Shirt Orders

[3barefoot 52]

I just got done with making 60 baseball uniforms. When I went to drop them off a friend of the man who ordered the uniforms came up to me and asked me about making him some shirts. I told him I would have to check the price I can get the shirts for and then I would get him a price. He then goes to tell me the one he had on he got made for $7.00. I told him you might want to go back to them cause I can't come close to that. Front & back 1 color. Even using Transfer Express I'm not sure you could come close to $7.00 a shirt. 

Shirt $2-$3 Transfer 1 side is like $3.14 for just the back

The guy I did the uniforms for, this is his 3rd time ordering from me. This time was the biggest he has done, and now has added 20 more shirts. When I said I can't come close to $7.00 a shirt, he told me the said guy wanting the shirts prob doesn't remember what he paid or got the shirts 20 years ago lol

Ever had people come up with a price they said they paid in the past? How did you handle it?

[arty-rc 719]

I would just remind him that in 1970 bananas sold for 12 cents a pound compared to 69 cents now!

[Wildgoose 4,200]

You can't let that stuff get to you. I usually just do about what it sounds like you did and tell him that's a really great price. 9 of 10 times they are full of it and just trying to get you to drop your price. I have researched my local market and am priced just under the norm. There are a couple of screen print places in town that will do them cheaper but they are super slow and tend to make people upset one way or the other. (unreasonable set up fees, messed up shirts etc...) The closest (geographically) to me is really high priced, has a bad attitude AND is slow and this combination tends to send me more work than I can keep up with. I let them know that I am usually lower than anyone (even if only pennies) on the one off short order work and have fairly quick turn around times. I don't charge a set up fee which usually builds friends too. 

[SeeJaysPlace 476]

[Sue2 920]

I think I'll make a t-shirt with that on it........

[3barefoot 52]

Thanks everyone for your input. I haven't even got back with him on a price. I'm thinking it's not worth my time to even try and give this man a price. Plus I have been back over to where he was and he hasn't said another word. 

[Wildgoose 4,200]

One of the golden truths of business: You can't lose money on the job you decide not to do. 

[djque 246]

I have done shirts 1 color front and back for $7.00. did 500 for a club.

500 shirts $600

1 gallon ink $60

$3500 -$660 Profit in pocket $2840 still half the gallon of ink left

grey shirts black ink 1 hit. took 3 1/2 hrs.

its good to have a silkscreen printing business.

[3barefoot 52]

I would love to have screen printing business. A used set up around here is $3,000+ . Maybe one day I will get there. Right now it's just a hobby, not my full time job.

[Wildgoose 4,200]

barefoot you might look into F&M Expressions as a screen print option next time you are needing a low price high volume option. I use them a lot and make bank with very little effort. 

[SeeJaysPlace 476]

On 8/29/2017 at 8:25 PM, djque said:

I have done shirts 1 color front and back for $7.00. did 500 for a club.

500 shirts $600

1 gallon ink $60

$3500 -$660 Profit in pocket $2840 still half the gallon of ink left

grey shirts black ink 1 hit. took 3 1/2 hrs.

its good to have a silkscreen printing business.

Yep, I love owning a screen printing business.

Today I did a job 20 shirts, $440    $22 a shirt they wanted them done in 24 hours so i charged a rush fee, 

They had sizes, sanmar's shirt code what they wanted, and had artwork it was the best time ever and it only took me 40 min to profit $260 

Not a bad day really

But yes I normally charge $6-8 a shirt depending on design and how many and what not!

[3barefoot 52]

I'm thinking about getting a sublimation printer. Also next month I'm going to buy a Anajet DTG printer. Used for $3000.00 Is that a good price?

[Wildgoose 4,200]

Sublimation is pretty awesome but can be technically interesting. For instance you def want your heat press to be able to put out nice consistent heat and pressure over the whole platen and you will be running around the 400deg mark so some of the cheaper units and the clams might struggle to get consistent results. I did some experimenting with colors and you would be surprised how much color variation you can get just from changing the temperature and dwell time slightly. If you are only planning to do shirts I found it a limited market in my area due to needing 100% polyester (for best results) white shirts. Not that much draw for white shirts especially polyester. If you can find a market for all the plethora of other sublimated options there are tons of cool things you can make. 

That DTG doesn't seem too high if all the heads are good. I don't know much about the DTG printers but they sell new for at least double that. There are a few members with DTG so you might get some good input from them. 

[SeeJaysPlace 476]

I do dye sub only %5 of my business I do not like doing it so I really don't try and sell it lol

I do it more for my daughters lol

just like my rhinestones lol

www.seejaysplace.com

 https://www.facebook.com/seejaysplace/

[Wildgoose 4,200]

6 hours ago, SeeJaysPlace said:

I do it more for my daughters lol

just like my rhinestones lol

Those pesky kids. Yup I have a few myself. 

[3barefoot 52]

Wildgoose... you da man lol!

So SeeJays are you saying save my money and don't buy a sub printer? 

I was thinking this way if I ever did an event I could just print out a X amount of different styles to have on had to press. 

[Wildgoose 4,200]

I actually have 7 daughters, yes 7 call me crazy.  So yeah I do quite a bit of in-house work. 

In my humble opinion I doubt you will see much return on your dye-sub printer if you don't already have people asking for it. The best printers are the gel type that can set for extended periods of time but they cost a fortune and you definitely want as wide a format printer as possible for dye-sub. The cheaper route (that I did) is the Epson style printer which is super affordable to get into but they don't like to sit around unused. Dye-Sub is similar to pigment ink with a decent amount of suspended solids which will be likely to cause some clogged nozzles in the Epsons if you don't keep the ink flowing. I had mine running on a daily cycle doing a small print every day but somehow it got messed up and stopped printing them for a week and I didn't notice and the nozzles in the blue are totally plugged and I can't get them to clear out so that printer is a very large paper weight. Fortunately I did enough dye sub when I first got it that it was more than paid for so no big loss. I still have the ink cartridges and if I get an order big enough to warrant it I will just go pick up another 7610 printer for $150 and do the job but it's only rarely that I get anyone wanting sublimated work. 

The main client I thought I would sell to is a volleyball club that has me do a lot of HTV on team uniforms. They often run a set of whites so I had the lightbulb go off and figured surely I could get them some sublimated white uniforms. Problem turned out that their colors are orange and navy and both of those are really hard to get a true orange and a nice DARK navy. The club owner didn't like the blue in particular and I spent a few days trying every color combination and temperature etc to try and get it dark and true navy enough to suit her but never got there. The big dog sublimators must have a lot better system for doing spot colors because the ones you buy are nice and vibrant but I couldn't match it so that never panned out. Luckily I have a couple softball teams who are less picky and we did a couple sets of sublimated uniforms for them that year and it more than covered my investment costs so it ended up ok. They have since stuck mostly with HTV as well just due to the vibrancy and contrast of the colors so the printer sat for months and months with only my own piddling around with dog tags and flip flops (the flip flops were cool BTW) for my own kids or gifts for friends. That's my experience. 

I think if you did sublimated mugs and trinkets there is probably a large market out there but I don't run a brick and mortar so there is no real way to showcase any of that without just doing freebies and handing them out and it didn't produce results in my circle of clients. That's business. 

[3barefoot 52]

That's a lot to think about. Here is the one I was looking at to get.. http://www.heatpressnation.com/sawgrass-virtuoso-sg400-complete-sublimation-printer-kit.html

I think I would also use it to do license plates & key chain blanks. I have a baseball team that has me do all his stuff, then I have my Son's travel ballteam I'm sure I could sale them stuff lol I think I would keep it running if nothing else making me a shirt or for a family member every week. The one I'm looking at also has a refurbished one for like $400.  You gave me a lot of input to think about.

[MZ SKEETER 4,720]

You might like some of the deals that UScutter has.on that printer

http://www.uscutter.com/Sawgrass-Virtuoso

 

[3barefoot 52]

42 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

You might like some of the deals that UScutter has.on that printer

http://www.uscutter.com/Sawgrass-Virtuoso

They have the same price new. HPN has a refurbished one with the same 1 year warranty as a new one for $200 cheaper. 

[MZ SKEETER 4,720]

1 minute ago, 3barefoot said:

They have the same price new. HPN has a refurbished one with the same 1 year warranty as a new one for $200 cheaper. 

ok    Saving $200 is a great deal.   

[SeeJaysPlace 476]

On 9/13/2017 at 5:12 AM, 3barefoot said:

Wildgoose... you da man lol!

So SeeJays are you saying save my money and don't buy a sub printer? 

I was thinking this way if I ever did an event I could just print out a X amount of different styles to have on had to press. 

Depends on your market, My Dye Sub Printer collects more dust then I use it!
I mainly use it for my kids projects! 
and I do not buy ink from sawgrass, I buy 3rd party ink and it works good off of amazon $49 instead of $325 from sawgrass

Dye sub is good for coffee mugs, and mouse pads, name tags and stuff like that. Christmas ornaments.  But I do not do any of those really.

 

I would buy plastisol transfers  and bring a heat press and some blank shirts

[3barefoot 52]

Is there a printer I could get for Plastisol Transfers or just order them online?

[SeeJaysPlace 476]

On 10/3/2017 at 5:20 AM, 3barefoot said:

Is there a printer I could get for Plastisol Transfers or just order them online?

nope a screen printer has to print them for you