In its annual “State of the Industry” report, Stitches recommends that garment decorators and other similar businesses diversify their product lines and revenue streams by investing in – you guessed it – direct to garment printers. You’ll note that they happen to use an mPower to represent this product…

Here’s a link to the digital version of the issue. Direct to garment is mentioned on page 38.

“Beyond requiring minimal space and enabling you to print on natural fibers like cotton, direct-to-garment isn’t difficult to learn, and the turnaround time from art to production is often faster than with embroidery or screen printing. Perhaps the biggest benefit for your business is that you can begin offering customers a print solution and compete in the personalization market, fulfilling one-off and small-volume runs of t-shirts, with color-rich embellishments, at a reasonable price.”

Some of the other advice in this extended report include: starting a referral program, running a client profitability analysis, subcontracting (no surprise), networking, and stepping outside your comfort zone to exhibit at a non-industry show.

We often hear the question, where do you buy your shirts from? This issue also happens to have the top 25 apparel producers. We have used, over time, SanMar, Hanes, Alstyle, Gildan, Delta Apparel and Impotex (only one of whom appears on this list).

Remember to register for the Stitches panel webinar on June 6!