This is very long but hopefully useful.
Before you spend your money.
- Firstly If you are looking at printing as a new potential hobby rather than a business then choose a different hobby. When first starting out it can be very expensive (especially sublimation printing) due to miss prints and the need to run your printer regularly to reduce chance of blockages. This results in lots of wasted ink and money and there's only so many times your friends and family will accept a mug as a gift to make you feel that it was worth it.
- Do as much research about the different processes as you can before spending your money as you should never buy any equipment without understanding what is required and the limitations of the equipment and process you have in mind.
- Read other peoples questions to understand their problems or mistakes before buying equipment as if people are saying they are having trouble with equipment, blank items, paper etc you are likely to face the same issues.
- If possible I would suggest that you go to the Printwear and Promotion trade show before you buy equipment as you will get to meet suppliers and discuss equipment, processes, stock options etc and although suppliers will obviously want to sell you their equipment they will also be happy to tell you if their equipment is suitable for your requirements and tend to be pretty honest about this.
- Don't start off trying to be a one man/woman print shop - buying too much equipment including multiple printers and presses just means more equipment to sit there doing nothing when you don't have the orders to make them useful. Get good at one thing and build up to the rest.
- I would like to recommend that you do not buy cheap Chinese all in one presses as in my experience the build quality is poor, the heat consistency across the heat element is poor and pressure is terrible meaning you are almost guaranteed to have to replace it within a short period of time.
- Second hand equipment can be good but be aware that some equipment may degrade or lose consistency over time.
- Some might disagree but I would say don't buy Epson printers listed as sublimation printers with cheap Chinese inks and CISS system as you will end up with lots of blockages, air in the CISS tubes and even if the seller provides an ICC profile colour reproduction is likely to be very inaccurate.
- Buy some blanks and get practicing before you take any orders. This will cost you a fair amount but it will take time to get to know what works.
- One of your most important pieces of equipment is a notepad, print times, temperature and pressure on supplier websites are only guidelines and your paper, inks and heat press are not guaranteed to match the guidelines given so take note of what works best for you.
- Printers when not in use still cost money - blocked nozzles and drying inks lead to nozzle checks and power cleans, this quickly drains ink and costs money.
- Get lots of lint rollers - fluff and particles can ruin a print and raising the fibers with a lint roller can also help with adhesion of things like vinyl and transfers.
- Pre press garments - this gives a good crease free surface for application of print media but also removes moisture that can affect the adhesion of some transfer materials.
- You will have failed prints, Keep them - Whenever possible keep your miss printed items as they will serve as a good reminder of what you did wrong.
- Don't let mistakes stress you too much as this will lead to more mistakes, more stress and less money.
- Don't take any orders until you are confident that you can produce the item with little margin for error. There's nothing worse than buying stock for a customers order without knowing that you can successfully do the job with the number of blanks ordered as this could be quite embarrassing when your run out and need to reorder when mistakes are made.
- Order extra blanks - if a customer wants 5 slates order a few extra, this might cost you more than you want to spend but you have the extra as a buffer and if those 5 are successful the customer may return for more.
- Pricing - It is difficult to judge how much to price an item , the best advice I was given is that you should price based on the service you provide and the work required to provide this service.
- A good rule is that if your prices are too high its much easier to reduce the price than increase it. No business ever went out of business by being too expensive.
- Business cards and flyers are great advertising - give a business card or flyer to everyone you know, if possible design these yourself to give them that extra personal touch. Fliers are also useful due to the size as you can provide a price list of your most popular items on the back. Give these out with every item you sell.
- If printing T-shirts pack them in a plastic seal-able bag, even a large blank freezer bag is better than handing over a loose T-shirt.
- Always give wash instructions for T-shirts as certain print media requires different temperature settings in the wash and some recommend air drying over using a tumble dryer.
- Print samples - When practicing use images that you are authorized to use and not stock photos or protected images such as commercial logos etc and take photos of them and keep the printed items. Keep these as samples in a box or printed bag and if people want to see them this will give it a more professional look than a plastic bag.
- Feel free to refuse jobs if a job is too big or short notice or even bad quality images are provided, your customers will respect this in the long run as opposed to missing deadlines or providing poor quality results.
- Alternatively if you accepted a job or If you don't want to refuse a job but cant meet the deadline or demand sub it out to someone on the forum, they will be grateful for the business and your customer will still be happy with the order being fulfilled.
Not everyone will agree with everything I've said so please feel free to add your two cents. This is sort of an archive of information gathered from the forum and my limited experience.
I have made a lot of the mistakes mentioned above especially buying low quality equipment thinking this would be a fun hobby and I have now had to replace a large portion of my equipment due to this.
