So, I'm a small business owner in a smallish town. I own a Cafe/Lounge/Club that's pretty successful. However, the town I'm in doesn't have a really high bar and that is a big factor in how successful I've been and also why I chose to relocate to this town a few years ago. Now, in the past I've been really frustrated with the local printing services here. Either they don't offer many options or don't want to handle complex jobs or they don't carry many items in stock etc. Turn around time isn't great either, also after working with many people locally, I've realized it's a market I could dominate with good, reliable, consistent service.
Now, I'd like to make everything in house, No outsourcing the work so that I can reliably deliver the product on time and also I won't be limited in what I can offer by my suppliers. Also, I have a location set, haven't signed any leases, but it is in a great part of town. Right between the industrial side of town and the rest of town.
Furthermore, before the lounge business I did graphic design for a living, and I believe I'll be able to handle the designing of the t-shirts with no issues. I've done a few uniform and vinyl sticker designs in the past working with local printers and the issue always arises on their end.
What I have for equipment is a 34" LaserPoint 3 Vinyl Cutter & Contour Cutter that I got for a great price to mess around with. I've budgeted an additional $20,000 for equipment and $10,000 for renovating the shop.
What information I'm looking for is:
What equipment can I buy that will enable me to offer the widest range of options when it comes to t-shirt printing. While also keeping the actual work down to a minimum. What I would really love is loading a machine with 20 shirts and clicking 'Print'. however, I know there are different types of printing, like screen printing and vinyl printing etc. Each with their own processes.
I'm wondering if I could buy a commercial high quality printer and print any image in great color on heat transfer vinyl and then press it onto the shirt. How much would by cost basis be with ink? I found suppliers and I see t-shirts ranging from $1.50-$4.00 each so I'm wondering how much should I add for the print. Not including labor, as I'll be doing most of the work at first I guess, but regardless labor included, If I can schedule my labor to work only on a few days a week and print all orders back to back I'm sure It wouldn't cost much.
ALSO screen printing is by far the cheapest I see that, but is there any equipment that can automate the process and print multiple shirts at once?
ANY INSIGHT WOULD HELP Anything I should know before jumping into this?
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