# local or online printing service?



## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

Hello everyone! I'm seeking good advice on whether or not to go with a local printer or an online fulfillment service for my online t-shirt business. 

Please chime in and let me know if I"m getting a good deal, ok deal or if I would be better off going with an online fulfillment service! I may throw in a free t-shirt for the most helpful post!  


*My requirements:*

Real baked-in screen printing (no cheap iron-on stuff)
Large shirts sizes (at least 4-5XL)
Shirts that run a little bigger/taller than average (not tight fitting)
100% cotton preferred
2-3 week production/delivery-to-door time
I do my own shipping using USPS priority mail, so no need for a dropshipper
Low "minimum order" amounts (12 shirts or less)
*What my local printer quoted me:*

Real baked-in screen printing (white ink on black shirt)
Hanes Heavyweight Beefy T #5180
2 week production time (to order shirt, make screen and print)
NO minimum order (but prefers I run at least a 'few' shirts per order)
*Total COST per finished shirt: $8.00*​ 

*Extra fees:*

One time fee of $15 for the screen
Additional $1.00 to 'flash' a shirt (required to print white ink on black shirt)
Additional $1.50 for each size increase past 1XL
Additional $1.50 for each additional ink color
When I began my t-shirt endevour, I wanted to produce shirts that cost me $5 and sold for $15. However, if my cost is $8 per shirt, I will have to sell them for $18.00 to stay at my lowest acceptable profit margin of $10 per shirt. 

Not to mention, if I start running more than one color (which I plan on) my cost is going to go through the roof ($1.50 per color). How can anyone make a profit off a 5 color screen printed shirt??

Thanks and I look foward to hearing your responses! 

Russ


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

The only way you are going to get your per-unit cost down to $5 is to print them yourself, I'm afraid. All of my research has pointed towards 20. Whether you are in the US, Mexico, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia etc..., 20 of their currency seems to be the average cost of a t-shirt there.

To answer your other question about making a profit on 5-color prints: print thousands, your price drops. This is why you see so many one-color designs on the market. Reversing this theory is also why I won't pay $20 for a white-on-black t-shirt anymore!


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## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

Thanks for the reply! 

Do you think $8 for a white ink on black hanes Beefy T is a decent price? 
Do you consider $18 too high to sell for such a shirt?

Are there any online printers that can beat or meet this price range with comparable products?

Thanx again!


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

I don't have a reference for what prices are like in your region, but I know my company would charge about that for a thick, 100% cotton substrate and one color.

We have a minimum order too; if you found a guy without one, jump at it.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> When I began my t-shirt endevour, I wanted to produce shirts that cost me $5 and sold for $15. However, if my cost is $8 per shirt, I will have to sell them for $18.00 to stay at my lowest acceptable profit margin of $10 per shirt.


Your problems are your minimum quantities. With just 12 pieces being printed you aren't going to get decent pricing anywhere. Screen printing gives you discounts for ordering larger quantities.

Since you're going to be doing all the shipping yourself, you don't really need a fulfillment company, but it wouldn't hurt to shop around to different printers and ask them the pricing for the same job specs to see if you're getting good pricing. That's just good business to get multiple bids on the same job.



> Not to mention, if I start running more than one color (which I plan on) my cost is going to go through the roof ($1.50 per color). How can anyone make a profit off a 5 color screen printed shirt??


By either ordering more quantity of the shirts from the screen printer or using a different printing method like screen printed heat transfers.


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

If you can increase your quantity I think you will see a significant drop in the price.

You might think about doing fewer designs, with a higher quantity of shirts per design.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

BlobSquatch said:


> Please chime in and let me know if I"m getting a good deal, ok deal or if I would be better off going with an online fulfillment service!


For no minimums it's a pretty great deal. That said, if you were printing in any kind of normal quantity it's not a great price. Given that your printer sounds pretty accomodating I'd find out what his quantity prices are like and consider using the same printer, but with a larger volume.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

cycocyco said:


> Whether you are in the US, Mexico, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia etc..., 20 of their currency seems to be the average cost of a t-shirt there.


Not at all true of Australia.

The average cost of a t-shirt here is $45-65 AUD, which is about $35-50 USD. There are places selling for $30 AUD (~$23.50 USD), but $20 is basically bargain rack stuff.


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

Solmu said:


> Not at all true of Australia.
> 
> The average cost of a t-shirt here is $45-65 AUD, which is about $35-50 USD. There are places selling for $30 AUD (~$23.50 USD), but $20 is basically bargain rack stuff.




Well, it's not untrue then: $20 AUD would be perfectly acceptible for a shirt. Mind you, HOLY CRAP. Is that seriously what you have to pay there? Give me an idea what you get for that much money. Seriously, this is invaluable information. 

I thought we were bad here, in Canada. We're about 15-20% more than the U.S. market.


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

Wait, if $65 can be the average cost of a t-shirt, does that mean you find them in the $85+ range? That's insane.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

cycocyco said:


> Well, it's not untrue then: $20 AUD would be perfectly acceptible for a shirt.


Not really: it would indicate poor quality or mass production. The price would be suspiciously low.

This isn't significantly different to the UK market - 20 quid is about USD $40.



cycocyco said:


> Give me an idea what you get for that much money.


The quality is all over the place, and probably doesn't have as much correlation to price as you might expect. Plenty of local sweatshop free stuff as well. It just depends.

Depending on where you're shopping, a lot of the time a shirt sewn and screenprinted in south east Asia, with the varying quality you'd expect (from terrible through great).

In design terms, independent designers in a wide range of styles. We have some successful street companies that are doing okay internationally (think The Hundreds basically), but our market really isn't any one thing. The market is just a bit different here. The big difference is that we don't have a thriving bottom end of the market. Instead that demographic wears surf brands like Billabong, Quicksilver, etc.



cycocyco said:


> Wait, if $65 can be the average cost of a t-shirt, does that mean you find them in the $85+ range? That's insane.


Pretty easily, yeah. But then that's no different in the US - there are plenty of shirts selling for USD $90+ if you know where to look. Granted it would be considered more normal here.

$45-65 is the normal "range" - anything in those prices is not unusual. Outside of it is less normal, but I do know of a site that charges $80 AUD for Gildan shirts for example. I also know of some (particularly lowgrade) that charge around $22.



I don't see this trend lasting though. For example there's a retail space here that charges a flat rate for all their stock: $45 for one, $60 for two. Their quality is abysmal, but it will start trickling down. More and more competition is starting to open up, prices will likely be driven down over the next few years.


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## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

First off, I'd like to say this is a great forum! I never imagined I would see so many responses in one days time. Thank you all for your input!

By increasing 'quantity' do you mean, stocking up on shirts or stocking shirts AND having them printed? Do most shirt printers give a bigger discount if you include printing in with the blanks order?

I do see one potential issue with stocking my shirts. *What sizes do I stock? *

I don't have a lot of money to stock up on shirt sizes that may never sale. Is there a trade secret percentage breakdown for stocking sizes? 50% 1XL, 20% Large, 20% Medium, 10% Small? I would imagine that stocking 'oversized' shirts (that cost extra) is probably not a wise idea? 

Rodney, I scanned through all the different heat transfer methods and from what I saw, the plastisol seems to be the closest quality to actual screen printing. On average, how much money would I be saving to use this method over screen printing?

Thanks again everyone!


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

BlobSquatch said:


> By increasing 'quantity' do you mean, stocking up on shirts or stocking shirts AND having them printed? Do most shirt printers give a bigger discount if you include printing in with the blanks order?


I was referring to stocking up on printed shirts, as in instead of printing 15 shirts per design, print 50. You should get a much cheaper price from your printer.



BlobSquatch said:


> I do see one potential issue with stocking my shirts. *What sizes do I stock? *
> 
> I don't have a lot of money to stock up on shirt sizes that may never sale. Is there a trade secret percentage breakdown for stocking sizes? 50% 1XL, 20% Large, 20% Medium, 10% Small? I would imagine that stocking 'oversized' shirts (that cost extra) is probably not a wise idea?


It depends on who you are selling to, but these threads should be helpful:

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/general-t-shirt-selling-discussion/t8971.html 

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/wholesale-t-shirts/t5688.html



BlobSquatch said:


> On average, how much money would I be saving to use this method over screen printing?


You should get some quotes on your designs from companies that make plastisol transfers and compare to your local printing rates.


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

Solmu said:


> Not at all true of Australia.
> 
> The average cost of a t-shirt here is $45-65 AUD, which is about $35-50 USD. There are places selling for $30 AUD (~$23.50 USD), but $20 is basically bargain rack stuff.



And in the UK, you can buy a shirt from GBP10-GBP60.

So that would be from AUS$24 to $150. And that top end wouldn't be surprising at all.

But then, the pound is stronger than the US$ or Aus$, and we earn more....so it sort of evens out.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

BlobSquatch said:


> Do most shirt printers give a bigger discount if you include printing in with the blanks order?


Kind of. Quite a lot of printers charge you more for printing if you don't buy blanks from them. So unless you get a particularly good price on your blanks it might just be cheaper to get them through them. But it's more of a surcharge if you don't rather than a discount if you do.



BlobSquatch said:


> I would imagine that stocking 'oversized' shirts (that cost extra) is probably not a wise idea?


Maybe not at first (if on a tight budget and looking at small runs), but don't completely overlook it, as it will make up a reasonable percentage of your sales (still a minority though, so at first you'll need to concentrate where the most money is).


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## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

I have to admit, I've learned more in the past day from visiting this forum than I have for the past month without it.  

Thank you for the sizing link's, they helped me think about my demographic and which sizes I should stock. For me, it's mostly geeks (like myself) which means BIGGER sizes. I've read elsewhere that the Hanes Beefy's run a bit big anyway, so hopefully a 1XL will fit like it should (and allow for shrinkage). Has anyone here compared the Beefys to other popular brands and noticed this?

So, last night I spent a substantial amount of time looking over PrintMojo. I ran a price comparison against my local printers sevice and was shocked to see that PrintMojo was only .03 higher per/shirt. Given the fact that they handle shipping, cc processing and packaging I was just about to wave bye-bye to my local printer. 

*Then I got to the $3.50 fulfillment fee. Ouch!*

Apparently, each time someone places a shirt order from my PrintMojo store, it's going to cost me a fee of $3.50 - that's not shipping either, it's a flat fee that comes out of my profits. Suddenly, that $8.00 total shirt cost I was drooling over is now $11.50. No more drooling.  

Sure, I could stock MORE shirts to reduce my cost, but I'd have to order several hundred shirts to get my total cost back down to $8.00 - and that means a huge investment that I don't have at this time. On the other hand, my local printer is more than happy to print up 10 shirts for $8.00 with no fulfillment fee.

I doubt I'm going to find a better deal than what PrintMojo offers (considering my requirements) so it looks like it's the local printer for me! It's a shame that the fulfillment price is so high because they look like a great company and I'm sure their shirt printing is high quality. Plus, it would be nice to not have the hastle with shipping/packaging/processing. 

But, I would rather that $3.50 be in my pocket and not theirs, so paying $8.00 for a heavy duty shirt w/ real screen printing doesnt seem so much now when I go to my local printer.


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

I think you're looking at it all wrong. For that $3.50 you are getting a tun of advantage. PrintMojo is doing everything for you; for you to sustain a warehouse, stock, staff, and shipping yourself, you are looking at way more than $3.50 a unit. Now, granted, you can put that $3.50 back in the company kitty, but your risks are scaled 50 fold to do it.

As for your quantity issues, ask your printer where his price-breaks are: they are likely a multiple of 12 units like 48, 72, 96, etc (our's are 24, 74 and 144). You're going to have to be confident of your designs selling, and order a whack of them, there is no such thing as a 'risk and responsibility free business'.

Sorry buddy. Roll the dice.


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## cycocyco (Mar 2, 2007)

Solmu said:


> $45-65 is the normal "range" - anything in those prices is not unusual. Outside of it is less normal, but I do know of a site that charges $80 AUD for Gildan shirts for example. I also know of some (particularly lowgrade) that charge around $22.


Can you give me an idea how the AU market compares at the wholesale level? What do you pay there for that same unprinted Gildan shirt?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Given the fact that they handle shipping, cc processing and packaging I was just about to wave bye-bye to my local printer.
> 
> Then I got to the $3.50 fulfillment fee. Ouch!
> 
> Apparently, each time someone places a shirt order from my PrintMojo store, it's going to cost me a fee of $3.50 - that's not shipping either, it's a flat fee that comes out of my profits. Suddenly, that $8.00 total shirt cost I was drooling over is now $11.50. No more drooling.


A few things to keep in mind:

The fulfillment fee is per order, not per shirt. So if you sold 3 shirts in one order, that would only be one $3.50 fulfillment fee.

And the biggest one pointed out by cycocyco, that $3.50 per order fulfillment fee is only charged when you actually make a sale. 

In that fee you are covering your monthly hosting, credit card processing, folding and bagging of the shirts, warehousing, customer service for your customers, etc. All the stuff you would have to pay for if you setup your own hosting account, merchant account, online store, etc. The customer pays the shipping cost to get the printed shirt to their door, so that's a cost you don't have to worry about.

So you have to make sure you're comparing apples to apples 

So that $8 t-shirt will still be $8 at your local place or online, but you can either pay a $3.50 fulfillment fee with no monthly fees OR you can pay monthly hosting fees, merchant account fees, etc. 

In some cases, it may be less expensive to only be paying $3.50 per order instead of the other monthly fees involved in setting up an online shop.


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## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

I'm starting to see your point guys.  

I've been experimenting with alternatives to Print Mojo to see how much I would save by doing all the work myself. Here's what I discovered so far:

1. Listing a shirt on Ebay costs $1.45 (with a few vital selling options) AND an $.88 fee for using PayPal when it sells. On top of that, it costs $15.00 a month to run a store on Ebay - which didn't help my sales at all. The only plus to using Ebay is that Google listed my page at #1 for my shirt keywords! During my research, I've yet to see a PrintMojo store rank as high as Ebay listings.

2. CafePress charges nothing, but they don't do real screen printing, their prices are marked up too high to make a decent profit AND it's very difficult to get your shirt seen, as the entire site is flooded with similar shirts of every design you can 
imagine. As with Ebay, CafePress also lists high in Google searches - so it's not a complete waste of time. At this time, I use it just to test new designs, but, the over-saturation problem is keeping me from ranking high enough to sell any shirts.

3. Selling off my own personal website hasnt taken off yet as I'm still constructing and SEO'ing it. However, for every shirt I sell it will take me 2-4 weeks to have them printed and I will have to ship them myself. I'm losing out on $30 year for website hosting, but I'm not losing money on shipping when I use USPS (and their free packaging). I will have to manage my orders, ship my products each week and print invoices - so I can see where this could become time consuming. Plus, my local printer still says he doesnt mind running small orders (10 shirts at a time).


I suppose my biggest question right now is, do Print Mojo stores rank high in Google? By that, I mean is there any benefit to using an official PM store over a non-affiliated personal website? 

It's apparent that Google indexes CP and Ebay with high regard, so is the same true for PM stores?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I suppose my biggest question right now is, do Print Mojo stores rank high in Google? By that, I mean is there any benefit to using an official PM store over a non-affiliated personal website?


Some do and some don't  Just as some ebay stores and listing will rank high in google and some won't (same with CP stores).

It's all about how much promotion and search engine optimization you put into it (and how competitive the keywords are).

Honestly, I would make sure you concentrate on how much marketing YOU can do, not how much the service will do for you. That's going to be what makes or breaks your business. 

Any marketing by ebay, printmojo, cafepress, etc is only going to get you "so far". The really successful stores find many other ways to market their products.


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## BlobSquatch (Mar 1, 2007)

Off-site marketing will make or break any online store, however, I was very impressed by the way Google ranked my shirt number one - only 3 days after I posted it on Ebay. The second listing on Google was a CP store that had very few keywords on it. Neither of these results were the product of mass-marketing. Just a keyword or two. 

Google ranking is greatly determained by the amount of backlinks a page has, so this made me wonder how my Ebay shirt and the CP store got top ranking on Google - considering that there are 0 backlinks to my 3-day-old shirt listing on Ebay. 

My only answer to this conundrum is that Google, Ebay and CP are partners. There has to be some kick-backs going on behind the scenes, otherwise my Ebay listing should have been # 1,000,000....

Now, outside of 'extra' marketing campaigns, have you ever noticed that a PM store ranks high like the Ebay and CP listings do out of the box?

I'm not saying this is a 'bad thing' if PM stores don't rank well out of the box. I'm mostly curious to see if a PM store/site has a Google advantage like Ebay and CP do.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

BlobSquatch said:


> My only answer to this conundrum is that Google, Ebay and CP are partners. There has to be some kick-backs going on behind the scenes, otherwise my Ebay listing should have been # 1,000,000....


eBay has a pagerank of 9 and CP of 8, so it seems more likely that Google just automatically gives a high ranking to sub-pages of sites with a high PR.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

It depends on where exactly you saw the ebay listing. Was it in the actual results or in the froogle results that show up sometimes above the regular search results.

It also depends on which search terms you used.

Listings also can show up near the top one day (as a "fresh" result) and then drop a few days later into the "normal" search engine results.

It could be that ebay submits a feed/sitemap of every new listing so that it shows up within 24 hours of it being listed. That's not any special arrangement with ebay/google. Any site can do it.

To answer your question though, I don't think that you'll get the same "instant" search engine listing from a PrintMojo store. However, it's not hard to get a site listed in Google.


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## TripleT (Apr 29, 2007)

Interesting Thread, BlobSquatch, so what happened? Local or Online?


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## Tennille (May 30, 2007)

Solmu said:


> Not at all true of Australia.
> 
> The average cost of a t-shirt here is $45-65 AUD, which is about $35-50 USD. There are places selling for $30 AUD (~$23.50 USD), but $20 is basically bargain rack stuff.


Hi,

Great to talk to someone from Oz! Any chance you may of some contacts for T-shirt printing in Perth?  Or should I out source to the eastern states?

T


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

There are lots of members from Australia on the forums  Check out these these topics: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/tags/australia/


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## kidevans (Apr 12, 2009)

I also looked into PrintMojo as a service, and thought i would just sell them locally, so got a quote from circleRprinting their affiliate service. (only printing, not selling, etc.) Later I found a service in Canada, which I will most likely use if the quote is reasonable. Because they have no minimums, create free sample shirts, and are in Canada, so I save on shipping!

IMO PM has its pros and cons like the others have said.
it all depends on what your demographic is and what you have the time/money/motivation/knowledge/skill to do.


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## HellaCaj (May 1, 2009)

It's more cost effective to outsource it, raise your price or lower your profit margin rather than buying a whole unit at the moment. Low quantities aren't cost effective and it only eats away at the profits.

People are always worried about the price. They want cheap cheap service and a deal that will only benefit them. This business is expensive. When you start bringing in the dough then you can lease a machine and cater to those same kind of people. You'll see.

Oh, and it almost always cost more but I try to keep the money local, in my own neighborhood rather than online.


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