Recommendations for Tshirt printing/fufillment

sysprogrammer

Hi Folks,

We are looking at selling a few T-shirts with our logo on them via our website and I am here to ask for advice / recommendations for a company who can manage the printing and drop-shipping in Ireland and the U.K.

T-shirts are not our primary business but a lot of our guests are asking for them so I'd like to investigate the idea.

We have our own design and I'd welcome anyone's thoughts or experience with using a 3rd party T-shirt provider.

Cheers,
Sysprog

dbran

Try these guys.

http://www.fashionflo.ie/

dbran

sysprogrammer

Thanks Dbran , I am sending over samples to receive a per print quote.

They will investigate drop shipping for me but it is not something they do currently.

Any other recommendations would be appreciated, one off T-shirt printing and delivering in Ireland.

Thanks Everyone,
Sysprog

sysprogrammer

a little update to the E&BM forum.

I contacted numerous Irish and UK printing companies and tried to get them to consider drop shipping, And all of them just wanted bulk orders of the same design. None were willing to offer individual prints on Tee's and hoodies.

So, in the end we purchased the equipment ourselves. An A3 CISS-Printer and a Stahl Heat press.

This allows us to make one off custom t-shirts and also allows us to print out any hi-res photo's. no need for batch runs either which is a plus.

The new shop website will run on woocommerce with stripe and paypal integration.

We will use a national courier company for deliveries and we have pre-purchased 100 deliveries at a reduced rate (to aid testing the setup).

So once our designs are finished and the online shop is built I will update here again.

I would like to thank everyone for their help and PM's so far, I really appreciate you taking the time.

Cheers,
SysProg

post script: is there a market for Tee's with some of the two Pedro's comments on them I wonder ;-)

jimmii

I'd buy those shirts! I bought the same equipment and it's been a nightmare getting the printing working the printer just doesn't like ciss at all for some reason!

sysprogrammer

Hiya Jimmii,

Viscosity of the sublimation ink and the very fast drying rates of ink on the print head mean you need to use a force fed cleaner.

secondly the override chip to fool the printer ink reader has to be working correctly.

These 3 issues account for 99% of the problems with CISS (imho)

Jimmii,you contribute so much to this forum , so if you are in Dublin I'll fix it for you, else let me see the test print via skype|Youtube.

Cheers,
SysProg (maybe this should change to TeeMaker!)

jimmii

I'm in Edinburgh now but thanks for offering! I haven't spent much time on it to be honest put it together and it just kept saying paper jam and I just left it too much other stuff to be doing I'll get round to it in the end.

pedroeibar1

sysprogrammer wrote: »

a little update to the E&BM forum.
Cheers,
SysProg
post script: is there a market for Tee's with some of the two Pedro's comments on them I wonder ;-)

:D
There is a market for everything; profit comes from demand, margin, volume and economic order quantities. This Pedro many years ago concessioned space to a young lady with many attributes, just two of which were a heat press and volumes of transfers. So long ago in fact that W & P McCarter of Buncrana manufactured and supplied the shirts! (And the other Pedro supplied the bags, the era of Jim Fitzpartick and Che, Rolling Stones’ tongue and lips, etc.)
Easy to get sales yearlong for gimmick Tshirts, (souvenir-type, puns/jokes, etc) at very low volume but it would be impossible to make profit outside July/August. Why did the Italian immigrants move into the Fish & chip sector from ice-cream? Event-type T-shirts are 'sewn-up' by franchise.
I realize that this is not bread and butter and a side-line project/product, but the best of luck with it. If your product/business is on the Tshirt, people are paying you to advertise your name/logo, which is success in itself.

sysprogrammer

Well I must say it is comforting to know that many have given the t-shirt market a whirl :-) I can only imagine some of the designs you must have sold Pedro......

I am lucky in the fact that my business is an all year round event , and I have a high throughput of guests all wanting a souvenir shirt.

I would make it a free t-shirt as part of the welcome pack, Alas not all people come in the same shape and size !

Profit per item is 3 x cost on Tee's. With the highest cost being either the delivery or hooded garment.

hth,
sysprog

Kenny Logins

sysprogrammer wrote: »

a little update to the E&BM forum.

I contacted numerous Irish and UK printing companies and tried to get them to consider drop shipping, And all of them just wanted bulk orders of the same design. None were willing to offer individual prints on Tee's and hoodies.

So, in the end we purchased the equipment ourselves. An A3 CISS-Printer and a Stahl Heat press.

This allows us to make one of custom t-shirts and also allows us to print out any hi-res photo's. no need for batch runs either which is a plus.

The new shop website will run on woocommerce with stripe and paypal integration.

We will use a national courier company for deliveries and we have pre-purchased 100 deliveries at a reduced rate (to aid testing the setup).

So once our designs are finished and the online shop is built I will update here again.

I would like to thank everyone for their help and PM's so far, I really appreciate you taking the time.

Cheers,
SysProg

post script: is there a market for Tee's with some of the two Pedro's comments on them I wonder ;-)

Are you offering a dropshipping service?

sysprogrammer

It may be a bit early to say, but I would certainly like to try.
drop me a pm with contact details if you like and I'll come back to you.

Sys

sysprogrammer

Another Update if anyone is interested.

After much experimenting with printers, colour gamut's, spectrum's and photometer's, we are now at the stage of printing Tee's and Coffee Mugs.

I've learnt a lot and broken a few bit's along the way. And I've visited a few printers outside the Dublin area to ask them about their work and gain advice, which has been invaluable.

I chose to contact 2 printers outside Dublin (as they won't see me as direct competition) and asked if they would have me in for a few hours and secondly if they had old equipment they might like to sell me.

Well the training and advice from spending the day with someone was really what ironed out the last few issues and I hope to finally begin selling by next week.

I wanted a higher quality garment than those currently printed in t-shirt kiosks and this requires having a solid colour palette and technique. Not as easy as it sounds.

Lastly is the courier contracts for delivering online orders (we sell in shops and on our coaches too)

I am down to Fastway and SDS for fulfillment services and hope to sign the deal there shortly.

And once a courier company is in place then we can begin to offer drop shipping for other individuals / boardsie's and hopefully increase throughput.

I have fingers covered in various ink and my friends are beginning to wonder why my nails are 'done' but it will soon be worth the effort.

All comments and advice are welcome, and I hope to post up some sample prints soon.

SysProg

eleventy6

Hi,

Do you have a website to look at your work.

sysprogrammer

no site yet , sent you a pm for whatsapp

cheers
sys

davindub

Can i recommend you get your accountant to check your set up, I can't remember what the reports are like in Woo-commerce, but you will need to be able to reconcile the website to paypal and stripe, this sounds easy but actually quite tough, stripe and paypal don't produce monthly statements that are detailed enough, etc. I look after one website that uses shopify + paypal/stripe, never reconciles.

Better to discover any shortfalls in information at the start of the year than at the end!

BTW wordpress is easy to add content /themes but make sure your site is optimised for speed. Make sure you get a good developer who understands what that means.

sysprogrammer

thanks davindub , I will have to meet with him so as we use paypal and stripe.
very useful to know, cheers

sysprogrammer

Well , I hope I don't get in trouble for resurrecting my own thread.

I'm thinking of drop shipping Tee's and Hoodies, for fellow Boardsies and a few clients of mine.

Can people tell me any pitfalls to watch out for ?

we make a merchantable product , so I'm not worried about returns, more worries about overly dramatic business owners.

Thanks,
Sysprog

Trojan

Can you explain a bit more what you're offering? Are you offering the print-on-demand dropshipping service to businesses, so they can send their customers to you?

sysprogrammer

Hi Trojan,

I guess that's why I'm posting here first to discuss the idea, and see what would be feasible (without advertising).

I can/could do print on demand , with no minimum number of tee's.

However I'm also cautious about too much volume being counter productive for my own merchandising.

I don't see anyone else doing this in Ireland, and one or two people have asked about this (including myself).

Or I could do a batch of tee's & hoodies for a decent wholesale price.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried this in the past and how did it go ?

codoubler

Hey Sysprog,

I'm currently trying to find someone in Ireland to do DTG t-shirt printing for an E-Commerce business I'm starting but am struggling. I'm now looking into buying my own printer but would ideally like to avoid the large upfront cost.

I'd be interested to learn more about how you went about finding a printer and what issues you've had doing your own printing, mind if I email you?

Cheers,
codoubler

sysprogrammer

Sure, I'll do the printing & fulfillment ;-)

Yes of course, feel free to call me , I'm only happy to chat away.

pm sent.
cheers,
Sys

thecelt

sysprogrammer wrote: »

Sure, I'll do the printing & fulfillment ;-)

Yes of course, feel free to call me , I'm only happy to chat away.

pm sent.
cheers,
Sys

Are you still printing tshirts etc?

Trojan

Hey sysprogrammer, how's business going now? I hope it's going well despite the madness.

Can you share your website link? Love to check out what you have to offer.

sysprogrammer

Morning All,

Yes i am still Print On Demand for a number of customers, albeit they order in boxes of 20.
I tend to shy away from individual orders now as I'm too busy.

If a boardsie wants a box of tees to get them started then drop me a pm and I'll do them at a discount.

Cheers,
Sys

Alex77777

There a DTG print on Demand fulfillment based in Ireland called CustomPrintsApparel.ie

Hope that helps.

sysprogrammer

Thanks for the link @Alex77777 , I had a look and their prices seem kinda high.

I'm not a fan of this sales tactic either really, I prefer to simply give the prices and save myself answering more queries

I run my own Print On Demand now , for my tour business and a few of the companies we visit.

While I rarely look for individual customers anymore, I'm happy to help any fellow boardsies get started.

@Trojan , I'll dm you my site link if that's okay. we just launched a new project and I'm flat out , which is a good problem to have. I did contact the local Enterprise office about hiring staff and I'm waiting on a reply.

**tried to DM you and got an error 500 ** must be something b0rked in the background.

would welcome a chat any day as your faster than light at replying.

Enjoy your weekend,

Sysprog

EIREHotspur

Great thread and I like the fact back when you started that you were not put off and went and purchased your own equipment.

The way I see it for your Business it is made for Social Media and a Shop linked to your website....make sure you have facebook pixel code in your website to keep an eye on who has visited from FB and you could spend a bit of money on FB adverts.

Custom products is a huge thing and your Business is made for that....are you planning on extending your products to other things?

BTW I think 3 to 4 diff people asked you for a website link....is it a State secret or....????

sysprogrammer

Hiya EireHotspur,

I was kinda forced into buying/building my own equipment due to the prices I was being charged by other vendors, it just made the most sense really.

thanks for the tip regarding pixel code , I will take a look at that over on the university of youtube.

And again thanks for the smile, yeah the website is in 'sunset' if that is the right term , basically I don't really have capacity for more customers at present (which is a problem in itself). So I currently only print for myself and a few of the other business' I work with.

There is enough volume of printing to do as it is . and custom apparel is not my main business (I run tours).

I'll always help out fellow boardsies , in an effort to return the favour of all the advice I've received here over the years. So if you need printing let me know.

Cheers,

Sys

jinish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117796370#Comment_117796370

Hello

I am thinking of starting a small custom t shirt printing business business from home . Any help would be. Appreciated

sysprogrammer

My biggest piece of advice would be 'Do not chase individual orders'.

What sort of advice are you looking for ? do you have equipment ?

-SP

Trojan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083813#Comment_121083813

Glad to see you still around, and going strong. I didn't really reply to that one as fast as lightning, but if you can't DM, email info at the domain in my sig and I'll get it 😁

sysprogrammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121109842#Comment_121109842

Likewise Trojan, I'm glad to see you are still offering your advice here (are you still with the local enterprise?).

While I still run coaches and print merch, I'm trying to automate myself out of the business.

We have drivers now who run the tours, Merch is printed in batches when needed , and ideally I'd like to hire the right manager to replace me.

SP