Print on demand made easy!
David Sharp’s new print-on-demand trade service promises “unbeatable prices” and will allow smaller companies to compete with the big players, say Dominic Bunce and Jamie Hood. Images discovers the profit-boosting trade services Europe’s biggest digitiser is offering to garment decorators of all sizes
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Mention David Sharp and most people in the industry will instantly think “embroidery digitiser” – the one that celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2026 and is billed as “the biggest digitiser in Europe”. What is less well known is that David Sharp offers a range of other textile decoration services, including direct-to-film (DTF) transfers, and now has big – and exciting – ambitions for the print-on-demand market.
Groundbreaking print-on-demand launch
For nearly five decades, David Sharp has been providing digitising services to customers across the globe. Originally based in Nottingham before moving south to Gosport in 2009, the company has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, and now employs 72 digitisers in the UK, US and Australia. It has also expanded its services to include print with the launch last year of DS Grid, a popular, low-cost, high-quality DTF transfer printing service.
Never ones to sit still, directors Dominic Bunce and Jamie Hood have spent the past six months working on another new initiative – a trade-only DTF print-on-demand (POD) service that promises the best rates available with David Sharp quality baked in. Launching this month, the new service enables garment decorators to produce and dispatch any size order of DTF-printed garments, giving them instant access to the lucrative POD market.
The price, based on square centimetres, has been deliberately calculated to beat those of the DTG mega-factories, says Dominic. Customers simply go to the DS Grid portal, upload their design and select the garment, and the cost is instantly calculated for them.
The company is supporting its carefully selected print partners with new equipment to ensure quality and consistency. “After much testing, we have invested heavily in DTF 60Pro 4-Head printers from TheMagicTouch for our print partners. These printers produced the most vibrant colours and delivered the most consistent quality with the fewest amount of breakdowns,” reports Dominic.
The company has also taken delivery of the first Roq Impress multi-head heat press carousel in the UK to be used for DTF application, with two more on order from I-Sub. Capable of applying 500 transfers an hour, the Roq system offers a huge step-up in production output, outpacing industrial DTG machines. Capacity will reach 22,000 per day by the third quarter!
For nearly five decades, David Sharp has been offering expert digitising services
David Sharp now offers an expert print-on-demand DTF printing service
Smooth print-on-demand workflow
A vital part of the DTF POD service is the software that drives the workflow. “If someone has an order for 5,000 T-shirts and they’re all going to individual addresses, they don’t want to be touching them,” explains Dominic. “We’ve built an automated system where when someone submits an artwork, the system automatically places a barcode, which then guides the design through its print journey, right through to dispatch.”
The automated system even sends out updates to the trade partner who has placed the order confirming the garment has been dispatched, as well as to the end customer so they know their T-shirt is on its way. It’s all done under plain cover, so the end customer never knows about David Sharp or DS Grid, just that they have bought great quality printed garments from a highly efficient and professional decorator.
The service is currently offered on a choice of 100 garments, but this will soon be scaled up to include all styles available from the main distributors, with live stock levels available when ordering.
And while the service is offering unbeatable prices, Jamie is adamant that there will be no downgrading of quality. “A lot of people try to save money by reducing the white base, but we don’t do that. We offer the best that’s available – the cost difference to us is pennies and a happy customer is worth more than that.”
DTF transfer service
The new POD service has been built on the back of the hugely successful trade-only DTF and UV DTF transfer service David Sharp launched in February 2024.
“We were constantly being asked by customers if we could provide the physical transfers,” reveals Dominic. “It got to the point where more and more were being let down by their current suppliers, so we paired up with multiple partners to produce transfers to our David Sharp quality standard.”
Not only must print companies pass specific tests before being selected as an official partner, they have to use the Kodak inks and premium transfer films selected by David Sharp in order to ensure consistent high quality results.
“Everyone knows and loves the David Sharp name, and customers appreciated the fact that when we rolled out the DTF transfers, it was under our parameters and guidelines,” Jamie states. “Everything is printed as efficiently as possible in the most cost-effective manner, without ever scrimping on
the materials.”
DS Grid guarantees that all orders placed before midday are dispatched the same working day, and offers a simple and highly competitive pricing structure: the DTF transfers cost £6.80 per metre, even if the customer is only ordering one metre at a time.
“We’ve been quite aggressive on our pricing,” admits Dominic. “That’s because from the off we wanted to be able to help every business, whatever size they are, to compete with the bigger players. We don’t add on a huge mark-up – we produce a large volume of transfers each day, which keeps costs down and allows us to pass on these savings to our customers.”
The popular DTF transfer service DS Grid was launched in 2024 and is no joined by a print-on-demand DTF printing service
Production-boosting designs
In spite of all the exciting new developments on the print front, embroidery digitising remains the company’s core service. The team carries out up to 800 designs a day; an online portal enables orders to be placed 24/7 and customer support is available for an impressive 18 hours out of 24.
The relentless drive for a high-quality service with fast turnaround speeds is underpinned by the company’s ordering system, explains director Dominic. “We spent two years, and quite a bit of money, building our online portal system so clients could quickly and easily place orders at times that work for them. It’s allowed us to maintain our prices – we have zero plans to increase our prices in the future! – while other companies around the world have had to increase theirs. It’s all down to the efficiencies of the portal.”
The company’s primary focus has always been on improving clients’ production efficiency, explains Jamie, whether that’s through the use of technology or its ability to create designs with lower stitch counts, fewer trims and a reduction in thread breaks.
“One of our customers saw a 22% increase in output when they switched to our digitising. Even if they received their previous digitising company’s design free of charge, it still ended up costing them more than if they had paid us to digitise because of the time our design saved. A 22% increase in output is phenomenal.”
Increased production, unbeatable prices, unrivalled quality and the opportunity to compete with the industry’s giants – 2025 is set to be an exciting year for David Sharp and its many customers.
