Advantages of Direct To Garment (DTG) Printing

Paul BoodyFeb 22, 2023

Have you ever had customers who wanted to get t shirts printed for a special occasion, only to be shut down by the costs that a t shirt screen printer has to charge for setup? Or have you ever had to have your customers radically adjust their t shirt artwork in order to make it a limited number of colors in order to keep the shirts affordable? Or have you ever lost a customer because you couldn't fulfill their custom printing needs? If you answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, then you may be the perfect candidate to add direct to garment printing to your apparel decorating business.

Here's the scoop!

Everyone in this industry finds themselves taking on more and more things than ever before. Little league baseball, soccer, cheerleading, Relay for Life, Cancer walks, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the list goes on and on. Every one of these demands some sort of customized garments – no matter how large or small. With traditional screen printing, the customer has always had to make a decision between number of colors and pricing. Screen printers generally charge so much per color for setup and again for printing as well as a sliding scale based on the number of shirts ordered. The long and short of it is, the more colors and the less shirts needed, the more dearly one can expect to pay. Enter digital t shirt printing with a direct to garment printer.

With a direct to garment printer, number of colors is no longer an issue. The artist is free to design without constraints and not have to worry about limited colors. It will also open up the range of shirt sizes that can be printed without additional charges for setup. This means you can offer your customers shirts that have art proportioned to the size of the shirt for no extra fee.

Another benefit of a direct to garment printer is that there is no need for an experienced employee who knows how to color separate, burn and reclaim screens as well as register colors. Anyone who can consistently operate a graphics program and regular desktop printer can be trained to operate a digital t shirt printer.