Three Kornit Digital DTG Printers Help Vic Bay Apparel Of South Africa To Grow Its On-Demand Fulfilment & Dropship Operation

PRESS ROOM

3 Jun

Written By Debbie Mckeegan

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Based in Johannesburg and the other major centres in South Africa, Vic Bay Apparel has been a manufacturer, supplier, and wholesaler of basic t-shirts and golf shirts for 25 years, supplying blank apparel to decorators and resellers of promotional clothing.

They predominantly service resellers in the tourist, workwear, printing, embroidery, and advertising markets.

In addition to their showroom, Vic Bay has a robust e-commerce presence, generating considerable business via its website.

According to Vic Bay Johannesburg’s managing director, Mike Shiller, the growing demand for small orders and multi-colour designs was a poor match for traditional screen printing, a challenge that ultimately led them to consider digital direct-to-garment (DTG) production.

After researching available options, Vic Bay chose to implement Kornit Digital DTG technology, which presented reliability and a secure supply of consumables in the long term.

“I bought our first DTG printer from (South African distributor) Rexx, and since then I have purchased two additional Kornits,” says Mike Shiller . “Our latest is a Kornit Storm HD6 that incorporates the latest full RGB full-colour printing in 1,200dpi density, which offers our clients a photorealistic print on garments.”

According to Mike, the systems have enabled his business to scale and meet new challenges, demands, and opportunities.

When COVID-19 disrupted the market suddenly, he saw businesses with a strong web-based operation weathering the storm more effectively than others, and Vic Bay responded by launching a new site dedicated to B2B order management, offering enterprise customers the versatility they would need.

Using this website, customers could place their orders and Vic Bay would print and ship the pieces on their behalf.

Looking forward, Vic Bay foresees adding additional Kornit technology to its production arsenal, increasing capacity to meet new demand for their rapid, reliable, high-quality fulfilment.

“I would certainly recommend Kornit as the best DTG print system available,” says Mike. “It’s a true testament to their capabilities that some of the largest and most diverse producers worldwide have turned to Kornit for their online businesses, and only use Kornit to imprint apparel.”

“In any corner of the globe, Kornit’s clean, efficient, on-demand production capabilities empower businesses to answer unseen disruptions and new market challenges with very little effort,” said Chris Govier, KDEU Managing Director. “Fulfillers like Vic Bay Apparel can change their business model and create new profit streams on the fly, while supplying their customers with dependable quality and virtually unlimited graphic capabilities. Producing with Kornit means creating opportunities, and remaining profitable always.”

Kornit Digital Europe GmbH

Kornit Digital (NASDAQ:KRNT) develops, manufactures and markets industrial digital printing technologies for the garment, apparel and textile industries.

Kornit delivers complete solutions, including digital printing systems, inks, consumables, software and after-sales support.

Leading the digital direct-to-garment printing market with its exclusive eco-friendly NeoPigment printing process, Kornit caters directly to the changing needs of the textile printing value chain.

Kornit’s technology enables innovative business models based on web-to-print, on-demand and mass customization concepts.

With its immense experience in the direct-to-garment market, Kornit also offers a revolutionary approach to the roll-to-roll textile printing industry: Digitally printing with a single ink set onto multiple types of fabric with no additional finishing processes.

Founded in 2003, Kornit Digital is a global company, headquartered in Israel with offices in the USA, Europe and Asia Pacific, and serves customers in more than 100 countries worldwide.