AMAYA SALES UK
Are you confused about thinking of which DTG printer to buy ?
I should imagine that many of you have visited a trade show or two when considering going into the business of Direct to Garment printing . You will have seen many different makes and sizes , with prices ranging from around £ 7,500 up to over £ 450,000 . So , which is the correct fit for you and your company ?
Pricing
Pricing at the show seemed a bit erratic , some dealers dropped their prices significantly , by has much as 35 % and others by the normal show discounts of between 7.5 % and 10 %. I would personally be aware of suppliers discounting by 35 %. How can they afford to do this , I ask myself ? Either they are about to launch a new printer , or their printers were massively overpriced in the first place . The other thing to consider is if you had purchased a printer at the normal price , your asset is now worth more than 35 % less . Suppliers need to make a reasonable margin so they can exist and offer you the kind of support you would expect .
Print area
Decide what printing area you think you will require and what market you are going to sell into . Printing areas range from 32x45cm through 41x60cm up 42x95cm . You can also find multiple platen configurations for higher productions but obviously the pricing for these would be higher . I would always go for something in the middle , like 41x60cm so you have the flexibility to print full size on a T shirt , remember , you can always print smaller than this . If you know that around 32x45cm will satisfy your customers , then you will save yourself at least £ 3,000 in equipment cost . The market you are selling into will define what maximum size printer you require .
Modular
Some printers are modular , which means you can have more than one printer connected to one PC and RIP software . This could be an alternative to paying out for one larger and more expensive one , buy three or four around the £ 10,000 mark each . This is a big advantage if your more expensive printer breaks down , if you had modular ones only one would be out of action .
Big mistake
One big mistake when buying a DTG printer is not to check the ink and maintenance costs . The cost of inks on printers with sealed cartridges is nearly double the cost of re-fillable cartridges . These suppliers will try and hide this from you or tell you that sealed cartridges are a must . If you are using your printer every day , the best buy would be a printer with a pressurised ink system and re-fillable cartridges . If you use the printer one or two days a week then sealed cartridges are preferable . Look carefully at the warranty conditions of DTG printers , some systems have to be flushed out around every month and have certain parts changed to comply with its warranty . Flushing a system out and changing parts could cost you another £ 150- £ 200 a month . Add this to higher ink costs and you have more or less doubled the monthly cost of the printer . So do your homework and choose wisely .
Production
Most printers in the £ 7,500 to £ 15,000 bracket will produce around 10 to 20 per
hour on dark garments and double that amount on whites . This is obviously dependant on the size of print . There are more expensive printers out there , ranging from £ 60,000 to £ 500,000 that will give very high production figures , these are more suited to companies requiring around 100 prints per hour .
Support
Whatever level of printer you decide on , the most important question to the supplier is , what sort of support do you offer .
The problem with this question is that all suppliers will say they offer superb support . So , I am afraid it is up to you to find out for yourself .
There are several ways of doing this , you could ask your supplier for referrals or look on forums ( make sure they are recent entries and relate to the UK ). Ask how long they have been selling and supporting DTG equipment , how many engineers they have on the road , are they their own personnel or freelance , have the engineers been factory trained .
At Amaya we offer both entry level ( Polyprint Texjet ) and fully industrial ( Kornit )
Book your demo experience today , contact our team on 02392 590 281
16 FEBRUARY 2022 twitter / facebook / instagram : @ trophexlive