Personalized T-shirts via DTF or screen printing?
I'll start by saying that DTF costs a little more at tricouriconstanta.ro because I don't have the necessary printer. I'm basically an intermediary, I arrange the graphics so that everything is fine for DTF and I place my order with one of the two approved suppliers. In fact, there was only one left, because the first one messed up the colors twice.
City Print Shop from Campina managed to impress me. I sent the graphics to be printed on A4 format yesterday, I confirmed the order at around 1:30 PM after making the advance payment and I received it today around 1:30 PM via GLS
I love receiving and delivering DTF, the colors are vibrant but I can say from my own experience that... DTF printed t-shirts most likely don't last more than a year.
Yes, I know, you'll say that anyone who wears a T-shirt for more than a year is a communist poor person who doesn't change their wardrobe and isn't worth taking into account, but in the era we live in, there are concepts of fast fashion, sustainability, environmental protection and general ideas about health that maybe only I alone dream of.
In a market economy you have to produce, sell, produce and sell again, so again I would be anti-business if I spoke badly about DTF.
But looking at things from another point of view, DTF printing is a sure death. It opens the way to accepting small orders, orders without advance payment (or cash on delivery) and other things. I took it today worth 123 RON loss because a customer who came my way on August 15 decided to stop replying to messages on WhatsApp and go print his own t-shirts elsewhere. It dragged on for about 2 weeks, he managed to destroy a pretty good graphic and in the end he said he was willing to come and pay me for the t-shirt that I printed anyway without his consent.
He said he simply didn't trust me to come back from vacation on time. Yeah, right, how can you trust someone who is number one on google for unsponsored results for personalized t-shirts Constanta . Am I the only one who sees this website number one?
So I was wrong on both sides. I still have to improve on the customer communication part. It's harder than at the psychology faculty.
Just like in other fields, some people ruin good things for everyone else, so from now on I will only work on the basis of advance paid orders. For those who didn't understand very well, I make t-shirts in Constanta as a hobby and I don't do it for money. I'm not interested in getting rich from this or rushing the orders to go out anyway so I can move on to the next one. That's why it's called Constanta t-shirts because I tried to bring something good here and only here. I'm not looking for international clients, I'm not looking for a lot of money, just to avoid becoming a taxi driver, Uber driver or Glovo delivery person as much as possible. I have nothing against them, but it's too much work with people for me. I prefer more technical things.
Let's move on, there was another one this summer who didn't understand what OK to PRINT meant. It must have been Mercury retrograde for me.
I put the shirt up for sale on the website and you can find it here:
From April to August, after 4 months I'm already complaining. A defining year, what can I say! I forgot to say that I have a Great quality store from Google and that the payment system is secured by Shopify, which is a world leader in e-commerce platforms. Or that since August 1st I've been sending invoices via Smartbill and registering them on e-Factura, so that there are no more doubts about trust and stuff like that.
I'm left with positive feelings after pouring out my bile here, thinking that everything written may be read or will be useful someday in educating customers, so they know what to choose. Although there is so much material written on the internet - garla, if you want to read a little and have the time to understand it, because TikTok is everywhere.