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Direct to Garment => DTG Equipment => Topic started by: blue moon on December 08, 2020, 09:12:59 PM
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'would love to get some information sharing going. We are setting it up and it is a whole new world.
pierre
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Yes. Absolutely
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Watching this. We are in the thinking about it, starting phase.
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We see it coming too, as long time contract printers, as well as direct sales, we are talking to more an more people that are trying to be t-shirt entrepreneurs, and since we are already using Order My Gear for some trade schools, we already have a way of getting one set up fairly quickly. I had a request from someone last week who has a national program going, using Teespring, and is not happy with the print quality. I had a talk with some staff about how we might handle fulfillment, lots of things to consider. Some were concerned we would be possibly overwhelmed for our capacity, but as one crazy/wise friend once said, "Get the job first, then worry about how to get it done." I did some cursory figuring, to see if it is feasible for us, and it looks like it could give us a boost with the right customers, none of the absolute beginners with question like, "Where do I get blank shirts?" I'm very interested to follow this topic, it's such a crazy world out there, and we have to stay somewhat caught up...
Steve
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I am interested in this as well.
We are diving head on into fulfillment and learning as we go. We are very small but the potential where we are is massive.
In january will start messing with DTF and hope to get that going.
I have so many questions about POD and fulfillment.
I o wish there was a private thread where people can throw around real numbers and not have business info out in public.
I would gladly pay for a secret section on this board.
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My main question on this topic - Is this one of those adapt or be left behind situations? The few stores I've run have been a PITA. I don't like doing fulfillment. It's too time consuming for smaller shops with less employees IMO and I don't want to expand just for POD. I've also run into issues with clients not telling me how much they'd like to make per shirt so I'm left to my own guess and then when it comes time to pay commission to the client, they want more money all of the sudden. This is definitely one of those things I'd also like to pay to learn more about since I'm so green to this style of business. It's a completely different beast. If trade shows are done for another year or so, someone should do an online course or something lol. I'd pay for it.
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I am taking a different approach for dealing with clients. Instead of paying them out we are starting to bill them monthly. We are not doing the printavo merch anymore or ordermygear. Instead we are just connecting to customers existing stores with our shipstation. Anytime an order sells we receive the info and ship.
We are working out a tiered system for pricing that they can reference on pricing an all customers will have an upfront charge they pay to get started. this weeds out some people and also starts of the store with merch.
It's a work in progress. I am shooting to be ready for spring.
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I'm looking into this as well but on a smaller level, the DTF looks to be promising to get those 1 to 12 shirt orders with high colors in and out fast.
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I am taking a different approach for dealing with clients. Instead of paying them out we are starting to bill them monthly. We are not doing the printavo merch anymore or ordermygear. Instead we are just connecting to customers existing stores with our shipstation. Anytime an order sells we receive the info and ship.
We are working out a tiered system for pricing that they can reference on pricing an all customers will have an upfront charge they pay to get started. this weeds out some people and also starts of the store with merch.
It's a work in progress. I am shooting to be ready for spring.
shipstation seem to be an important part of making PoD going. would love some more info on it.
pierre
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so here's a question, what is your definition of Print on Demand? How do you see the process going?
pierre
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
min qty?
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
min qty?
Yeah, thats the thing. As I approach it I am using 24 as a minimum and would be making customers pay an up front charge, let's say $250. Having a tier system for pricing - and they have to sell within certain levels to get certain pricing. The $250 would go to their first batch of orders an when they pass that, pricing changes, etc
I am looking at it in a more subscription based way based way, that they pay X amount for this service monthly and certain numbers hit certain price points... I't's on them to sell.
I do want to put up a wall that will deter people. who think running a clothing brand would be dope. I don't want anything to do with that niche to be honest. I want more established business looking to expand or who want to special shirts for an event...
I want to be able to do POD for that rare 3XL they need.
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
min qty?
Yeah, thats the thing. As I approach it I am using 24 as a minimum and would be making customers pay an up front charge, let's say $250. Having a tier system for pricing - and they have to sell within certain levels to get certain pricing. The $250 would go to their first batch of orders an when they pass that, pricing changes, etc
I am looking at it in a more subscription based way based way, that they pay X amount for this service monthly and certain numbers hit certain price points... I't's on them to sell.
I do want to put up a wall that will deter people. who think running a clothing brand would be dope. I don't want anything to do with that niche to be honest. I want more established business looking to expand or who want to special shirts for an event...
I want to be able to do POD for that rare 3XL they need.
so you would print 24 pieces when ordered? how is that different from regular service? what makes it POD?
pierre
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
When I was investigating what my interested party had requested, I looked at her site on Teespring on Friday, 12/4, it said order today, and it will ship by Dec. 15th or sooner...
Steve
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
When I was investigating what my interested party had requested, I looked at her site on Teespring on Friday, 12/4, it said order today, and it will ship by Dec. 15th or sooner...
Steve
I've seen that somewhere else too. I guess the shipping speed is not part of the requirements...
in my eyes is POD is print what's ordered. The big deal is you can order anything from 1 to 1,000. It could all be done on a press or a DTF or DTG. Don't think that plays a role. So, any quantity after it is ordered.
the problem is, again, the small numbers. How do you efficiently print 1 shirt and still make money on it?
There are companies out there needing thousands of those one off pieces. Does that make it easier to make it profitable? Printing hundreds or thousands each day?
pierre
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
When I was investigating what my interested party had requested, I looked at her site on Teespring on Friday, 12/4, it said order today, and it will ship by Dec. 15th or sooner...
Steve
I've seen that somewhere else too. I guess the shipping speed is not part of the requirements...
in my eyes is POD is print what's ordered. The big deal is you can order anything from 1 to 1,000. It could all be done on a press or a DTF or DTG. Don't think that plays a role. So, any quantity after it is ordered.
the problem is, again, the small numbers. How do you efficiently print 1 shirt and still make money on it?
There are companies out there needing thousands of those one off pieces. Does that make it easier to make it profitable? Printing hundreds or thousands each day?
pierre
I've always taken "Print on Demand as just that. No stock kept with which to fill orders, but merely printed as needed. Delivery time is a completely separate issue. That said, I have had a great increase in folks asking about "same day printing". For me, and my market, those are most often 1 or so piece orders. And I charge accordingly.
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My definition of POD is ... and order comes in and you print and ship within 48 hours either by DTG or transfers.
When I was investigating what my interested party had requested, I looked at her site on Teespring on Friday, 12/4, it said order today, and it will ship by Dec. 15th or sooner...
Steve
I've seen that somewhere else too. I guess the shipping speed is not part of the requirements...
in my eyes is POD is print what's ordered. The big deal is you can order anything from 1 to 1,000. It could all be done on a press or a DTF or DTG. Don't think that plays a role. So, any quantity after it is ordered.
the problem is, again, the small numbers. How do you efficiently print 1 shirt and still make money on it?
There are companies out there needing thousands of those one off pieces. Does that make it easier to make it profitable? Printing hundreds or thousands each day?
pierre
My thing with the 24 minimum and the $250 deposit is basically for $250 you get 24 shirts to start. Launch your store an we print and ship as orders come in. You only sell 6 shirts? they were 6 expensive shirts then.
Like you said I am looking for a model that is profitable and looks appealing to customers.
If someone doesn't have any. money to start then they will probably be a PITA customer. For me the POD part comes own the roa...
I am still working this out but I don't want to be printful or whoever who have to pump out terrible quality to keep up. Cause the people who start with them don't stay with them. I don't know how those companies do it.
As for Teespring... they really turned their company around and their partnership with youtube and billing a plug in for TWITCH is brilliant what I am looking to do.
I think the better part of a POD type system is where you run the store model an its a set up an sell .
Either way the whole POD system that others are doing needs to be rethought
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POD does not have to do with the speed in which you print, look at it more like supply and demand. In POD you are not supplying anything until somebody makes a purchase, once the purchase is made you create the supply to meet the demand (usually one piece at a time).
Our software integrates with shopify, so we can essentially connect to a clients shopify webstore (or etsy or wherever they are selling their products) and when they have a customer place an order (they pay in full on the website when they check out) the order is officially placed with us. We usually try to batch the jobs weekly, so we will collect orders for all of these different one off designs Monday-Thursday and then Friday we will go ahead and print and fulfill them all. It is much easier to schedule that way instead of trying to fit in one or two pieces between your larger jobs for your regular clients.
I don't think that POD is going to make contract printing or screen printing in general obsolete, but the market for it has shown continued growth and I think the industry will keep moving in that direction to meet the demand.
The margins per piece when printing on demand far outweigh the margins when contract printing, but contract printing you make up for it in volume (we do both).
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Following. We have a DTG here and it's running decent. I'm using it to relaunch our brand that we used to have an actual retail tourist shop. But I've been looking at offering POD fulfillment to certain customers...I think the money can be there to make, it just needs to be efficient. But I too have thought about the "$300 buy in to start" and a monthly service fee. I think the initial buy in stops the "dope clothing line" guys like Rusty said lol and also buys stock for them only. I'm not interested in becoming a full on warehouse with 10,000 items on hand.
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Our software integrates with shopify, so we can essentially connect to a clients shopify webstore (or etsy or wherever they are selling their products)
which software are you using?
pierre
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Our software integrates with shopify, so we can essentially connect to a clients shopify webstore (or etsy or wherever they are selling their products)
which software are you using?
pierre
you can do this with shipstation. Thats what we are starting to do.
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Our software integrates with shopify, so we can essentially connect to a clients shopify webstore (or etsy or wherever they are selling their products)
which software are you using?
pierre
We use a software called Stokkup. It is similar to Printavo but a little bit more sophisticated. Definitely a software that is made specifically for this industry. We use it for order entry, scheduling, data tracking, etc. It is a great software/system but it is a bit expensive...our shop produces enough to justify the cost. Here is a link. www.stokkup.com (http://www.stokkup.com)
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Our software integrates with shopify, so we can essentially connect to a clients shopify webstore (or etsy or wherever they are selling their products)
which software are you using?
pierre
We use a software called Stokkup. It is similar to Printavo but a little bit more sophisticated. Definitely a software that is made specifically for this industry. We use it for order entry, scheduling, data tracking, etc. It is a great software/system but it is a bit expensive...our shop produces enough to justify the cost. Here is a link. [url=http://www.stokkup.com]www.stokkup.com[/url] ([url]http://www.stokkup.com[/url])
did you look into anything else? trying to figure out what's available.
I know of smake, BDLinx and now stukkup.
anybody else know of any other packages?
pierre