“I started two and a half years ago, and I was printing direct from the word go,” she says.

When Warren got started, she says there were very few print machines that were suitable for her purposes. 

“Finding equipment and suppliers was challenging,” she says. “I was fortunate that the Fespa  exhibition happened to be in London when I first started thinking about the business. I spoke to a lot of printer manufacturers there, including the one who eventually supplied my printer.”

Anyone looking to set up shop with a DTG printer these days will have a lot more choice than Warren did back then. For example, Epson has its SureColor SC-F2000 DTG printer, Kornit has a range of options including the Avalanche series, Mutoh offers several options, including the ValueJet 405GT, and Ricoh recently showcased the AnaJet mPower mP10i. 

So clearly this is a blossoming market. And yet, just because manufacturers are jumping at the buzz of DTG and hence there is more choice, does that necessarily mean print companies should be following where they lead? 

Neil Greenhalgh, product manager for production LFP for Epson Europe, unsurprisingly thinks this is a market printers should certainly be considering. 

“We see the DTG market continuing to grow, with the demand for bespoke, personalised and short-run output from digital technology driving new revenue streams for business,” he explains. “There is considerable potential for new start-ups or existing businesses to get involved; whether they’re print service providers, retailers, designers or entrepreneurs, there is the opportunity to get creative and produce a wide range of items – not just the traditional polo, t-shirts and bags but items such as cushion covers, tea towels, aprons…”

Luke Smith, technical sales manager at Adelco, a UK distributor for Kornit machines, agrees. 

“With personalisation, smaller run lengths and more colours, DTG is becoming ever more popular,” he explains. 

Both manufacturers clearly have reason to talk up the market but those already adopting DTG technology do confirm the need for these machines is growing.

“We use DTG for short, express turnarounds for t-shirts and polo shirts,” reveals Andrew McLellan, customer happiness manager for the UK for Helloprint. “The production speed of this enables us to print, ship and deliver smaller runs (up to 25 units) within a 48 hour window – this is crucial to fit within our USP of affordable and quick printing.”

That sort of service is simply not possible, he says, with more traditional garment printing techniques.  

“Screen and transfer printing often has increased start up costs, which can make smaller runs prohibitively expensive for both the customer and ourselves, and in some cases, has an increased turnaround time,” he explains. 

Cost-effective

Alberto Sbabo, marketing director at PrintSome, says the DTG technology is particularly important for catering for demands traditional methods cannot fulfil. 

“We [use it] for tougher designs,” he explains. “Screen printing would be our primary and preferable method for printing, but sometimes the design or quantity does not allow this to be cost effective.”

Greenhalgh confirms that DTG is opening doors for printers to offer more products to market, and quicker. 

“Digital direct-to-garment printing can be a faster, more cost-effective process than traditional screen printing as it is quicker to set up the print job – no need for film and screen set-ups – and less inks and consumables are used,” he says. “Low-volume, short runs or single one-offs can be produced quickly and on demand, so there is no need to hold large stocks. Every item can be different: for example one design can be printed on to several different sized t-shirts or include a unique element in the design for each one, which isn’t feasible or cost-effective with screen printing as every shirt would have to be set up individually, making it a long and costly process.”

And the printed garment sector in general is thriving too, particularly in the direct to consumer space where hundreds of high quality web-to-print platforms have sprung up in recent years to offer anything from simple t-shirts to vast ranges of garments and bespoke fabric products such as those offered by Print Me Pretty. 

“The sector is growing – yes, and we’re growing rapidly with it,” says McLellan. “We’re currently outperfoming target in the UK, and in the 24 months we’ve been operating here we’ve shown huge growth patterns. We’ve recently beaten our historical records for the most orders in one day and the highest revenue in one day.”

And yet, this growth is all relative. There may well be more people in this space – both providing and buying – than before but this does not necessarily mean the personalised or very fast turnaround work suited to DTG printing is always key within that growth. 

In print-on-demand fabrics, for example, Warren says demand is not exactly high. “Relatively speaking, demand is still low,” she admits. 

And as Sbabo mentioned earlier, DTG  is not always suitable and is by no means the main  technology used for a good  many companies.

Limitations

Part of the limitations are down to the fabrics that can be printed upon directly. 

“When you look at the forums and indeed gauge customer experience with selected DTG products there is a lot of space for improvement,” says Jim Nicol, managing director at The Magic Touch, which supplies transfer equipment and consumables. “We’ve seen clients buy DTG only to find out they can’t print polyester!”

“Print results may vary depending on  the characteristics of the specific materials,” admits Greenhalgh. “For best results  the fabric should have a minimum  50% cotton.”

That’s obviously limiting for a product from the off. Smith claims Kornit has got around this issue, though.

“The majority of DTG printers are restricted to 60:40 cotton/polyester mix, however Kornit can print on nearly all media, including 100% dark/light polyester, denim and leather,” he says. 

Meanwhile DTG Digital Europe says its machines can print on 100% dark and light polyester, 100% cotton and 50:50 blends.

But even if you do have a printer that can print on multiple fabrics, Nicol says a print company should still ask themselves why they would want to spend all that money on a DTG printer.

“Don’t get me wrong, there is a market for the high-end machines such as Kornit, which have indeed grown massively when used by customers who have the volumes and keep the machines working. But, in all seriousness, how many “Print For Pay operators have that volume of work to justify such investment?” he says. “[Also] customers aren’t really able to differentiate between the different print methods, they just want a quality product at a reasonable price delivered on time.”

Greenhalgh disagrees with that last statement. “A transfer print sticks to the fabric rather than being printed,” he argues. “Using DTG the t-shirt feel is more natural, softer, is better quality and if  done correctly will last longer.”

“DTG gives you a higher quality, lighter handle on the garment over transfer,” agrees Smith.

Greenhalgh does admit, though, that the Epson machine is “suitable for medium-to-high print volume users”, so on the volume point there is perhaps some agreement with Nicol – don’t purchase unless you have the work to put through it. 

They differ, of course, as to how much work is out there to get. 

To be fair to Nicol, many of those printers that are making DTG work are sizeable operations. Take online retailer SpreadShirt, for example: the numbers and the complexity of its offering are huge. 

“We have three different business models, where we are both a retailer and a platform that enables others to be retailing, 24/7,” explains  Anja Greulich, corporate communications manager at Spreadshirt. “We operate in 18 countries from the US to the UK and Austria to Australia; this means we often hit border and legal constraints, tax or global supply chain issues, technical problems and 10,000 other issues.  Our task is to make it look easy to the 70,000 sellers and about four million customers who use the Spreadshirt platform.”

However, Greenhalgh is certain DTG is an accessible technology that does not demand such infrastructure – for example, Print Me Pretty manages with a very good but simple website and product offering. 

“DTG printing and the demand for fast-turnaround, personalised products will continue to grow significantly over the next few years and digital technology will develop accordingly,” he explains. “The ability to customise cushions, napkins, and so on. for a small local business or for an interior designer to customise against a brief still offers plenty of room for growth.”

We also live in a 24/7 world where high-street retailers are moving to delivery within four hours – that sort of turnaround time is going to be beyond many of the traditional methods of printing onto garments and yet within reach for DTG. Though as Nicol says, with pre-treatments required with DTG the turnarounds may not be as quick as you might think. 

Clearly, DTG is a market still very much in its infancy – businesses are still trying to figure out where it fits and what it is best used for and when. And yet there is enough in it to warrant significant investment from the major players and inevitably there will be a trickle-down effect of that where the technology becomes cheaper and more accessible to smaller players. We’re already there with the likes of Print Me Pretty. DTG may not be the dominant technology at present in the garment printing market but it has a decent chance of being a big part in the future.