Hi all,
I'm very much new to the industry but have been trading full time since October 2016. Before that I was part time driving buses in London for Stagecoach London. I run the business with my wife Carol and we operate from a small extension at our home in Essex.
At the moment we can produce printed mugs using sublimation inks and a Ricoh Aficio SG 3110DN that we've had from new using sublimation inks only. We also print up to A4 using a CISS ink supply on a trusty Canon MP499 inkjet printer.
We use a heat press and a separate mug press with latte accessory and have a Cameo Silhouette plotter/cutter that we use for vinyls and cutting out printed heat transfer paper. We use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and also Windows Publisher to produce our designs.
Business has been pretty good for a start up, it's enough to keep me permanently full time on it, we have a work-in-progress website via Shopify and also sell through our Facebook pages too.
We have had issues with inconsistent temperatures on our heat press but to be fair it's a cheap crap one and we need to invest in a better quality item soon. It causes us too many "seconds" that impact on our bottom line.
I'll be lurking here for a good while so's not to look like a jerk but any advice from you guys more experienced will be more than welcome.
Kind regards
Peter Hart