Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to visit many print shops and have noticed some interesting trends as a result of how digitally based print shops and traditional screen print shops are creating innovative ways to grow in an increasingly competitive environment.

　　First and foremost, there is no longer a question about whether or not digital is here to stay. And the question of where the screen printing industry stands, in relation to digital printing, is looking more positive every day. The reason for this is an increasing cross connection between the two bases. More often than not, digital is driving screen printing and screen printing is driving digital.

　　Reciprocal Effects of Inkjet Introduction

　　Recently, entire genres of medium- and large-format graphic screen printing jobs have been replaced by digital inkjet. These include fleet-marking, banners and other applications in which small print quantities, coupled with large film costs, made inkjet attractive. However, because direct-to-screen imaging for large format is still under development, and because there are too many types of graphic and industrial-object printing for the current inkjet technologies to handle, the entire scope of the graphic print field’s future is still yet to be decided.

　　On the textile side, some of the fastest changes have come in the garment printing industry. Garment printers make up more than half of all screen printers. Although inkjets were introduced to the graphics and photo industries first, most current textile inkjets were adapted from the already successful flatbed photo inkjets. This allowed these newly adapted devices to advance textile printing almost faster than they advanced the graphic field in which they began. Given this, one might expect to see a rapid decline in textile screen printing sales. But, interestingly enough, I have not seen this happening. Over the past two years there have been overall sales slumps and economic ups and downs ― but textile machine sales, as well as the sale of inkjets, seem to be increasing in certain areas.

　　Print Shop Distinction

　　Over the course of my travels to various print shops, I have noticed that among garment printers there are a few distinct classes of print shop. By classes I mean sizes. Outside of very large contract shops running dozens of machines, with hundreds of employees, the majority of garment printing businesses generally range from small, local shops running manual presses (possibly combined with one small automatic press) up to medium-sized shops that might have one to three large automatics. I am highlighting this particular range of print shops because it is these two classes of print shops that are facing the hardest decision when it comes to purchasing an inkjet garment printer or not. These businesses also now have the most customer base overlap.

　　Simply put, it’s a problem of scale. Because of the quantity and complexity of some print jobs, many small shops have a hard time attracting the same type of customer that shops with one to three automatics attract. At the same time, the shops with one to three large automatics are just large enough that overhead costs make it prohibitive for them to profit by trying to print short run jobs that are the bread and butter of smaller shops. This is especially so with special effects garment printing such as beads, foils, textures, etc.

　　Sharing the Markets 

　　These two classes of print shops increasingly need at least a piece of the others’ market in order to avoid the “seasonal” lulls that make survival difficult in today’s market. The garment inkjet allows the larger company to affordably take smaller contracts that would never have been profitable on an automatic press. The new entry-level automatic presses allow smaller customers to accept higher quantity jobs. And this is not the complete picture yet.

　　The shops that really caught my attention over the last two years are the specialty shops. They are now a separate class and are just beginning to face the same problems of scale as the others. About half of these shops started out as embroidery shops that were outsourcing special effect screen printing. Among embroiderers, production with computer-controlled machines is what they started with. For this type of shop, buying an inkjet was a natural decision. The other half of this group are first-time garment printers who have only ever printed with inkjet and are now the main market for entry-level automatic presses. This is the new class. This is where most of the cross connection of customer base is happening. More new shops are skipping over manual screen printing as a start-up method and moving directly to inkjet or automatic screen printing.

　　Complete Cross Connection

　　In order to keep growth constant, you have to reach outside your normal capability and customer base. Shops that started out as simple businesses based on the short run, “no overhead” or unique image content production model (inkjet-on-garment) began to see the need for longer runs with a wider range of available special effects (screen print). This is the same reach we see from the small and medium screen print shops who reached for digital to add short, custom runs for their overall customer base. I am actually seeing less separation between the two print types now (as combined tools of business) than I did a year ago. That’s cross connection.