Using Transfers vs. Direct Printed Garments

With the improvements in technology used to produce transfers, it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between a garment printed directly with a screen printing press and one printed using an iron-on transfer. In most cases, the iron-on transfer has a soft feel (or hand as we say in the industry) and is as durable.

The advantage to using transfers lies in your ability to run your business with limited inventory. Because you don’t typically print the shirt until it’s sold, you can offer hundreds (even thousands) of designs to your customers just by keeping minimal stock of the transfers which cost considerably less than a pre-printed shirt.

Imagine if you wanted to offer 300 different shirts to your customers. If you carried pre-printed garments, you would have to inventory each design in a minimum of four sizes and keep on hand at least 2-3 pieces of every size. That amounts to inventorying over 3600 shirts. For most small business, this is not realistic. To carry the same 300 designs using transfers you would only have to inventory four sizes of blank garments and 2-3 pieces of each design. This is a more realistic scenario for most small business owners.