How can a fully integrated sublimation system help your business grow?

One reason personalised, sublimated products are so popular is that sublimation produces vibrant colours and high-resolution images. The quality of a sublimated product will stop people in their tracks, warm hearts and make memories that last a lifetime. Here, Andrea Evans, Sawgrass’ international marketing manager, explains further.

When you compete in the mass customisation market, print quality is one of the most crucial aspects of your business. As such, the quality of your inks, printer, paper and your substrates determine the quality of the images that you print, the products you create and sell, and ultimately customer satisfaction and the health of your business.

In a fully integrated sublimation system the inks, printer, software and paper are all designed to work together, the results are the best-quality prints with less time and money spent. But did you know that using a fully integrated sublimation system could help your business grow?

Here are a few ways that opting for the highest quality sublimation products deliver exponential returns on investment, resulting in business growth.

Reputation for consistency and quality

Image is everything in the sublimation industry. The quality of images, the accuracy of colour and the ability to rely on a business to deliver order after order: these are the things that distinguish product decorators in their markets. Customers want to know that if they place an order they will get a product that fulfils their needs and makes them say, ‘wow’.

Fully integrated sublimation systems are designed for just this purpose to enable you to:

• Attain the deepest, boldest and the most colours possible with four- and eight-colour ink sets.
• Print at the highest resolution possible for desktop sublimation printing.
• Ensure your prints are optimised for the specific printer, substrates, print media and output.
• Build a solid reputation for reliably delivering high-quality prints.
• Charge premium prices for your products because of the quality of your prints.

More efficient production

Time is money when it comes to sublimation production so the more products you can make in an hour, the lower your costs will be. Your production routine needs to be as efficient as possible, maximising the number of prints you can fit on a page, speeding up the design and approval process, sending as many files to the printer at one time as possible and minimising errors.

A fully integrated sublimation system offers many ways to make your production routine more efficient and save you money:

• Printer and ink are optimised to print faster and save ink, while producing the best colours possible.
• The performance and life of your printer is optimised by incorporating closed ink cartridges, providing a clean and convenient ink delivery without the time, mess, hassle and waste of manually refilling bulk ink systems.
• Factory-sealed, single-use cartridges eliminate outside contamination, maintenance costs and downtime associated with bulk ink systems.
• Print software is designed to manage colour based on the specific characteristics of both the printer and the ink, as well as compensate for colour shifts that normally occur during the printing process.
• These result in more precise prints at the substrate level and ensures the highest quality image with minimal waste.
• Colour profiles and spot colour matching capabilities match what the printer and ink can produce because the programming is specific to the system – leaving no guesswork and resulting in less ink, substrate and paper waste trying to get the right colours.
• Graphic design software is specific to sublimation product decoration, featuring most-popular blanks and an extensive library of images/ templates/ designs, and colours guaranteed to match those in the print software – saving thousands in art, software and waste expenses, along with avoiding spending hours of work designing.

Less waste

When you press a print and the colours are wrong, the time you spent printing and pressing is gone, and now you must spend more time doing it all again. You also use more ink, paper and substrates to create a new version of the product – costing you money.

Minimising waste – both in terms of material and time – is important when growing a business. These expenses add up, often more than you realise. A fully-integrated sublimation system keeps these at a minimum, ensuring that you are using your and money efficiently.

Be careful of false economy when selecting your sublimation system and inks, many aftermarket systems cause dye sublimation product decorators to waste precious printing and pressing time troubleshooting clogs, banding, poor quality images, stray ink on the page and colour issues. Product decorators often must replace printers and run through their ink more quickly.

Money saved up front on individual components rather than an integrated system may feel like a win, but when it comes to creating a thriving and successful business you an integrated system may just be the answer you are searching for.