Epson DTG And Wide-Format Printers Enable Pop- Culture Retailer To Scale & Streamline Their Business
As one of the first online print-on-demand manufacturers, Gotham City Online is now a leading e-commerce pop-culture retailer based out of Austin, Tex.
Founded in 1999, in its namesake New York City, co-founder David Topkins set out to build a scalable e-commerce company.
Starting out as a small business, Gotham City originally sold to customers on eBay as a way to gauge what people were interested in purchasing.
Based on their research, they ultimately focused on fashion through partnerships with known brands
Over time, the company developed its own fashion brand Pop Threads, and also expanded into the poster industry, forming Poster Foundry.
Initially, the facility build-out was complicated, with a relatively new concept of printing directly on apparel, and the vast array of different types of t-shirts and textiles.
As the team looked to purchase less content from wholesalers, and find a scalable solution, they attended Print Expo in Long Beach, Calif. and attended a direct-to-garment (DTG) seminar hosted by Equipment Zone and Epson that highlighted the benefits of the SureColor F2000, Epson’s first DTG printer and the flagship model during the time.
Today, Gotham City has invested in multiple SureColor F2100 – Epson’s next-generation DTG printer – and is now adding SureColor F3070 industrial direct-to-garment printers to scale and streamline the Pop Threads business.
Poster Foundry, the poster and gifts division of Gotham City, also leverages Epson wide-format printers for poster production.
Today, Poster Foundry has numerous SureColor P10000 wide-format printers installed.
Pop Threads: Selecting The Best Equipment For ROI
“We are always interested in the latest technology to power our business. Whether it’s for expansion of a new product line or to improve upon prior technology we already utilize. If it can add value to our business, we definitely want to evaluate the equipment,” said Topkins.
Today, Pop Threads produces a variety of print-on-demand garments with both licensed and commissioned designs ranging from baby onesies to tank tops, short sleeve and long sleeve t-shirts (size 6-months to 6XL), sweatshirts, and tote bags.
Topkins continued to purchase Epson DTG printers as new product evolutions became available. “The newly released SureColor F3070 is a product designed more for commercial printing, as opposed to the first-generation mom and pop or kiosk style DTG printers,” he said. “It included compelling features, such as increased print speed and enhanced functionality and sensitivity of the platen height. In addition, the larger, bulk-sized ink tanks help our team stay on track. With less frequent ink changes we save time, and it looks like a nice overall price improvement when purchasing larger volume inks for these machines,” continued Topkins.
To date, the SureColor F3070 has helped improve overall workflow efficiency at Gotham City. “Due to the speed of The SureColor F3070, we’ve seen better ROI with orders that require larger images, and more ink. Especially those that use a lot of white ink,” shared Topkins.
Pop Threads has leveraged their fleet of SureColor F3070 printers to increase productivity with larger sized garments and garments with big images.
In addition, thicker garments, such as sweatshirts, have been beneficial due to the new platen height sensor in the SureColor F3070, making printing on a sweatshirt pocket easier than ever.
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