DTF PRINTING www.images-magazine.com 46 images OCTOBER 2026 Easyas1,2, 3 Images discovers just how easy it is to create a dedicated, printready DTF file from scratch – with zero design skills – using Merchu, the new AI service from 1ClickPrint Inspiration for Merchu – fittingly, the AI chatbot ChatGPT came up with the name – followed from an AI conference that Jamie Turner of 1ClickPrint had attended. He’d gone along to learn how to automate the marketing for his DTF hardware and transfer supply company. He came away with a mission to help his customers with their image generation. So, what is Merchu? To summarise, it is a service that allows users to see which topics are trending online at any given moment, then make a T-shirt design that taps into those trends, order the DTF transfers, and create an eBay or Etsy listing for T-shirts printed with the design. It is much more than that though, as Jamie explains. And he’s clearly tapped into something people want as within minutes of him sending out an email to his customer base announcing its launch, people were already signing up – and they haven’t stopped yet. Problem solver As Jamie points out, 1ClickPrint has been in the DTF space for a long time now. “As a service provider, we’re seeing users wanting the same things over and over again,” he says. “Online sellers are struggling to know what to sell, to know what is currently popular, and they’re struggling to create their designs to a professional level because there are no easy to use tools that we can find. “And they want to create their listings on various marketplaces as professionally and easily as possible, with all the optimisations for search terms, etc – that is difficult. Then lastly, they want to get their DTF designs printed and sent over to them. “We’ve come in with a solution to all of those steps.” In fact, Merchu solves all these problems and more – it’s an impressive tool that has been built with the printers who will be using it firmly in mind. By the centimetre charging All users have to sign up to the Merchu site, but there is a free option. Those who choose to pay for a subscription – there are three paid-for options, ranging from £120 to £590 a year – will have access to more of the tools and intelligence that Merchu offers. Additionally, those who pay the highest subscription will get the lowest cost per metre pricing on DTF transfers: £2.99. Part of Merchu’s system is that it autofills the gangsheets if required, and all users, even those on the free plan, are only charged per centimetre. “So, if there’s a 10cm space at the bottom of the sheet that has no transfers on it, they don’t get charged for it. The system automatically works it out,” Jamie explains. The saving is shown on each order – the team has worked out that charging this way saves 10.5% on an average order. Trend explorer Before users even get to this point though there is plenty to explore. Stuck on what to include in a design? Go to the powerful ‘Trend explorer’ section and you’ll see the data from thousands of different T-shirt searches. And not just the overall subjects – for example, it might say ‘football’ but then you can delve into the searches within that topic. Over the World Cup, Scotland football was a very popular search for a while as the fans delighted the host cities, something that the system picked up on. Or if you’ve seen something you like, you can upload a picture of it in the ‘Upload inspiration’ section and fresh new designs will be created. Other ways to create designs include the ‘Point and click AI designer’ and the ‘Text to design AI’ systems. You can choose your art style, add text and decide what T-shirt colour you want it on then ‘roll’ out four designs – there is no need to have any Photoshop or similar knowledge. Then, choose the design you want – or roll to get four more options. Once a design is selected, you can choose to list the design on eBay and Etsy, or download print-ready files, or load the gangsheet – either manually or using AI, with the background automatically removed by AI – and order the transfers (with next-day delivery if ordered by 1.30pm). The eBay and Etsy listing route allows you to create realistic, AI-generated photos of models wearing the T-shirt you just designed, and it will even write an optimised listing for you. Job done! Having been given the opportunity to play with the new system, the joy of Merchu is that anyone can use it to create great, on-trend designs that are ready to print, whatever their skill level – within minutes. As Jamie points out: “We’re deskilling the research, we’re deskilling the design, deskilling the listing, and deskilling the printing.” merchu.ai Merchu creates realistic mock-ups of the T-shirt design you’ve created, ready for listing on eBay and Etsy Users only pay for what they use on the gangsheets
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