Images_Digital_Edition_January_2020

www.images-magazine.com ADVERTORIAL AD – while Supacolour Promo transfers have reduced stretch and are designed for items that are less likely to be washed, such as tote bags, shopper bags, cooler bags and umbrellas. Paul says one of Supacolour UK’s main USPs is its fast lead times – “essential for promotional apparel that often requires turnarounds of only a few days”. Now that the UK factory is in operation, Supacolour can offer next-day delivery and can also supply transfers the same day if orders are placed by lunchtime. Customer demand for fast-turnaround and speedy delivery contributed to Supacolour UK’s decision to base its production facility at St James’s Industrial Estate in Corby, which is centrally located on the UK’s road network. “Transfer was never a viable option for promotional users for a certain type of business because of the longer lead times,” Paul explains. “We are opening that opportunity and converting business away from DTG printing, which doesn’t make factories money. We’re giving the smaller shops and factories the opportunity to get the high-quality and low-volume performance of DTG without the investment in equipment.” An early adopter Epicentre, one of Australia’s largest promotional wholesalers, was an early adopter of Supacolour. Similar to many European production shops, it has developed into providing print, embroidery, DTG and, increasingly, heat transfer as a ‘single source’ operation. According to general manager David Holt, transfers historically had a “bad rap”. He comments: “There were too many instances of jobs coming in with issues of delamination or poor print quality. We’ve all seen the ‘badly done’ plastisol transfers: our customers and us were hesitant about using them. Throw into that the typical lead time when outsourcing transfers and we were, in most circumstances, forced down either the digital vinyl route, with all the timings and labour issues that causes, or we ended up embroidering logos that weren’t really suitable for embroidery.” With its shorter lead times, the Supacolour system was “a game changer”, according to David. “It requires no weeding, provides ultra-fine detail including fine text, and offers solutions for softshells and sublimated shirts on a minimum of just 20 transfers – with no need to plan and gang full sheets for production. “It allowed us to say ‘yes’ to the customer more often. No designer or customer wants their expensively and lovingly created brand to have to be changed and restricted to allow for embroidery, or for a solid block to be generated behind font or text to allow it to be plotter cut.” Epicentre had expected its embroidery business to drop off after it began offering the Supacolour transfers in bulk, but to its surprise that wasn’t how things panned out. “What actually happened was that all areas of the business grew – being able to say, ‘Yes, we can do that’ gave us more business in all areas. Utilising the Supacolour transfers around the embroidery, around small- volume single-colour plotter cutting, and having either DTG or direct screen print for the volume work, or for the ‘look’ of DTG, meant that we were able to keep the presses running on jobs on which they were most profitable. On the 200 to 300 multicolour print orders, especially those for breast/pocket prints or for sleeves, we made more money and had higher productivity by spinning across to transfers. It also allowed us to offer the same look and print style across a wide range of fabrics – something we were never able to do before. “With order lengths dropping, and an increasing demand for softshells and synthetic blends that cause bleed, we only see our transfer department continuing to grow – and that is helping our overall profits and productivity.” www.supacolour.co.uk www.pencarrie.com Early Supacolour adopter, David Holt of Epicentre Supacolour transfers can be applied to apparel, including softshells, headwear and other textile products, making them perfect for promo