You may have heard or seen us say that, despite being pricier, Wilflex inks end up saving you money. And in theory, that’s great! But, how does it work in practice? You may be familiar with the idea of ROI, or Return on Investment. We’re going to talk about Wilflex’s ROI, or Return on Ink.
First of all, what do you think the top five operating costs for a printer are? We’ve found them to be the following:
- Garments
- Labor and associated overhead
- Facilities and associated overhead
- Equipment and financing (When applicable)
- Consumables
Ink would fall into the consumables category, and usually takes up about 50% of your consumables cost. When you really look at how consumables compare to the cost of labor and garments, you end up looking at a single digit % of your total operating costs that are attributed to ink. So, with that in mind, consider an ink that could help with more than just your consumables cost. When you get a higher quality ink, you’re helping the bottom line for your garments and labor costs as well. Better inks equal less wasted shirts, less labor to create each shirt, and increased productivity, speed, and efficiency. Time equals money. Cheaper inks may save you a little money up front, but often cost you more in time later on.
How exactly can an ink save you time, garments, and money? A lot of ways, actually!
- Stability and longevity in bucket
- Inks that can keep for longer periods of times in-bucket can be bought in bulk. Bulk prices can save you a lot of money right out of the gate.
- Modifying or reducing
- Time spent adding reducers to, or stirring up your ink to loosen it up, is time you could be printing. An extra 5 minutes of stirring equals 10-50 shirts you could have printed.
- Handling on press, in screen
- If you’re constantly having to stop to scrape ink down the sides of your squeegee and screens, that’s just more time down the drain. Two minutes may not seem like much once, but if you’re doing it several times a day throughout your work week…
- Printing speed
- Whether on an automatic or a manual press, speed is time, and time is money. Cheaper inks make you slow down to make sure you get good coverage, whereas a higher quality ink spreads and covers well, even under faster printing conditions.
- Print strokes
- How many print strokes do you have to do in order to get a good, clear print? With a good ink, you can get a good, opaque print in fewer print strokes, saving time and ink all at once.
- Flash times
- There are many times you’ll find yourself needing to flash your ink. This is a necessary step, but if the time it takes to complete the flash can be shorter, then you use that time saved to produce more shirts. You also reduce the chance of scorching your garment if it has to be under the flash for less time.
- Fiber matte down
- When you’ve finally got a printed shirt, you don’t want to find your print rough and textured because of fibrillation. A good ink will matte those fibers down well during the printing process, letting you achieve a smooth print even on rougher garments.
- Quality on shirt
- Let’s face it: The nicer a shirt is, the more your customer will love it, and the they’ll either come back or talk you up. Good inks give you a softer hand, making for a comfier and more satisfying shirt. Lower quality inks can leave you with a veritable plate of ink that feels unpleasant to wear.
When we switched over to Wilflex inks last year, we kept all of the above factors in mind as we did our testing during the discovery phase. Wilflex inks passed each test with flying colors, giving us the confidence we needed to know we were bringing our customers a truly good ink.
Check out the video below, where Ryan Moor goes into a little more detail about the ROI of Wilflex Inks.
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