# Getting started printing/ where & How



## Stephanie2016 (Dec 2, 2016)

Hello,

I am starting my t-shirt line but I need advice of printing options how to start printing. Should I consider wholesale and find a local printer. vs printing online. I am totally confused. I would like to get some feedback about where to start with this printing process.


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## STPG Press (Jul 6, 2015)

It would be easier if you gave us more information about what you are trying to do. Are you selling to retail clients? Are you making your own designs and wanting to put them on shirts? Are you wanting to do online sales and distribution?

It sounds like you don't even have a plan for yourself yet, and for that, it's really impossible for us to tell you what you should do. I think you need to figure out your goals, then we can better help guide you in the direction to achieve them.


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## Stephanie2016 (Dec 2, 2016)

I am making my own designs and selling them retail. I am just not sure what printing method I should use


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## STPG Press (Jul 6, 2015)

Well, that really depends. There are no straightforward answers.

If you want to deal with cotton's and blends, you can do screen printing, transfers you print, plastisol transfers you can purchase in bulk, Heat Transfer Vinyl, or just plain vinyl.

You'll need a printer for the transfers; inkjet. A heat press (size is dependent on how big you want your designs to be). Blank stock.

If you want to do 100% polyester shirts, you can add dye sublimation. The advantage is that there is not residual feel to the product once you've pressed the image. The disadvantage is that it's a steep learning curve, you can only use polyester (80/20 poly/cotton is fine, but you'll lose a little of the detail and color). Dye sub will not work on cotton (without buying special paper to essentially create a poly sheet that you print too, then press that poly sheet to the substrate.

Also, the cheapest poly shirts are almost double the cost of the cheapest cotton shirts. Poly will almost alway have a higher cost.

If you want to get plastisol transfers of your designs made by someone else, then all you need is a heatpress. But you'll have to order a large enough quantity in order to make the economics work and keep your price point low enough to make a profit.

If you have a free garage, you could buy a screen printing machine. They made small ones, but unless you are doing a low quantity or as a hobby business, this is not for you. Just find someone to do the screen printing for you, but be prepared to order at least 50 or more for the pricing to be good; over 200 and you're in really good shape.

We won't even discuss Direct-to-Garment right now. If you're just starting, you won't be able to keep the heads on the printer wet enough to not have problems.

Hopefully this helps you a bit. You need to realize that there are lots of people that come on this board and say things like, "I want to start a T-shirt company. How do I start". 99% of them never finish reading the first page of the forums, then we never hear from them again. 

Printing or decorating a shirt is easy and a lot of fun. Printing or decorating a shirt with the sole purpose to turn it into a business, make a profit, and have a sustainable business is an entirely different issue; but that's true with any business. Good Luck.


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

STPG Press gave good advice.

I would add that before investing in equipment or inventory, you might want to do some testing and validation of your designs. One simple way to do this is have a local shop make a DTG print of each of your designs. This will cost more per unit than would work for reselling, but you are getting these made for market testing, not to resell. Wear the shirts around and see what, if any reaction they get. If they don't garner the occasional comment or double look in the real world, they won't online either.

You could also post mockups of the designs on Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook, whatever, and see if they get likes. But unless you already have an online presence that gets lots of traffic, such feedback is likely to be slow and spotty.

Doing the printing and fulfillment via one of the online venues will net you much less $ per unit, but then you won't actually be doing much work or investing much $, either. Using a local screen printer and carrying inventory nets more $ per unit, but you risk holding inventory that will never sell.

In general, I would suggest starting with the low investment, low profit methods. You can always move on to more profitable methods once you refine your designs and succeed in finding a market for them.


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## AnACustomPrints (Dec 1, 2016)

In our un-enlghtened opinion, the fastest and least expensive method to get into the shirt business and control your cash flow while keeping it to a minimum is to:
Focus on cotton shirts, sub out to a full service DTG printer. This will allow you to have many designs available, numerous colored shirts available and spend only after a sale. Your finances can been spent on advertising, website, etc.
With this approach you control all monies, eliminate expense of inventory. Once a market is established you can venture into the other printing methods and take the business in-house.


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## DoubleDaggerTees (Sep 22, 2016)

I agree with AnaCustom. Start by submitting your designs to a site like Redbubble and see what kind of interest you can get.

To see if your designs are enticing, post them to Instagram or Twitter. Instagram is great for visuals, but there is not a direct link from seeing the image to purchasing.

The cheapest I've seen to get your own shirt with your own design on it to have something to show is a company called Gooten. Like Printful, but better pricing. Free to work with (I first heard of them through Shopify but I don't run a shopify site anymore (yet) - not enough revenue!). Then you pick your product and upload your images. It's like having your own personal CafePress (or Redbubble, or whatever) but you have a much lower price for samples.

Some places will even give you a few free samples with your own designs.


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## sinGN (Oct 12, 2016)

Hi,
Start tshirt printing with local machine and buy tshirts from wholesale dealer it is good for beginner.


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