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Screen Print Transfer Prices & Profitability

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Screen print transfers can be one of the most profitable forms of custom apparel decoration when utilized strategically. It is important that a decoration business understands the advantages of using transfers rather than direct screen printing and other decoration methods. The more you know about screen print transfers, the more likely you will be able to implement them successfully in your decoration business.

Advantage 1: Low Barriers to Entry & Small Learning Curve

One of the reasons that screen print transfers are so popular is that there is a

low barrier to entry.  This is because all you need to get started is a heat press.  In addition to the low barrier to entry, there is also a relatively short learning curve.  With just a few hours of practice, you can print garments with ease. 

 

Advantage 2: Gang Artwork

Print Fundraising’s goal is not to gouge you with our prices.  In fact, it is quite the opposite: we want to help you succeed.  That is why we recommend ordering ganged artwork whenever possible.  Ganging simply means you fit as many pieces of artwork as possible onto a single sheet.  By ganging artwork, you drastically reduce the unit print price for all designs on the sheet.  Since we still only have to set up a single screen, it saves us time, and you money. If you gang artwork, some prints can cost you less than $4 for the finished t-shirt.   

 

Advantage 3: Print On-Demand = No Inventory

The last part of the previous section is one of the biggest advantages of screenprint transfers.  As a result of our transfers taking less than 30 seconds to print, you do not have to print a bunch of products and hope they will sell.  Rather, you can wait until an order comes in and quickly and easily print the shirt for that order. This saves you from needing to discount printed inventory in order to get it off of the shelf.  

 

Understanding: Transfer Prices

Transfer prices depend on two factors: the quantity of transfers being ordered and amount of colors in the artwork.  The more colors there are in the artwork, the more expensive the transfer will be. The opposite is true for the quantity of transfers- the more transfers you order, the less expensive they become per-transfer.  This is because much of the effort of screen printing is setting up the screen to print the transfers. Being able to print more transfers with a single screen takes up much less time than printing the same amount of transfers with multiple designs.

 

Sales Tools: Pricing Sheets

Transfer and product pricing sheets are included in Print Fundraising’s binder.  These sheets are there as a reference for you. The sheets may be used to calculate your costs and quote prices for printing jobs.  We also include a sheet of suggested prices that you can use to quote customers for custom print jobs. These prices are merely a recommendation, and you can easily adjust them to fit your needs.  

 

Competition: Direct Screen Printing vs. Transfers 

As an example, we will examine your costs with our program against your costs outsourcing printed apparel through Custom Ink, one of the most popular product decoration sites on the internet.  Suppose you need 55 one-color designs printed on black shirts. Custom Ink would charge $7.39 per shirt for that order, totaling $406.54. If you were to order shirts ($2.25 per shirt) and transfers ($1.5 per transfer) through Print Fundraising and press them yourself, it would only cost $3.75 a shirt, totaling $206.25 in cost.  If your goal was to sell t-shirts for $15, your profit with the order would be $618.75 with our program, but would only be $418.55 through custom ink. That is an extra 30% of profit that stays in your school!

 

As you can see, transfers are a very profitable decoration method.  Also, a heat press is one of the least expensive and most durable pieces of garment decoration equipment.  When you pair the profitably of transfers with the performance of a quality heat press, you have a winning combination.  This why we designed our Learn & Earn program around the use of screen print transfers for SBE’s. Print Fundraising believes that with our program, and your business-minded students, you can develop a profitable and lasting SBE that will benefit your chapter and school for years to come.

 

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