Are you offering to build and maintain webstores for your clients? If not, you’re missing out on a great profit center.
More and more businesses, schools, teams, clubs, organizations, and nonprofits want a streamlined way to distribute branded merchandise. Whether it’s uniforms for employees, school spirit wear, or fundraiser items, direct-to-film (DTF) and ultraviolet direct-to-film (UV-DTF) printing makes it easy for your print shop to fulfill your clients’ on-demand orders.
With no minimums, unlimited color options, and the ability to print on virtually any fabric or material, including glass, ceramic, and metal, DTF and UV-DTF transfers let you offer your clients a whole range of custom apparel and hard goods products without inventory risks.
We’ll drill down into how DT and UV-DTF printing can help you tap into the company store market and scale the print-on-demand (POD) side of your business.
Why Webstores Are a Huge Opportunity for Your Print Shop
A webstore is a branded online shop where employees, students, or supporters can order custom merchandise. These stores work well for:
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Corporate apparel and uniforms: Businesses need easy access to branded gear for employees.
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Employee/customer appreciation stores: Many companies reward employees and customers with a code to redeem a thank-you gift in online stores for special anniversaries.
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Athletic teams: Make it easy for school, college, and corporate team members to order athletic uniforms and other gear for the season.
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School spirit stores: Year-round, parents, students, and alumni want stylish, custom apparel to support their schools and favorite teams.
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Fundraiser stores: Nonprofits and teams can sell merch to raise money or in conjunction with events without handling logistics.
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Event and Trade Show Merch: Companies need branded giveaways and conference swag. More and more companies are giving attendees QR codes to access online stores to get complimentary or for-sale merch that ships right to their homes so they don't have to tote it home.
Unlike bulk screen-printing or embroidery orders, company stores keep fulfillment on-demand, meaning you only print what’s ordered — minimizing upfront costs and excess inventory. DTF and printing make this model even more profitable. In the past, many shops kept webstores open for a few weeks, collected all the orders, and then screen printed and shipped them. Oftentimes, impatient recipients had to wait four to six weeks to get their orders.
Your clients benefit from this arrangement since their employees, customers, event attendees, students, athletes and supporters can order directly from the site you manage. They never have to worry about taking orders, submitting them to you, receiving them back, and distributing them.
Instead, your print shop receives, prints, and ships the order directly to the delighted recipient, usually within a few days of when they placed the order. The other bonus is that you can keep your clients’ webstores open all year round and add new products and designs based on the season, promotion, or event.
Why DTF and UV-DTF Are the Best Print Methods for Company Stores
If you’re printing apparel and promo products for your clients’ webstores, DTF and UV-DTF transfers are the quickest and most effective method. Check out five reasons why you can’t go wrong with POD and these imprinting methods:
1. On-Demand, No Inventory Waste
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With DTF and UV-DTF, you can print or order transfers in advance, store them and apply them only when an order comes in. If you’re new to these decorating methods, you can outsource them at first to another shop or a vendor while you get your webstores offering off the ground.
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You’ll eliminate inventory issues and unsold stock, since you’re decorating blank items on demand. Some shops aggregate on-demand orders from all of their shops and then source blanks from suppliers, so they’re not holding inventory till customers place their orders.
2. More Product Variety Means More Sales
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Unlike screen printing, direct-to-garment (DTG) printing, or sublimation, DTF works on cotton, polyester, blends, nylon, and more, so you can offer a wider selection of apparel and accessories. Sell T-shirts, hoodies, hats, tote bags, and performance wear—all decorated with the same DTF transfers.
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Similarly, UV-DTF transfers adhere to lots of hard goods materials, like glass, metal, ceramics, leather and more, and curved surfaces—so you can offer drinkware, tech items like power banks and phone cases, and other popular products.
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Clients will love that you’re a one-stop shop that can fulfill their webstores with apparel and hard goods.
3. Vibrant, Full-Color Prints With No Extra Cost
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Whether it’s a corporate logo, school or team mascot, or intricate fundraiser design, DTF and UV-DTF prints turn out detailed, full-color graphics with no setup or per-color fees.
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Ideal for brands or organizations that want photorealistic designs or multi-color logos without the color restrictions and setup costs of traditional screen printing.
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Ideal for clients who want the flexibility of artwork that can come in different sizes or multiple graphics in multiple locations on apparel and other products.
4. Low-Cost Setup and Higher Profits for Your Shop
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As we mentioned in the last point, there’s no need for costly custom screens or setup fees. Your shop operators can easily apply DTF or UV-DTF transfers to apparel and hard goods to quickly fulfill on-demand orders.
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When you use DTF and UV-DTF transfers, your clients’ webstores are more cost-effective and profitable when you’re handling fulfillment.
How to Set Up Profitable Webstores With DTF or UV-DTF Printing
If you’re new to setting up and fulfilling webstores for clients, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to do it. Here are the basic steps to follow:
Step 1: Choose your platform. Shopify or Order My Gear, or industry-specific platforms like Fulfill Engine, Inktavo, and DecoNetwork, make creating branded stores for your clients easy.
Step 2: Offer a diverse product selection. Industry platforms will allow you to directly integrate with blank suppliers and choose from their selection of t-shirts, polos, hoodies, tote bags, hard goods, and more to stock your clients’ shops. You’ll also see real-time product details, pricing, and stock levels.
Step 3: Keep your transfers in stock, not finished goods. You can print DTF and UV-DTF transfers ahead of time and apply them to products after end-buyers place their orders on your clients’ webstores.
Step 4: Integrate your webstore solution with your production system. Connect your webstore platform directly to your production management system. This integration can allow incoming orders to be automatically routed to your team’s production queue for timely processing.
Step 5: Market to corporations, schools, teams and nonprofits. Besides offering your webstore service to current clients, reach out to HR departments, schools, athletic directors, and nonprofit organizers who need hassle-free branded merch solutions.
Start Offering Company Stores & Scale Your Printing Business
DTF and UV-DTF printing make webstore fulfillment faster, easier, and more profitable than ever before for decorators. Whether you’re working with businesses, schools, teams, or nonprofit fundraisers, this on-demand model eliminates inventory headaches, maximizes efficiency, and gets merch in people’s hands faster than ever.
Arcus Printers, a division of Axiom America, provides cutting-edge decorating technologies and equipment nationwide. Specializing in DTF and UV-DTF printing, wide-format digital fabric printing, laser cutting, embroidery, and more, we deliver high-quality solutions backed by expert support. Since 2004, our team has empowered businesses of all sizes to unleash creativity and achieve exceptional results.
Ready to start selling through company stores? Invest in a DTF or UV-DTF setup to unlock recurring revenue and bulk orders without the traditional risks of screen printing.
Contact the expert team at Arcus Printers today to learn what printer setup makes the most sense for your shop’s webstore or on-demand fulfillment setup.
Learn more at arcusprinters.com.
