“High-Resolution” vs “Production Print Mode”: What’s the Difference?
Here at Fusion Logistics Group, our philosophy is that everything should be printed at the highest possible quality, using excellent ink saturation and the highest possible print settings. We crank our machines all the way up to “AWESOME”, then teach our clients how to manipulate their artwork, how to select the best possible garments and how to get the best possible results in the DTG industry. Our goals include vibrant, saturated prints, as well as improved wash fastness as a result of the added ink saturation. However, there are times where the individual intentions of our clients is to achieve a less saturated, “vintage” looking print – in this case, we also offer the option to utilize our “Production Print Mode” on both light and dark garments!
Until now, the “Production Print Mode” was used strictly for internal purposes, and all orders were defaulted to the highest possible print quality – this option is now available for you to specify on each order, if you want to experiment with different print modes (you must specifically request this option, or we will always default to the higher print saturation)! Since we are not a standard, retail DTG print shop, we will not make any subjective decisions during the normal ordering process – it is up to you to evaluate each option and determine which product is better suited for your goals and intent. You may be looking for the brightest, most vibrant prints possible, or you could be looking for “cooler”, less saturated (and sometimes more realistic) looking colors – we are not in a position to determine which type of results you are trying to achieve, so please take a moment to familiarize yourself with all the various printing options that we offer and be sure they are to your liking!
NOTE: On garments which do not have a white ink under base or a light garment pretreat chemical, using a lower ink saturation will cause the prints to appear more “faded” after the initial wash cycles. This is due to the fact that there is less ink being sprayed into the garment fibers, so each thread is not necessarily colored from every angle. As the fibers of the shirt shift and rotate during normal wash and wear, more and more fibers may wind up showing their “unprinted” portions, causing the print to appear more faded. While the ink is actually no less vibrant than before, you are actually seeing less of it as you look at the shirt! One benefit to us using a more saturated print setting (our default “High-Resolution” print mode), is the apparently improved wash fastness that occurs when you are able to color each thread more thoroughly (saturating as much of the garment surface as possible) – this same effect can be preserved by applying some sort of light garment pretreat chemical.
The following example shows an extremely close-up view of a typical cotton t-shirt; those tiny braided fibers won’t stay neat and orderly forever, so it is important to dye as much of the fibers as possible! Selecting blank garments which have a very fine weave will provide a better print surface and subsequently won’t become as agitated in the wash – like a fine bed sheet, this can make all the difference in the wold!
What Makes Us Different: What to Expect When Working with Fusion Logistics Group
First of all, let me congratulate you on making the decision to investigate our services further – some customers never make it past the first order because they are incapable of, or unwilling to invest the time and effort necessary to become properly educated in our field. Understandably, certain customers need an industry expert to hold their hand and make all the decisions for them along the process – they insist that you stop everything and contact them if any element of their custom item looks different than expected, and they will spend a great deal of time explaining to you (often in non technical terms) what they want “in general”, while waiting for you to fill in all the blanks; of course if anything is not right in the end, it is completely your fault because, after all, “you’re the expert”. While we fully understand and appreciate the place for this type of customer / provider interaction, this is not what we offer at Fusion Logistics Group. Rather than spending most of our time (and resources) trying to make decisions for our customers, we want to spend as much time as possible PRINTING, producing the highest quality products available in the DTG industry! We structure our business in such a way that allows you the greatest amount of control of the production process, getting you as close as possible to the action without actually investing in any equipment or doing any painful production. We try to make our resources your resources, offering you access to the most affordable, flexible DTG printing services available. We provide tools and resources to allow you to easily design custom items and market them to your customer base. This is followed by high quality, redundant manufacturing capabilities that allow you to control how your items are printed, and we round it all out by offering full service (low minimum) re-branding options and blind fulfillment to the end user (your customers).
We are not simply looking for “customers” at Fusion Logistics Group – we are looking for “clients”. There are many differences between customers and clients, but essentially clients are legitimate wholesale customers who have an interest in building a stable, long term relationship based on professionalism, education and shared responsibilities. Clients would know better than to send us a 50/50 polyester blend garment to print with water based DTG inks, whereas a customer would justifiably expect us to make the decision not to print on 50/50 apparel (or even expect us to reject it if they try to supply us with said garments). Clients would fine-tune their artwork prior to submitting it for printing, knowing how important it is to optimize the detail and colors in the original artwork to achieve the best results; customers would send us a small, low resolution JPEG file from Google with a flattened white background and expect us to clean it up (with verbal instructions to “add words to the image” or something like that, without specifying a font, size or layout). Clients understand what DTG printing is, they understand the benefits and limitations involved and they understand how a myriad of variables can ultimately yield drastically different print results – customers think that little green elves print the shirts in the middle of the night, and everything should be flawless no matter how bad the original artwork was, or how unsuited the selected blanks were for this particular decoration technique. The biggest difference, of course, is that clients receive the best possible pricing based on mutual responsibilities and established guidelines, whereas customers find a corner retail shop and pay literally 2-3 times the prices that we charge at Fusion Logistics Group, typically for an inferior product (which is why a retail customer is quick to move on to a new DTG company any time they see an opportunity to save a buck, whereas clients look for the best combination of quality, cost, value and service to form the cornerstone of their business).
If you classify yourself as an industry-savvy client who is looking for more than the typical corner print shop can offer, then you have definitely come to the right place! As you learn more about the process, the technology and the principles behind DTG printing, you will find that you have greater control over the overall process, including possessing the ability to seek out and evaluate potential new garment blanks that fit your unique and specific needs, identifying your goals and artistic style to determine the ideal print settings and options for your particular brand, and ultimately creating a brand or custom printing business that is totally unique to you while taking advantage of our stable and redundant manufacturing capabilities and industry leading expertise with on-demand DTG printing and fulfillment. If you are fortunate and determined enough to eventually take your business to the next level, we will be there every step of the way to ensure that you make a smooth and successful transition into printing, offering everything from equipment and supply sales to training, education and ongoing support.
If your goals include dabbling in DTG printing and maybe doing a few shirts for you and some friends, or if you do not have the time or interest in learning about this cutting edge technology you are looking to utilize, then perhaps a full retail shop would be better suited for you; one of the key differences between retail and true wholesale businesses is that you are typically paying much more for the product, but that price includes all the pleasantries and one-on-one attention that a customer might be looking for. However, if you are an industry professional who wants the best that DTG printing has to offer (but aren’t yet ready to make the head first dive into production), then we can guarantee you won’t find a better production facility for wholesale DTG printing and fulfillment – use our website as a foundation to learn everything you can about this fickle and complicated process, and work with us to build your understanding as you move forward. If you require additional one-on-one assistance with brand development, including help with locating and securing specific styles of blanks for your particular line or anything else that goes beyond the fundamental services we offer, we would be happy to help! Our industry experts can work with your team to develop a custom solution for your business, based on a foundation that will carry with you wherever you go in the industry.
We expect more from our clients, and in return to promise more! Become an expert with us, and build your business for the future – if you want to see us cover specific topics that might help educate you further about our process, please don’t hesitate to send a request to info@fusionlogisticsgroup.com!
POST PROCESSING SERVICE: Chemical-Free Wash
We have recently added a new piece of equipment to our new manufacturing facility: a full size washing machine which will allow us to perform periodic spot-checks on garment wash-fastness, ensuring more consistent quality control across all ranges of garment types. Since we spend a great deal of time adjusting our pre-treatment settings to accommodate various brands, styles and colors of garments, we do not always have a chance to perform full wash tests on everything that goes out the door (even garments from different countries of origin will sometimes require varying levels of pre-treatment to achieve optimal printing results) – with our new wash system, we will have the ability to do many more wash tests throughout the process, which will surely have a positive effect on the overall consistency of our expected wash-fastness.
At this time, we will be using this machine strictly for testing and evaluating purposes – in the coming weeks, we will begin to offer a post-processing wash service for those clients who have an interest – we will soon have the ability to perform a chemical-free wash on all garments that leave our shop, for those who want their garments to arrive as soft and possible, with as little pre-treat residue as possible (also check out our post-processing garment steaming service).
Growing Forward – Fusion Logistics Group has Moved!
As always, Fusion Logistics Group is on the move! This time, we’re moving into a slightly larger facility that is more appropriate for the type of work that we do. Our new manufacturing facility is located at 9581 Business Center Drive Unit 12-E, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 – we are only a couple of blocks from our former location, and the new shop is a huge improvement!
Our new location provides us with more space for manufacturing, as well as more suitable vinyl flooring (to help reduce ESD buildup during print cycles) and full climate control from front to back! We have also added a conference room for normal business meetings, as well as brand development consultations and artwork training. If you haven’t visited Fusion Logistics Group recently, stop by this week to see how far we’ve come and how much we’ve grown!
POST PROCESSING SERVICE: Garment Steaming to Reduce Pretreatment Marks
Until someone invents a water based ink for DTG printing that does not require a pre-treatment chemical to be applied prior to printing, pre-treatment marks and production marks from heat pressing the garment will likely be a part of the overall process. Obviously some garments do a much better job at masking this effect, often to the point where you can hardly tell a garment has been pre-treated at all! While this is something we constantly strive to achieve, the myriad of variables involved in the DTG printing process (in addition to the wide variety of garment styles, brands and colors that we tend to print on) make it impossible to fully eliminate this phenomenon from occurring. If you are unfamiliar with pre-treatment marks and what causes them, you can reference the following article for more information: DTG Pretreatment Marks – What Do They Look Like and What Do They Mean?
The most important step is selecting garments that print and wash well, while standing up to the extreme rigors of the DTG manufacturing process. If you have done this to the best of your ability, but are still having trouble dealing with the pre-treatment marks from production, we now offer a solution – custom post-processing / garment steaming to manually reduce any noticeable pre-treatment effects. For $1 more (per print location), our staff can add an additional step to the production process whereas your garment would be heat steamed directly for a number of minutes – this causes the pre-treatment residue to break apart, while also “ruffling” the fibers in the garment to reduce evidence of the heat press process. The end result is less noticeable pre-treatment effects for those “problem garments” that don’t seem to take the manufacturing process well.
While we cannot always eliminate all evidence of the heat pressing process of the pre-treatment fluid, the steaming process can certainly help deal with this problem for those clients who want to take advantage of the service. Be sure to ask for it when you place your order!
Managing Your Color Expectations with DTG Printing
Color management is a very important part of the DTG printing process. In fact, next to selecting the proper garments for printing (which you can read more about here), proper artwork adjustment (color manipulation, etc) is the most important factor in determining how well (or how poorly) an image will print. We work diligently on our end to ensure that we are using the most accurate, up-to-date color profiles available for our printers to ensure that every printed image looks as amazing as possible; however, our color profiles and RIP software will not do anything to “enhance” the existing colors in your design, so it is up to you to make the necessary artwork adjustments prior to uploading your file(s).
Right off the bat, there are a few “Golden Rules” you should know about DTG printing / color management:
- The final print will ONLY look as good as the original artwork that is input for printing – if the input file is low resolution, blurry or dull, then the final print will be grainy, blurry or dull. If the input file is high resolution (200 dpi for garment printing), crisp and vibrant, then the final print will be clear, crisp and vibrant!
- There is NO SUCH THING as PMS color matching with DTG printing – we can always print color charts for you to help you select colors that are close to your intended output colors, but it is important to understand that a number of variables can effect the color output on the actual garment:
- Different garment styles, brands and colors will print differently; a color chart may very well print a certain way on one brand of t-shirt, then print differently on an alternate t-shirt brand.
- We use different color profiles for BLACK garments, WHITE garments and “ALL OTHER” colored garments – there is no guarantee of consistency between black and colored garments, or between dark and light colored prints. Additionally, we often have to adjust the volume of pretreatment spray, white ink under base or color layer saturation to prevent “discoloration” of certain garments; since we have to make these decisions during the production process in an effort to provide the highest quality print, while still ensuring that the garments survive the production process with minimal scarring, we cannot always guarantee that we will use the exact same under base percentage or color layer saturation from one day to the next.
- The pretreatment process required for dark garments requires us to dial in the volume of pre-treat spray on a daily basis (sometimes several times per day) – altering the pretreatment volume even a slight amount could alter the colors in a print, slightly. This is an artistic process, not a scientific process, so please cut us some slack.
- Varying degrees of humidity can cause fluctuations in the behavior of the water based inks that we use for DTG printing – we do our best to control all variables of production, including the environmental variables in the actual production rooms; however, there are times where the differences are noticeable, typically manifesting in slightly different hues being printed.
- We do our best to keep our color profiles updated to provide the highest possible print quality for our clients – color profiling is a touchy, subjective process where altering one range of colors could alternately effect another range entirely. Since we can’t check with all of our clients prior to switching to new color profiles, we cannot always guarantee that a design printed today will print the exact same way in a year, or even a month – we will do our best to keep our clients updated (via our website) whenever we update our color profiles, but it is your responsibility to do the necessary testing and adjusting if you are trying to achieve or reproduce a particular color value.
- Any color enhancements or adjustments need to be made prior to submitting your files for printing – you cannot come to us after an order is completed and tell us “this color didn’t print right”. If you are concerned about the potential color output of your artwork, it is vital that you spend the time to order a sample print and make sure that your artwork is going to print as expected. We understand that many customers come to us with incredibly rushed orders that include very little time for proper sampling, but if you are unfamiliar with our DTG process then it is imperative that you slow down and fully evaluate the process, so everyone can be fully satisfied in the end.
- The RIP software used to process our artwork for printing on to garments is highly specialized and incredibly sensitive – it will analyze an image and draw out as many color values as possible to recreate every subtle nuance of the digital design. If the hue or tint of certain colors is off slightly, the end result will be more noticeable in the actual print! This means that if there is a slight yellow tint to your design on the screen, you will definitely notice a yellow tint in the printed design. With some practice, you will learn to spot these “off colors” and correct them before you ever send the file for printing – once you have some experience and understanding of the way the DTG process works, you will be able to identify the subtle differences in color and predict how they will look on the printed garment.
- We WILL NOT, under any circumstances, apply our own subjective alterations to your custom artwork – there are simply too many variables that go into determining what colors are selected, and experience has proven that if we try to help a customer by “boosting” the saturation their artwork or tweaking a particular color, they will be unhappy because that is not how they designed it. On the flip side, if we let a bad artwork file be printed then the customer will also be upset, but in the long run we have designed our business in such a way as to educate our customers at every turn, ultimately allowing them greater control over the final product. It is a give-and-take arrangement, and we invite our clients to fully invest themselves in the process to establish a more functional and efficient relationship in the long run – taking responsibility for the creation and refinement of the artwork is an important step in building that stable relationship. If you still require the assistance of our artists to modify the size / format / color values in your designs, we offer custom artwork services from $25 per half hour – you can find out more by visiting our Artwork Information page.
In “Golden Rule #4″, we explained how sensitive the RIP software can be when evaluation subtle color tints in a digital image – the following is a quick example of how this can effect a printed image, as well as a few quick tips for how you can avoid this before you ever start your order:
In the above image, you can see the original image layered in front of two different printouts (keep in mind the photos of the printed garments were done with an older model iPhone – not the best camera for capturing high quality pictures) – the concern the client had with this image was the fact that “the flesh tones don’t look natural”. When asked why we didn’t take the time to stop printing and “adjust the image to make the skin tone look more natural”, the first question that popped into my head was “Who’s skin are we trying to simulate?” As you may have heard, there is a wide range of flesh tones in the world, and I don’t think you could ever say that one is more or less “right” than the others, without resulting in a bloody nose or a fat lip.
Before these shirts were brought back to us for review, we were told that the body in the design looked “jaundiced” – the client was clearly shocked to see the yellow hue printed in the image, but upon evaluation of the original file we were able to determine that there was an extraordinary amount of yellow in the design, which had actually printed “as expected”. Most people off the street would be hard pressed to notice the subtle yellow tint in the design, and might have expected a more natural looking flesh tone in the resulting print; however, with a little tweaking of the original image we can quickly highlight the “before and after”, giving you a better idea of what “natural looking flesh tones” might actually look like:
Click the image above to zoom in a bit for more detail. In this comparison, we performed several slight adjustments to the artwork to achieve various results:
- In the first example (far left), we show a closeup of the original artwork – you can see that the colors are rather dark, and if you compare the original to the others you will notice a definite yellow hue in the skin tones of the design.
- In the second example (second from left), we simply reduced the Yellow channel by 30% in Photoshop (Image > Adjustments > Selective Color) – when compared to the non-adjusted version on the left, you can clearly see the difference in hue, but the colors are still rather dark.
- In the third example (second from right), we started again with the original image and performed a simple Levels adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Levels) – this adjustment is used to bring the color and shading levels to the desired point, usually before you adjust the specific colors. You can see that this version is much lighter than the first two, but since we did not reduce the Yellow channel you may still notice a subtle yellow tint to the flesh.
- In the final example (far right), we started again with the original image and performed BOTH the Levels adjustment, followed by the Yellow channel reduction – the result is a smooth, natural looking flesh tone that will print as expected.
Compare the previous examples to see how these minor adjustments can make a big difference in the final printed product – some small adjustments can go a long way, and can determine whether or not your design is going to print as you intend it to. While you may think that your colors will print a certain way, experience will teach you how to more accurately predict the final outcome – the initial process of evaluating your designs for DTG printing is important for providing a solid foundation of knowledge as you move forward in this industry.
PRO TIP – Make sure your BLACKS are BLACK, and not charcoal grey! Below you will find another example of how a small adjustment to the original artwork could make a big difference in the final print – many customers send us files that may appear “black” on the screen, but when compared to a true “RICH BLACK” the difference is quite dramatic:
Example A shows the original artwork, which was probably exported from a vector program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw (it is easy to lose color value when exporting a vector file into a raster format, so always double check your artwork in a raster program such as Adobe Photoshop to ensure that everything looks right after being exported) – although the image appears “black-ish” on the screen, this will not print a deep, rich black color and will almost certainly end up looking faded or “washed out”. Example B shows the artwork after we performed a slight levels adjustment in Photoshop, to restore the original color values that were most likely present in the vector version of the file. You can see the dramatic contrast in color in the following overlay image (the top half is obviously the original, while the bottom half is the adjusted version):
We will continue to provide tips and tricks to help you dial in your process, including useful tools that will help you get started with basic image optimization. To download some simple Photoshop actions and to read more about proper artwork formatting for DTG printing, check out the following link – Artwork Information.
What is DTG Printing, and Why is it So Awesome?
The days of simplifying your artwork to meet your budget are over! No longer do the general masses have to settle for “dumbed down” versions of their incredibly crafted designs, and no longer do they need to order a hundred shirts (or more) to be taken seriously! DTG printing arrived on the scene in its infant stages over 6 years ago, and has spent the last several years being tweaked, prodded and modified until it was finally manifested in a form that offered top level competitive quality, excellent durability and reliable manufacturing practices.
If you thought you knew all about DTG printing, check again! There have been plenty of advances and improvements that have made the process not only viable, but also highly sought after by major clothing brands and online retailers all across the globe. The Fusion Logistics Group team is proud to have been actively involved as pioneers in this industry for the last 6+ years, pushing for ever increasing quality and reliability, while lobbying for lower consumables costs and delivering the highest quality products to our clients.
DTG printing stands for “Direct To Garment” printing, which refers to the process of jetting water based ink directly onto the surface of a printable substrate, rather than printing a transfer which would then be heat pressed onto the substrate. DTG printing equipment is similar in many ways to the type of desktop ink jet printers which can be found in most homes and offices; utilizing a small selection on ink colors (typically Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and White), the printer is able to dynamically mix the process inks “on the fly” as it prints, recreating a myriad of colors and effects as it goes!
The printers are generally much larger than most home or office printing systems, and the drive mechanism has been modified to feed blank t-shirts rather than paper or other flat substrates. By eliminating the need for expensive and time consuming screen setup, as well as the mess and the costs that go along with the traditional screen printing process used by most print shops, we are able to use the process of DTG printing to create beautiful, full color designs with almost no setup, allowing us to offer full color custom garment printing with NO MINIMUM ORDERS and NO SETUP FEES! Essentially, if you can create it on the computer, we can reproduce it on a t-shirt.
When compared to traditional decoration techniques, such as screen printing, the quality of a DTG printed garment is unrivaled – the print details, gradients and print accuracy will beat out almost any other garment decoration technique available (sublimation is another “digitally printed” option which offers a fairly competitive option for decorating garments with beautiful full color designs, however sublimation is limited to polyester garments and there is no white ink, meaning it can only be used on white or light colored garments – it cannot really compete with DTG printing when dark garments or 100% cotton is concerned).
The process of DTG printing involves several steps, which can be loosely summed up as follows:
- PREPARING THE GARMENT FOR PRINTING:
Before any ink can actually be printed on the garment, the fabric must be prepared with a liquid pre-treatment chemical, designed to create a bond between the ink and the garment itself. Without this pre-treatment fluid, the ink would simply absorb into the porous cotton material and appear very poorly (if at all). Pre-treatment is absolutely required for any dark garment printing (any time white ink is involved, either as an under base or a highlight layer), although it is entirely optional when printing on light colored garments. If pre-treatment fluid is applied to the light garment prior to printing, the ink will remain on top of the fabric (rather than soaking in) and will appear more vibrant, while providing superior wash-fastness over the life of the garment. If no pre-treatment is used on light colored garments, the print will still look good but you will notice that it simply doesn’t “POP” like it would have with the pre-treatment. The pre-treatment is applied either manually or via an automated pre-treatment unit, depending on the situation – after the spray is applied, the garment is then brushed with a fine Wooster brush to press the fibers down (reducing the effects of fibrillation, especially on non-ringspun garments) and then heat pressed to seal the pre-treatment to the garment – once this is completed, the garment is ready for printing! - PREPARING THE ARTWORK FOR PRINTING: Although we can certainly load up any artwork file and press the print button, it is important to understand that proper artwork preparation is vital to the successful recreation of complex DTG prints – there is no magic involved in the printing process that will turn “adequate” artwork into “amazing” artwork…. The better the initial artwork file is in terms of quality, color saturation and vibrancy, the better the final printed t-shirt is going to look. You can read more about artwork prep and file format options by visiting our Artwork Information page.
- LOADING THE GARMENT ON THE DTG PRINTER: While this may seem like one of the easiest steps, it can actually become quite tricky when trying to reproduce complex specialty prints that cross over seams or collars, as well as when trying to print odd shaped or odd sized garments (such as onesies, or printing on sleeves and whatnot). We use a series of “loading boards” called Platens to keep the garments pulled flat and smooth for the printing process, and we will often set up custom spacers to allow us to print on a variety of alternative substrates and print locations.
- PRINT THE GARMENT:
Once everything is prepped and ready to go, we simply load up the artwork file in the specialized RIP software we use (RIP stands for Raster Image Processor, by the way) and press the print button! The printer will travel the entire length of the garment print area, spraying ink as it goes – when it is done we are left with an incredibly detailed, vibrant print that will impress even the toughest critics. For dark colored garments, the machine will first print a full pass of white ink (as an under base to the colors), then it will return for a second pass that will complete the image with the color layer. - CURE THE INK: Since water based inks remain “water soluble” until they are permanently heat-set, it is important to press the garments after printing to ensure that the design does not come off in the wash! For light garments, this generally involves direct exposure to high pressure and heat for around 90 seconds, while dark garments get the same treatment for at least 180 seconds; it is important to select garments for printing that are able to withstand the arduous manufacturing conditions involved with DTG printing water based inks.
While this may seem like a lot of steps, most people would be blown away to find out everything that goes into the process of traditional screen printing – relatively speaking, DTG printing involves far fewer steps. In addition to taking less time for the overall setup / print cycle when compared to traditional decoration methods, DTG printing also involves far fewer chemicals and consumables, none of which contain the level of harsh and abrasive chemicals found in many screen printing products.
DTG printing is perfect for short run or full color printing – with a little creativity, you can recreate some incredible effects that will leave most screen printers in the dust, without breaking the bank in the process! Contact us today to find out what we can do for you, or browse our website for even more information before you get started.
Save Money by Managing Your Orders Online!
Much of the custom DTG print work we do here at Fusion Logistics Group involves manufacturing low-run or one-off orders for people; while this is truly the bread and butter of our business model, we must do everything we can to streamline the ordering and fulfillment process to keep our overhead in check and to provide you with the most competitive prices on custom DTG printing. One of the ways we are able to do this is by taking advantage of our online design and ordering tools, which allow our clients the ability to input orders, design products and more.
Our innovative online t-shirt design software will completely change the way you process orders. Quickly and easily place new orders, track your statistics, manage your account details and set up your own customizable store widgets; the sky is the limit with our cool Product Lab. As your order passes through the normal production process, you will see the status automatically updated in your online account, allowing you complete transparency during printing / fulfillment. Additionally, you will receive automated e-mail notifications letting you know when your order has been received, when it begins the journey through the production process, when it is completed and when it has been shipped or picked up.
By using our online design tools, you are helping to minimize the amount of time and labor we have to invest into each order, and ensuring that all order details are to your liking (thereby reducing human error on our part) – since we are able to process these orders more efficiently, you will notice that the actual price prices are slightly lower when ordered through the Product Lab. You can compare the “In Person” price list with the “Online” price list by going here: DTG PRINT PRICES
Of course, if you run into any issues while trying to design your items or create your orders, feel free to let us know about it through our brand new Support Ticket System - send us a message any time you run into any trouble, and someone will contact you to help step you through it as soon as possible.
If This First Run Goes Well, I Will be Ordering Lots More in the Future!
Many customers come to us for short run printing, with the expectation of excellent quality, speedy turnaround time and of course competitive pricing. We deliver on these expectations by providing some of the highest quality DTG printing on the market, coupled with excellent service and some of the lowest wholesale prices in the industry. Despite this, we often run into situations where where new clients feel that they should be paying even less for their top quality custom printing, which we can certainly empathize with! The hard costs currently involved with DTG printing often seem out of line, while the actual production speeds of the printers themselves are often limited to single digits, especially with larger sized prints. For those who have dipped their toes into DTG production at one point or another, there is a great deal of appreciation and understanding for what we do; those who have never worked with DTG first hand, however, will sometimes come to the table with unrealistic expectations – especially when it comes to price!
We strive to satisfy every customer to the best of our ability, but it is important to understand how your print prices are calculated and where that money goes; in almost every case, you might be surprised to learn that you will end up making more money selling our products than we will make producing them. Why is that, you ask? For starters, on an average sized DTG print (12″ x 12″) the average cost of ink alone, on a dark garment, is generally between $1-$3; this does not factor in the cost of the pretreatment fluid that must be applied to the garment, prior to printing. At that size, a single DTG printer will typically produce about 9 impressions per hour at the highest quality print setting (which of course, we almost always use) – even if we are charging $10 per impression, that would basically be about $7 per print (after average ink and pretreatment cost) being manufactured at the rate of about 9 per hour….. If you are following along, you would see that means we would be pulling in approximately $63 per hour while printing dark garments; factor in two paid employees at $10 per hour ($20), plus a $25 per hour shop operating cost (the bills required to keep the doors open and the lights on), and that leaves $18 per hour in profit. While that is not a big number, the reality is that most of our clients pay far less than $10 per print, so we have to truly tighten our belts and ensure that we charge enough to stay in business, remain profitable and continue to serve our loyal client base for years to come!
New customers will often place an order of less than a dozen shirts, but promise that “if these go well, I will be ordering lots more in the future!” While we certainly love optimism and we have seen lots of small clothing lines and print companies take off toward highly successful futures, it takes a lot more than an optimistic outlook to be successful in the custom apparel industry and we have to charge based on the reality of each order – if you are only ordering 6 custom printed t-shirts, we must charge based off of our normal wholesale price list for less than a dozen custom prints. In order for us to remain in business and stay poised for scale-able future growth, it is important that we charge appropriately based on the fixed and variable overhead that comes along with low volume DTG production. The reality is that many small t-shirt startups will order a couple of custom (often very complicated) prints and never be seen or heard from again – if we “hooked up” everyone who came to us who had explosive potential we would be out of business in no time.
With so many factors involved with successful and high quality DTG printing, you might start wondering if there is any way to make your particular brand profitable! The startup costs can be steep, especially when you factor in the multitude of testing that must be done with your particular artwork and garment options, and it could take weeks, months or even years to build up the sort of consistent volume that you could leverage to explore alternative decoration techniques. However, here at Fusion Logistics Group we understand your situation (heck, we’ve been there before) and want to help! As with everything else that we do, we offer a variety of different options to better suit the variety of different business models that we tend to work with on a regular basis.
INTRODUCING THE FLG “POWER SELLER PROGRAM”
The Power Seller Program was created to provide our loyal clients an incentive for consistent business volume, allowing them to become more competitive and profitable in their particular venture(s). I think most people would agree that someone who orders from us on a daily basis and exceeds a particular monthly volume merits an additional level of care and attention to ensure that the relationship remains dynamic, progressive and most importantly – profitable for all parties involved! The basic premise behind this program is simple: show us a certain level of commitment to our ongoing professional relationship, and we will return the favor with preferred pricing on our custom printing services.
Every product that we offer carries a point value, usually equaling a 1-to-1 ratio of products / points. Any client who exceeds 500 points in any particular month (ie, any client who orders 500 or more printed t-shirts) will automatically qualify as a Power Seller client, and will receive our preferred prices on all orders. We want to ensure that you can work with us successfully for years to come – if you ever get to the point where you are printing so many custom t-shirts that it makes sense to get into the DTG printing business yourself, we can certainly help you make that transition; until that point we are here to provide a solid backbone for your business for as long as you need our support.
When taking advantage of our custom DTG printing services, our Power Sellers will receive our “36+” quantity pricing on all of their orders, regardless of individual order volume. If your company is offering “on demand” printing services, you will experience the greatest amount of savings on each individual order, based on the following comparison:
- STANDARD PRICING – Single Print Location on a Dark Garment (up to 12″ x 12″) – $9.00
- POWER SELLER PRICING – Single Print Location on a Dark Garment (up to 12″ x 12″) – $6.00
THAT’S GREAT, BUT HOW DOES THAT HELP ME IF I AM ONLY ORDERING 6 CUSTOM SHIRTS AT A TIME?
If you hang on and put forth the required effort to build a successful long term business, then you clearly deserve a hearty pat on the back, as well as our thanks and appreciation for sticking with us while you grew your brand – this brings with it the financial benefits of using our services on a larger scale. But what about in the beginning? Shouldn’t we offer some sort of option for those just starting out, to gain some of the competitive edge that some of our high volume clients already enjoy? Every single day, people contact our shop and tell us all about their brilliant clothing line or company that is doing something that “nobody else is doing”, and how they are definitely poised for major growth and nearly immediate short term success; of course they expect us to show some sort of special consideration for their brilliance, by providing them with lower prices than we have already carefully calculated and posted clearly on our website, as well as in our Wholesale Printing and Fulfillment Guidelines manual. We usually spend lots of time education our new customers and answering their wide array of questions and explaining to them the major points of consideration for proper DTG printing. In addition, many of these clients want to push the boundaries of DTG printing by utilizing our “JUMBO” sized printing capabilities, specialty print locations (such as over seams or off the cuff or collar of the tee); since most of these people are going to place a single custom order and then disappear into the night, it is very difficult for us to justify compromising our set price list for any person who walks through our door.
What we are looking for is a sort of commitment from our clients that show they are not just here to place a single order and disappear, but rather develop a long term and successful business relationship that is in everyone’s mutual benefit. Since most clients don’t come through the door with 500+ units ready to order, we offer all of our customers the ability to manually enroll in the Power Seller program at the cost of $42 per month. By signing up for the program, you will receive the same price breaks on low-volume orders as those who are already ordering consistent regular volume from us; no need to barter, beg or argue for better pricing at Fusion Logistics Group, since we offer two ways to achieve this for startup and existing businesses!
As a Power Seller (one who has not automatically qualified but who manually enrolls in the program), you would only need to order about 12-14 garments in a month to justify the $42 monthly membership cost – since you will typically save between $3-4 per print, the savings on 12-14 garments would be between $36-56! Anything above and beyond this will yield even greater savings, allowing you the competitive edge you require to launch your brand. If you do not anticipate ordering at least 12-14 units per month, then you certainly do not need to sign up for the Power Seller program, but you will be required to pay our standard wholesale list prices for your custom DTG orders. Of course if any of your orders exceed 36+ units (same design), then you would receive those prices on your order, regardless of your Power Seller status.
If you have any questions about this program, or would like to sign up as a Power Seller member, please call us at (909) 979-DTG1.
Selecting the Proper Garments for DTG Printing
Aside from the quality of the original artwork file, the most critical factor in achieving top quality products with DTG printing is the actual garment that is being printed on. Variables such as cotton content, weight, knit, texture, unique post processing chemical treatments and much more can ultimately effect the results we see on DTG printing, so it is important to select garments that are best suited to this unique method of decoration.
GENERAL RULES OF THUMB WHEN SELECTING GARMENTS FOR DTG PRINTING:
- Garments with a high cotton content print best – try to avoid 50/50 cotton / polyester blends, as the water based inks used for DTG printing do not adhere well to polyester. Additionally, the dyes used to color polyester garments tend to “migrate” into the printed image during the curing stage, causing the image quality to be negatively effected. 100% cotton garments are going to provide the best results, but if you cannot find a suitable 100% cotton option (which is often the case when printing on fleece hoodies) then look for the next best thing, which is typically 80% cotton / 20% polyester.
- Ring spun cotton prints better than standard cotton – the better (smoother) the print surface, the better the end results will be; this is typically true of any type of printing method. Even with your desktop printer at home, you will achieve varying results when printing on standard paper, when compared to the same print on high quality glossy photo paper; the simple truth is that a better printing surface will almost always yield a better print. The softer, finer weave of the ring spun cotton provides a more ideal printing surface for the DTG printer inks, creating a more stunning print that will hold better on the garment during repeated wash cycles. Whenever possible, it is recommended to use ring spun or combed ring spun garments for most DTG printing applications.
- Ribbed texture / patterns can ruin a DTG print – the nature of ribbed fabrics allows for greater stretchability due to the inherent weave of the cloth; for most purposes, this is ideal and does not pose any sort of problem. For DTG printing, on the other hard, this can cause the printed image to break apart at the vertical “channels” that are present in the fabric – this effect cannot be controlled so it is important to test and verify ANY ribbed garments before offering them to your clients. It is your responsibility to select garments that meet your unique expectations and requirements. Since many women’s style garments are naturally ribbed, it is especially important to ensure proper selection of the women’s products; if you cannot find a suitable solution from the list of products that we offer, we invite you to bring your own preferred brand for us to print on, and you will only be charged for the actual decoration of the garments.
