From the moment you land on printful.com to the first product you receive,
Printful is dedicated to providing the most premium print-on-demand dropshipping service
in the world. From day one our team at Printful has been taking feedback to improve all aspects
of our services, all to help you offer the best print-on-demand products to your customers.
So join us for a behind-the-scenes look at our fulfillment centers, get to know our professional
team, and find answers to the most topical questions in this episode of ask Printful.
Hello, I’m Elizabete from Printful, in this video you’ll get a closer look at our production process
and learn how Printful maintains our quality standard worldwide. Also,
stick around till the end to learn how sticking to our care instructions can make a difference
in extending a product's life, and what you can do to share this information with your customers.
In this episode we’re joined by Sergejs,
who’s the Operations Research and Development Project Manager for Printful.
So sit back and let our in-house expert take you through the product
journey during our direct-to-garment technique.
Can you tell me a little bit more about our DTG process? Sort of an A to Z walkthrough.
DTG or direct-to-garment is a wet-to-wet printing technique. First, we are applying
the layer of pretreatment on the fabric, and then on this consistent layer we are applying
ink, and then altogether we are drying it.
What kind of inks do we use for printing? Because we probably
can’t use normal printer inks for t-shirts, right?
For DTG we are using Kornit NeoPigment inks. They are water-based
and they are Oeko-Tex certified. So they are safe to use also for children’s clothing.
How do we make sure that no matter the color of the t-shirt,
the color of the ink shows up nice, opaque, and colorful?
For the white t-shirts we are just printing the CMYK inks on top of the garment. But for
the garment, if it’s colorized, it will not make sense, because if we apply a yellow color
on top of the yellow shirt, then we will just not see anything. So because of that,
under the CMYK colors we are applying the layer of the white color, and then print on top of it.
This way we reduce the impact of the color of the fabric on the final print.
So right now we are in front of our printers
and we’re going to show you a little bit more of the process.
So what we are doing now is that we’re fitting in on a palette the blank product that we’ll
print on. You see we are cleaning the fabric so the excess of the fibers is not left there.
Now we just hit print and it goes in.
That was quick.
Now we are applying the pretreatment. So you can see it’s wet. Now we’re starting
to print the white layer. It’s black fabric, and we want to see our design
shiny and beautiful. And now we are applying the colors on top.
When it’s coming out you can see that it’s still wet. So we need to be really gentle
when we’re taking it out, and putting it on the dryer.
Now it will dry for a certain amount of time and it’s ready to wear.
Yeah. And the colors are super vibrant as well.
Exactly. And as you can see with the white t-shirt,
we didn’t print white underbase. We don’t need it.
It’s already white.
It's already white, exactly. And let’s do another one.
So this fabric is more speckled, but that’s not going to change anything, right?
We will apply the same layer of fixation agent.
It’s like that white underbase, right?
No, no, before the white underbase.
Oh, okay.
You can see that now it’s wet. And on that wet layer,
we are applying the white underbase. In this case, because the fabric is
more rough we are applying a little bit more of that underbase. So that it becomes flatter
and actual colors on top of it would still lay down the same way as on the previous shirt.
Okay, I see.
And here it comes.
And how do we control the quality of prints? And does that vary across locations around the world?
So when we are talking about the quality of the prints, we need to
start to talk about the quality of the printers. Because of that, we have really strict maintenance
procedures across the facilities and they are all the same globally. No matter where the printer is,
it should get the same output. We are measuring that. We are doing maintenance on a daily,
weekly, monthly basis, depending on which process it is. The final result
is that you’re getting a printed t-shirt when the homework is done by the technicians.
So now we are at the QC stage, our prints are dried
and now we need to check the result. If we remember, we were putting them
wet inside the dryer. So what can happen during that time is that if it’s not put
correctly inside, we can crack or damage the print. So we need to check that. Also, as you see,
we check if the print is in the right place. And of course, check the quality of the
blank material so there are no holes or some fibers coming out.
But we’re looking good so far?
We are looking very good so far. So for this one, for example, we will
see that there are some black fibers, leftovers that we’re just taking off.
The color looks really bright.
The color looks really bright. Exactly. We don’t have any staining visible or some
other print or dryer-related issues. We are ready to go for the shipping.
And how do the different fabrics and like fabric textures affect the print quality?
It's similar to something that you know from the drawing on the paper.
The rougher the surface the more uneven the print will be on that surface. If
we have a t-shirt with a smooth surface, the print quality will be much higher, than on some
hoodie with a really rough surface or let's say denim fabrics which have really rough fabric.
So now we’ve printed the same design on several different fabrics. Do you
mind showing me a little bit whether there’s a difference and how that works?
Let’s start with the white shirt. So on a white shirt, we didn’t apply the white layer behind
it. So because of that, we can have a better feeling because there is not so much ink on top
of the fabric. At the same time, you can see that it’s a little bit paler compared to the
designs that are printed on the black shirts. But overall, the color consistency is the
same. So we have the same colors on all three shirts. If you look at the details some more,
then it's better to look at the black shirts and compare them. There are two different fabrics used
for the black shirts. What we can see on that dark black shirt is that blueish areas are really even.
And in the lighter black shirt, these blueish areas are a little bit cracking
because the ink is inside the fabric already, copycatting the structure of the fabric.
Is it because the fabric is more uneven?
Exactly, yeah. And I must say, we printed this one really good.
Yeah, the colors are super similar.
Yep.
Alright, so from what you’ve just seen during the print quality comparison,
due to the looser weave and combination of fabrics in tri-blends, DTG prints on tri-blend garments
will have a vintage feel, meaning that the fabric of the garment will peep through the ink.
You can use it to your advantage if you want to emphasize the weathered style of your design.
When it comes to taking care of products, we’ve got you covered with these care instructions
on our Help page. Following these steps will help preserve the product and design quality.
While there are care instructions on the tag,
they’re not specific to direct-to-garment, embroidery,
or any type of product we offer. I’ll leave a link in the description for you to go over.
Here’s an example of care instructions for DTG printed items:
Printed apparel can be machine-washed cold, inside-out, on a gentle cycle,
and with a mild detergent and similar colors.
We have care instructions for all categories. Take a look through the list and save the care
instructions you need for the products in your store. Adding the instructions to your store
will provide value to your customers and round out your brand experience.
To help your customers, you can direct them to a dedicated page on your website. On the
packing slip message, you can refer customers to your care instructions page. To add the note,
go to Dashboard > Branding tab. Here you can find all your customizable branding options.
Let’s select the packing slip option. Scroll down to the message box and type your note.
You can also set up an automatic email for your customers with the details
using your ecommerce platform.
Let us know in the comments if you want to see an episode about wash test comparisons for different
product categories. Where we put the Printful products through recommended and maxed-out wash
settings to demonstrate how the extra level of care can really extend the life of the item.
Thank you for taking the time to watch our video. I hope you find the information and inside look
useful. If you’ve just started your ecommerce journey, check out the Printful Academy courses,
where you can learn essential knowledge to set up and run your business. You’ll
earn points by completing video courses and then use them for bonus rewards!
Also, if you’re interested in the product quality and reviews,
we have created a product testing series where people review different models of shirts,
hoodies, and leggings. Here’s a short bit from this series.
We’ll create more videos like this,
so don’t forget to subscribe to keep up with our latest content and catch the next video.
Let us know what else you would like to learn in the comments below.