Flood Wholesale t-shirts: UK screen printers stock!
You may or may not know, we don’t manufacture garments in house, we custom ‘decorate’ them with your designs. It’s a common misconception that UK screen printers hold wholesale t-shirts and other garments. I used to think the same. There are 3 main reasons why this doesn’t happen, let me explain.
Number 1: Garment Manufacturers and Suppliers
We use around 4 different suppliers based in the UK and a handful of brand suppliers across Europe. Most of the UK based companies are ‘one-stop shops’ holding literally millions of items in stock. Up to 4,500 different products and over 150+ brands. Many wholesalers out there specialise in buying stock directly from brand manufacturers. These types of companies warehouse and ship stock directly to us within a day or two! They have huge warehouses (1,000’s and 1000’s of square foot) to store them. Without them, we wouldn’t be able supply you with the wide range that we have on offer.
Number 2: Brands, Styles and Colours
Most brands have tons of different styles and colour variations to chose from. The Gildan Softstyle T-shirt alone has 50 odd colours available. The sizes range from XS youth right up to 5XL adult. If you multiply that across the whole range of styles, well it’s a lot of garments!
Number 3: Cost
We usually have a small amount of black and white t-shirts in stock (most popular) but we can’t guess what customers will order next. One day we might be printing heather grey sweatshirts for a running club, the next it might be pink t-shirts for a skate shop, then even pairs of thongs for an artist. By not stocking a large inventory it allows us to keep costs down and order on request.
Does ordering stock slow down the print process?
Not at all. Our standard turnaround times are up to 15 working days from receipt of payment. Most of our suppliers use a next day courier service, which means our customers are rarely affected by delivery times. Occasionally a certain style or colour will not be available. It's rare, but if it does happen we will do our best to find a replacement style that is as good as or an upgrade to the original.
Screen Printing Inks & Different Types of Print Finishes
Water-based Ink:
Our preferred ink of choice. Water-based inks produce very soft bright print colours and bright whites with an excellent finish, stretch performance and great wash durability. Our inks are free from harmful, toxic chemicals making them safer for the environment. Water-based inks have moved on a lot and nowadays can be used on every fabric, from cotton to the most challenging high stretch performance poly fabrics.
Plastisol Ink:
The most popular and widely used screen printing ink specifically designed for garment printing. Most types of garments can be printed and we can produce bright finishes on dark garments with the use of an underbase. Not as soft as other inks available but printed plastisol ink will last as long as the T-shirt! However, here at Flood we can use a discharge underbase and our soft plastisol inks over the top. That means it’s now possible to get bright soft prints even on dark garments.
Discharge Ink:
A type of waterbased ink for dark 100% cotton garments. Discharge ink removes the original fabric colour and replaces it with a pigment colour of your choice. This process has a reputation of being horribly toxic. Our Formaldehyde Free Discharge Systems are evironmentally friendly and ready to wear without being pre-washed. They produce very bright colours and ultra bright whites with an excellent soft finish and wash durability. Once washed discharge prints are soft, breathable and totally intergrated with the fabric. Be aware, this type of printing only works with 80-100% reactive dyed cotton garments, with a few exceptions.
Performance Printing:
The problem with some performance wear is the fabric dye can sometimes migrate into plastisol and waterbased inks, changing the colour of them, ruining the garment design. We don’t have that problem, in fact around a lot of the garments we print are made from performance fabric. We use high quality low-bleed & dye blocking inks that are perfect for printing onto garments with high polyester content.
Process Printing:
Certain artwork with a lot of detail or photographic type images require a different type of printing and sometimes ink to get the desired effect. Every design is different so it's best to get in contact with us via email to find out what print technique suits your design. Due to the difficulty involved there is a small setup fee to get your artwork ready for printing.
Special Effects Printing:
In addition to the above inks and processes we use speciality or special effects inks. These include puff, suede, glow in the dark, metallic and many more. Get in touch if you’ve got a design you think needs something extra. We can advise you on the best way to get the right finish to your garments.
Everything To Know About Garment Finishing
Why is it called garment finishings? Because that’s exactly what it is! If you want to make your brand that bit more unique, then why not take advantage of our custom garment finishing service?
Label Removal & Printed Neck Tags
Our most popular re-branding service: We carefully remove the brand label and print your custom design inside the neck. Although many brands such as Stanley & Stella or Continental Clothing don’t have branded labels inserted in the neck, only a size tab. Get in touch for more information. Some tagless garments have printed labels inside the collar. Unfortunately these can’t be removed.
Label Removal & Sewn Neck Tags
Custom tags sewn into your garments is another great way to make your brand stand out and one of our most popular garment finishing services! We sew in 3 standard positions. Inside neck, sleeve or bottom hem. Manufacturers labels can be cut out and a new labels sewn in place. Or, for the best possible finish, manufacturers labels can be unpicked and your own labels professionally sewn in place.
Flood does not manufacture labels or tags. If you want us to source labels for you, we can. MOQ's start at 500pcs. We can also recommend UK based manufacturers and you can ask to send the labels to us and we’ll keep them in stock for you. If you can, send 10% overage to allow for imperfections, losses and occasional errors.
Hang Tagging
Retail garments may need to be hang tagged so they can go directly into shops or on to your customers. If you want us to supply hang tags, just let us know. Please supply us with tags and we will insert them onto each of the garments we’ve printed for you.
Folding & Bagging
For the ultimate finishing touches, have your garments folded and bagged so they’re totally retail ready. This service also keeps them clean while they’re being transported or stored. We also add a sticker to each bag so you can easily identify sizes.
All garment finishings can add 2-3 days onto turnaround times.