pipeline with regards to technology and Amazon and other "giants" it really is the time to find your niche market. And become really freaking good at it.
I'm afraid this is the reality I see coming as well...
Steve
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abchung (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php?action=profile;u=918)That's all true for those larger operations like Tee Springs and Custom Ink that specialize in this. They can set up to be more efficient. For this reason, this forces the cost lower across the board.
This price range would not seem to be the norm for the small to medium shops that have a retail store front where someone wants one custom full color shirt. This is not a heat transfer with vinyl letters.
I've also purchased 2 different shirts at Christmas here in my town at a local DTG franchise business on Gildan white tees for $17.99.each That is their business. That's all they do.
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You've got to figure in art time also. How many walk in and have art that is ready?
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It's my understanding that Teespring and Amazon don't have "art setups" as they art is controlled by the consumer/orderer. If the file uploaded doesn't meet dimensional standards, it get's kicked out by the computer. I feel like the big name companies trying to be the end-all for custom tshirts are just destined to fail on one or both types of production, traditional and DTG. They jump in with investor $$, buy the equipment, underestimate the customer demand for low quantity reprints, customer service gets slashed, profits aren't met for long, quality declines, reviews roll in then....equipment auction time.
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You are correct ot this point. Someone will get it right though. Watch.
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You are correct ot this point. Someone will get it right though. Watch.
agreed, it's just a matter of time. There is some new (supposedly) DTG technology coming out soon that will get us closer and closer to digital mass production or at least mass customization.
Teespring and Amazon are typical Venture Capital investments, also called White Collar Lottery, where you throw money (not really, a lot of smart ppl analyze the concepts before they are invested in) at 10 different things and see what sticks. Seven will close down and be total loss. One will break even, and the last two will return 20x the investment in 7-10 years. Most are shooting for 5 though, thus the Teespring ramp up to 9,000,000 shirts from nothing in only two years.
Do not underestimate the ppl involved in these projects, they might be struggling, but if it turns out to be one of the two that succeeds, they could put almost all of us out of business. Think Netflix and video rental stores or google and search engines or Facebook and myspace. . .
pierre
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With everything that is coming down the pipeline with regards to technology and Amazon and other "giants" it really is the time to find your niche market. And become really freaking good at it.
So true! We should all feel slight paranoia about giants entering our little industry. World is changing faster than we can change our ways of doing business.
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Big corporations and those with a ton of capital have discovered something we have known all along, and that being there's potential enormous profits in the t-shirt business. The core product is low in cost and can be sold embellished at high margins. All thanks to Al Gore who "invented the internet?" :)
The internet is both a blessing and a curse for the small business person. Back in the day, when I started in 1977 and for decades thereafter there was very little competition and gaining new clients was like shooting fish in a barrel. Today however, the ability to comparison shop and eventually being hidden by those with tremendous resources can be problematic. I can see it myself with the sheer number of big players who are buying my software. I recently sold 6 licenses to Walmart if that's an indicator.
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Big corporations and those with a ton of capital have discovered something we have known all along, and that being there's potential enormous profits in the t-shirt business. The core product is low in cost and can be sold embellished at high margins. All thanks to Al Gore who "invented the internet?" :)
The internet is both a blessing and a curse for the small business person. Back in the day, when I started in 1977 and for decades thereafter there was very little competition and gaining new clients was like shooting fish in a barrel. Today however, the ability to comparison shop and eventually being hidden by those with tremendous resources can be problematic. I can see it myself with the sheer number of big players who are buying my software. I recently sold 6 licenses to Walmart if that's an indicator.
Probably (hopefully) meant as a joke from you, but of course, helps cement an untruth (or at least major exaggeration) into our American legend. As he boasted of accomplishments made by the Congress in which he served and took credit thusly..."During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." At the time, and in the context of the answer given to Wolf Blitzer, his meaning was clear, whether worded well, or not.
Just for the record, one of the true fathers of the internet happened to be one of my best buddy's brother, Jon Postel, who I met when we moved to Berkeley back in '68. I had absolutely no appreciation of just how big a thing he was involved with.
Like you said, it has changed the face of our industry, and I hold it against him as, a few years back, I really thought that my business was going to slowly die away and I would be happily retired by now. But suddenly, folks found me online even before I had a website! Curse you Jon!, And damn that Yelp!
I do realize that I am in a minority.
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Big corporations and those with a ton of capital have discovered something we have known all along, and that being there's potential enormous profits in the t-shirt business. The core product is low in cost and can be sold embellished at high margins. All thanks to Al Gore who "invented the internet?" :)
The internet is both a blessing and a curse for the small business person. Back in the day, when I started in 1977 and for decades thereafter there was very little competition and gaining new clients was like shooting fish in a barrel. Today however, the ability to comparison shop and eventually being hidden by those with tremendous resources can be problematic. I can see it myself with the sheer number of big players who are buying my software. I recently sold 6 licenses to Walmart if that's an indicator.
Probably (hopefully) meant as a joke from you, but of course, helps cement an untruth (or at least major exaggeration) into our American legend. As he boasted of accomplishments made by the Congress in which he served and took credit thusly..."During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." At the time, and in the context of the answer given to Wolf Blitzer, his meaning was clear, whether worded well, or not.
Just for the record, one of the true fathers of the internet happened to be one of my best buddy's brother, Jon Postel, who I met when we moved to Berkeley back in '68. I had absolutely no appreciation of just how big a thing he was involved with.
Like you said, it has changed the face of our industry, and I hold it against him as, a few years back, I really thought that my business was going to slowly die away and I would be happily retired by now. But suddenly, folks found me online even before I had a website! Curse you Jon!, And damn that Yelp!
I do realize that I am in a minority.
Of course that comment was to be taken in jest. As I see it, today, if in the t-shirt business one not only needs to be proficient at their craft but also align themselves to target niche markets and offer quality services not easily attainable elsewhere. Simply being a me-too business is going to be difficult at best.
Best of luck to all.
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Back on track, interestingly, about eight years ago, way ahead of the curve of retailers providing decorating services, my local Macy's added custom cad-cut designs at their store, only to bail in a few months apparently when they realized that it still involved actual work. Of course, many of the new breed are middlemen, whose main concern is establishing policy for their complicated logistics. Back then, many of the local Kinko's tried digital transfers and one by one bailed as well.
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This is interesting. We are involved in part of the market Amazon appears to be targeting here to some degree. What happens is that you have a swarm of small timers who cannot invest in their merch initially and need a service like this. Inevitably, and especially with the pool of users that Amazon will have, some of them will become big timers, and quickly.
What does Amazon do when the "creators" that started off selling a few shirts a quarter need 1k pc and up runs? My understanding is that a line of 10 or more of the best DTG machines available will not be able to handle this in a cost effective manner. Amazon is unique in that their clients can ship POs of product to Amazon to distribute, that infrastructure is in place already and is top of market, and may be where and why they succeed where others have failed.
So Amazon, and any other venture looking to break into these markets, will need screen printing at some point in the near future, at least until DTG can match the output, versatility and quality of our print technique. How far away is that? And where do us screen printers fit in and for how long?
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You've got to figure in art time also. How many walk in and have art that is ready?
Almost none of 'em.
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So Amazon, and any other venture looking to break into these markets, will need screen printing at some point in the near future, at least until DTG can match the output, versatility and quality of our print technique. How far away is that? And where do us screen printers fit in and for how long?
In my opinion the unwashed masses see the humble shirt as a throw away item. My buddies (one runs and one owns) that print amazing poster art have the key. I just typed poster "art," not poster throw away item. I hope I am wrong and I really do for all of us but I can see in 10 to 15 years automatic printing as we know it now going the way of the taxi cab. Screens, seps, the whole industry. Holy crap I hope I am so wrong. But in 10 to 15 years from now there will be no human taxi cabs in any major US city. UPS, FedEx? Ha, don't get me started. But I can see in 25 or so years two dudes finding a manual press somewhere and manually printing shirts and starting a "retro" business.
It is kind of like CD's and Vinyl and digital music now. Vinyl far, far outsells CD's and is considered art. So...... how long till t-shirts go full circle?
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In my opinion the unwashed masses see the humble shirt as a throw away item. My buddies (one runs and one owns) that print amazing poster art have the key. I just typed poster "art," not poster throw away item. I hope I am wrong and I really do for all of us but I can see in 10 to 15 years automatic printing as we know it now going the way of the taxi cab. Screens, seps, the whole industry. Holy crap I hope I am so wrong. But in 10 to 15 years from now there will be no human taxi cabs in any major US city. UPS, FedEx? Ha, don't get me started. But I can see in 25 or so years two dudes finding a manual press somewhere and manually printing shirts and starting a "retro" business.
It is kind of like CD's and Vinyl and digital music now. Vinyl far, far outsells CD's and is considered art. So...... how long till t-shirts go full circle?
A true visionary and most likely on target with your forecast. In fact, I have similar thoughts on the future of screen printing. Overall, t-shirt printing is a task and labor intensive process. To produce a great looking full color image on a t-shirt requires a tremendous amount of time and work at different levels. At some point, although who knows when, the process as we know it may no longer exist, although I don't think a further refined inkjet style device is the final destination. I believe something totally different will be developed that will eventually replace that 12 armed monster sitting on the production floor. I'll probably be long gone by them and never see it along with most others here as well. :)
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In my opinion the unwashed masses see the humble shirt as a throw away item. My buddies (one runs and one owns) that print amazing poster art have the key. I just typed poster "art," not poster throw away item. I hope I am wrong and I really do for all of us but I can see in 10 to 15 years automatic printing as we know it now going the way of the taxi cab. Screens, seps, the whole industry. Holy crap I hope I am so wrong. But in 10 to 15 years from now there will be no human taxi cabs in any major US city. UPS, FedEx? Ha, don't get me started. But I can see in 25 or so years two dudes finding a manual press somewhere and manually printing shirts and starting a "retro" business.
It is kind of like CD's and Vinyl and digital music now. Vinyl far, far outsells CD's and is considered art. So...... how long till t-shirts go full circle?
A true visionary and most likely on target with your forecast. In fact, I have similar thoughts on the future of screen printing. Overall, t-shirt printing is a task and labor intensive process. To produce a great looking full color image on a t-shirt requires a tremendous amount of time and work at different levels. At some point, although who knows when, the process as we know it may no longer exist, although I don't think a further refined inkjet style device is the final destination. I believe something totally different will be developed that will eventually replace that 12 armed monster sitting on the production floor. I'll probably be long gone by them and never see it along with most others here as well. :)
And I hope we can turn to the 12 armed monster makers to be ahead of the curve in getting us ready, though in 15 years I'll be pushing 80 and not involved. One process I've seen that makes me think a little differently is the new transfers from Transfer Express, the "Stretch Litho". I somehow ran across the inkjet printer that makes these, and I have to admit that it looks like a game changer for many items that use heat transfers... no contour lines, separate white text, or any color for that matter. Of course it's not just buying the machine and voila, everyone shows up at your door as so many think when they buy their startup packages, but using it to produce very short run full color will be a niche for some I think. It's hard to imagine not printing anymore, as I've been doing most of my life now, but things change, and we have to change with it to survive.
Steve
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I just can't fathom the speed ever reaching the point of making high volume runs economical. What will be telling in the future is when companies offer both and their cut-off from DTG to traditional printing gets higher.
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Even if speed was there there are so many limitations on DTG with garment types that screen printing isn't going anywhere any time soon.
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on average, about how much time does it take to complete a 8 color shirt from load to pull the next printed one?
Where I'm going, is how much time is it that a completed auto shirt compared to a completed load/pull from a DTG?
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I think we all agree that Screen printing is cheaper and more efficient than DTG.
But the DTG model can be for new or hobby artist that don't want to take the financial risk. So they would go to a print shop that can offer risk free solution. Where the print shop might have a website that sells tshirts for local artist and give the artist a cut from the sales.
If the design works, then the artist might be willing to take more risk by screen printing 50 plus shirts at a time to make more profit per shirt and sell it by Fulfillment.
Both ways the print shop makes money (printing the product, renting the storage, packaging cost etc).
A lot of people out their have great ideas but many don't go ahead with it because of the "What if I lose a lot of money?"
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Who remembers seeing this @ SGIA circa. 2006?
DTG at automatic press speeds. Was going to revolutionize printing and change the industry. Traditional screen printing was on it's way out.
Industry definitely changed after the fallout of that mess. And fortunately, we ended up with this place.
Screen printing will adapt and evolve, just like it has for the last 2000+ years. Teespring, CustomInk, Amazon, each of us...we will adapt and evolve with it, or get out of it.
Venture capitalists and angel investors will only throw money away for so long. If they don't start getting a return on their investments, the money dries up and they move on.
One thing none of these online places that sells to the end user/retail public has been able to do, and we've all seen it - heard the horror stories from our own clients,... is provide decent customer service. Before, during and after the sale.
It somehow always comes back to Price, Quality, Service.....Pick 2. Even the stingiest, cheapest, buys on price alone type of customer, will only take being treated like crap for so long until they move on to somebody else, who they think will treat them better for less.
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A couple more old pics I found.
Watching this thing run was actually really impressive. And listening to Scott & Mike talk about it....me being fairly new to the industry at that time, I was (almost) sold on DTG taking over.
But then, out of the 3 days I was at 2006 SGIA Vegas......i think I only saw the machine actually run about 15 minutes total. For the 6 figure price tag it had....it became a definite NO.
Wonder where that machine ended up?
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Let em have DTG, the price point to enter is now beyond the average shop.
It's PVC free and HSA inks the direct printers should have their focus on.
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Nice Pictures of Scots machine. I'm pretty sure we made the pallet/ shuttle system I see in the pictures. :)
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DTG will become more popular I believe. But I believe most of us will retire before DTG will replace or even become the majority player in the shirt game.
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So Amazon, and any other venture looking to break into these markets, will need screen printing at some point in the near future, at least until DTG can match the output, versatility and quality of our print technique. How far away is that? And where do us screen printers fit in and for how long?
In my opinion the unwashed masses see the humble shirt as a throw away item. My buddies (one runs and one owns) that print amazing poster art have the key. I just typed poster "art," not poster throw away item. I hope I am wrong and I really do for all of us but I can see in 10 to 15 years automatic printing as we know it now going the way of the taxi cab. Screens, seps, the whole industry. Holy crap I hope I am so wrong. But in 10 to 15 years from now there will be no human taxi cabs in any major US city. UPS, FedEx? Ha, don't get me started. But I can see in 25 or so years two dudes finding a manual press somewhere and manually printing shirts and starting a "retro" business.
It is kind of like CD's and Vinyl and digital music now. Vinyl far, far outsells CD's and is considered art. So...... how long till t-shirts go full circle?
I would absolutely love it if this happened and, in a way, it's how I started.
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DTG, in my opinion, serves a very important market in the custom apparel industry. That being the PITA customer market.
After our brief exploration into adding DTG to our operation last year, we quickly realized that we simply didn't want to have to deal with the type of customer that DTG printing attracts. More power to them if they want to accept that challenge.
DTG will never replace screen printing. None of us will see the end of the screen printing industry in our lifetime.
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king...i wouldn't use language like never. DTG will replace screen printing...maybe not in the inkjet version it's in now, but an end to screen printing as a production method is ending.
Everything about it has improved compared to what it was 10 years ago. It will only improve from here. Might be after we are dead, but it's coming. Heck, look at how disruptive it has been to offset. And let's not forget the sign industry.
I think Scott was on to something with a continuous feed system moving under a print head.
The main drag on inkjets now is the ink formula. If they could move to more universal inks for poly and blends AND also improve the integrated pretreating we'd see a huge change.
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We've been screen printing since the 1500's.. i don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon ;D
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDrYkwG6Tuo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDrYkwG6Tuo)
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We've been screen printing since the 1500's.. i don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon ;D
we've been riding horses as a primary mode of transportation since before 2100BC...now we fly at supersonic speeds and horseback riding is for fun and competition...
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There's lot of companies working on bridging the world of dtg and screen printing together. Knowing what I know that manufactures are working on I'm confident to say that within the next 24 months you will see digital like prints being done on a printing press at the speeds that can compete with standard printing. It's coming and if anyone doesn't want to believe it, the times are going to pass you by. Loading shirts on press that prints digital is not far out. Just sayin
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Danny is very correct I can see press's still here but you'll be loading the top of the head with individual ink bottles instead of adding ink to a screen, no screen's to mess with,just load your art from your thumb drive to the press control head then shirts on a pallet and let it go, but still ink price and the right heads will still be an issue which I'm thinking they will figure out one day.
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And the next step will be machines like this as self-service at copy stores or in kiosks in malls.
This is a great time to be 67 years old and not too worried about the future! 8)
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Digital on a standard press is fine, but will it be at 3.5 second indexes?
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Knowing what I know that manufactures are working on I'm confident to say that within the next 24 months you will see digital like prints being done on a printing press at the speeds that can compete with standard printing.
But who will be able to afford it? And what will pricing have to be for companies to justify purchasing said equipment?
I suspect at that point, it will be a very small number of big companies beating each other up while many of us will still be churning out a decent living.
With a high grade DTG printer starting in the 50-75k range, most shops can't even afford that. I would venture to assume equipment you describe would be double or triple that.
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teespring/amazon/customink/[insert other "online" retailer here] will likely never be able to offer the level of customer service that we as printers can and do offer to our customers (even contract customers) every day.
from the 'can you get this done for me quick' order to the corporate customer that appreciates us confirming corporate branding standards to the race organizer that wants to check out the quality of different blanks/printing options, all of this is relationship building that the super large shops can't/won't be able to do because it doesn't fit in with typical VC-run business models.
Amazon does customer service for the consumer better than most, but the level at which we take care of our better customers, they just can't compete.
I can't see the cost of the inks and printing systems that DTG units use coming to parity with 1 to 2 color screen printing anytime soon... maybe it'll happen somewhat in 20 to 30 years, but there's a LOT of printers out there and will continue to be well after we're all in the ground pushing up daisies.
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teespring/amazon/customink/[insert other "online" retailer here] will likely never be able to offer the level of customer service that we as printers can and do offer to our customers (even contract customers) every day.
The next two generations coming up, the 30 somethings and the 20's somethings buy differently. they don't go out shopping or driving around town, they've been told to conserve so who's gonna waste gas and drive across town when I can use my phone to find you during commercials of the voice. Those generations don't care about a handshake, just that you take ipay and can deliver by next tue.
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So Amazon, and any other venture looking to break into these markets, will need screen printing at some point in the near future, at least until DTG can match the output, versatility and quality of our print technique. How far away is that? And where do us screen printers fit in and for how long?
In my opinion the unwashed masses see the humble shirt as a throw away item. My buddies (one runs and one owns) that print amazing poster art have the key. I just typed poster "art," not poster throw away item. I hope I am wrong and I really do for all of us but I can see in 10 to 15 years automatic printing as we know it now going the way of the taxi cab. Screens, seps, the whole industry. Holy crap I hope I am so wrong. But in 10 to 15 years from now there will be no human taxi cabs in any major US city. UPS, FedEx? Ha, don't get me started. But I can see in 25 or so years two dudes finding a manual press somewhere and manually printing shirts and starting a "retro" business.
It is kind of like CD's and Vinyl and digital music now. Vinyl far, far outsells CD's and is considered art. So...... how long till t-shirts go full circle?
Don't laugh. There's a shop here in sunny Orlando who does flatstock screenprinting and "boutique" letterpress work - mainly stuff like wedding invitations but also business cards. I ran a handfed letterpress in my old man's print shop back in the early 70's, and even then it was "old school". It was a good way to lose a hand if your weren't paying attention, too. I could pound out 500 business cards in about 15 minutes while smoking and drinking coffee. We'd get about $8.00 for a box of 500, 1-color, and if we put lots of "squeeze" under the paper covering the platen, you could read the card from the back if you had some braille skills and turned around backwards.
I can get 1000 full color business cards today for $12.00. This shop in O-Town charges $100 for 500 one-color business cards, although it's probably on some art stock. Some people want to feel the impression from that old foundry type. They do very nice work, but sometimes you wonder how much people who buy it really appreciate it, or just want to be able to brag about it, or say the guy that printed it wore an apron and had a pica pole in his pocket . . .
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And the next step will be machines like this as self-service at copy stores or in kiosks in malls.
This is a great time to be 67 years old and not too worried about the future! 8)
Yup, although you're up on me by a couple of years. I'm bailing at the end of this year. Got a couple of motorcycles and nothin' to do but breathe . . .
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There's lot of companies working on bridging the world of dtg and screen printing together. Knowing what I know that manufactures are working on I'm confident to say that within the next 24 months you will see digital like prints being done on a printing press at the speeds that can compete with standard printing. It's coming and if anyone doesn't want to believe it, the times are going to pass you by. Loading shirts on press that prints digital is not far out. Just sayin
You saying that $60,000 CTS is just collecting dust now? Dang it....
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There are lots of different types of screen printing shops, from people like me (one man shop) to places like tee spring and Amazon. I could care less about the massive online shirt services as my business is entirely based on personal referrals from other shops and my current customer base, and those people use me because they like MY services. There is absolutely plenty of business to go around, and it doesn't take much to gain loyalty from your clients vs a service like teespring/custom ink/{insert whatever venture funded flavor of the month "we're a tech/logistics/blahblahblah company not a printshop"}
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There's lot of companies working on bridging the world of dtg and screen printing together. Knowing what I know that manufactures are working on I'm confident to say that within the next 24 months you will see digital like prints being done on a printing press at the speeds that can compete with standard printing. It's coming and if anyone doesn't want to believe it, the times are going to pass you by. Loading shirts on press that prints digital is not far out. Just sayin
You saying that $60,000 CTS is just collecting dust now? Dang it....
Absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you watch the industry closely they are trying to bridge the gap between digital dtg and traditional screen printing. This is why direct to screen whether it's m&r I image, douthitt, exile, kiwo, etc dts is allowing regular screen printing the ability to get closer to digital. In my shop we make screens and most of the time setup with no micro that to me is an example of "bridging the gap". Eliminating setup time to a minimum is already doing this. Also you look at companies like virus who are doing 4you process printing or kornit with the paradim rolling up to press they are mimicking what dtg is doing on press in a way you can produce larger volumes. All I'm saying is companies are already creating ways that are bridging that gap. Screen printing will never just go away but when large companies can produce quickly in a controlled, streamlined way with auto seps for everything then in my opinion the industry is changing. It will take years to trickle down but there's lots of smart people working on ways to print cost effectively in a way that is basically push button. I don't believe screen printing as we know it will ever go away but there's lots of breeding between digital and screen printing going on.
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There's lot of companies working on bridging the world of dtg and screen printing together. Knowing what I know that manufactures are working on I'm confident to say that within the next 24 months you will see digital like prints being done on a printing press at the speeds that can compete with standard printing. It's coming and if anyone doesn't want to believe it, the times are going to pass you by. Loading shirts on press that prints digital is not far out. Just sayin
You saying that $60,000 CTS is just collecting dust now? Dang it....
Absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you watch the industry closely they are trying to bridge the gap between digital dtg and traditional screen printing. This is why direct to screen whether it's m&r I image, douthitt, exile, kiwo, etc dts is allowing regular screen printing the ability to get closer to digital. In my shop we make screens and most of the time setup with no micro that to me is an example of "bridging the gap". Eliminating setup time to a minimum is already doing this. Also you look at companies like virus who are doing 4you process printing or kornit with the paradim rolling up to press they are mimicking what dtg is doing on press in a way you can produce larger volumes. All I'm saying is companies are already creating ways that are bridging that gap. Screen printing will never just go away but when large companies can produce quickly in a controlled, streamlined way with auto seps for everything then in my opinion the industry is changing. It will take years to trickle down but there's lots of smart people working on ways to print cost effectively in a way that is basically push button. I don't believe screen printing as we know it will ever go away but there's lots of breeding between digital and screen printing going on.
I agree and most of it is good stuff that isn't going to hurt anyone who wants to embrace it. What Amazon is doing isn't going to effect anyone's business on here. I don't think too many of us are in this to print one offs as our main business.
I looked at a few dtg/auto setups at sgia and think they still need some improving but man does that open up some real possibilities. Endless name drops, color changes, etc... At a much improved production rate.
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"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it!" is kind of relevant to this discussion.
Change will happen, those who accept change generally benefit the most.
I have often quoted the story of a smoked filled Eastman Kodak board meeting where the old guys in suits felt it necessary to remind those in the room that Kodak was in the photographic paper industry and the reason they sold that paper was because people created "Kodak Moments".
He also felt it necessary to remind the group that this new "digital crap" was not going anywhere and the boards job was to keep the paper business healthy. At the time Kodak controlled most of the digital patents so they licensed this technology rather than pursuing it so they could concentrate on the paper business.
Change did happen, as it always does. The Kodak business model evolution is something for apparel decorators to be aware as it appears that the digital crap did indeed go somewhere.
If you don't believe this ask the professional studio photographer in your town how her business is? Might be difficult as most of those photo pros who survived by selling 8 x 10's of milestone moments are gone. Those that have survived have evolved into photographic artists who sell their knowledge by the hour and hand over a DVD or a link to a website.
The typical studio photographer had a handful of employees, was often a family operation and once the original capital investment was paid for had a great cash cow because nothing ever changed. Sound familiar?
Change will happen, those who accept change generally benefit the most.
Oh yeah, Kodak was actually in the memory business and did not realize it, the medium to preserve those memories was irrelevant to all but a few of their clients. Nobody needs another T-shirt, but they will buy a memory or a really cool design effect regardless of what technology decorated it. What business are you in?
My 2 cents...
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amazon selling shirts is great, go for it!... BUT...that's with the customer supplying the artwork. I don't know about you guys, but the custom ink screen shots I get, 99.9% of them are terrible.. there will always be a need for good artwork and it just so happens we can print shirts too. Customer service is another thing. You order online, that's fine but what happens when there is an issue? You are just a number waiting in line. You buy local, you become a face. some people appreciate that, and that's my market.
I think King screen nailed it.....
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And the next step will be machines like this as self-service at copy stores or in kiosks in malls.
This is a great time to be 67 years old and not too worried about the future! 8)
Ditto, 64 in a few weeks...
Steve