Case Study
Amaya has provided us with outstanding support every step of the way. We're very grateful to have a supplier that works with us to help us grow. – Alex Cunliffe, MD, Inkthreadable
impact. Plus, a growing segment of our customers are building eco-friendly brands and packaging is a big part of their image.”
Back to the beginning Inkthreadable as a concept started when Alex
and Amy were in high school back in 2010. They sold printed and embroidered products on eBay and to their
classmates to earn a little extra money. This followed them to college, but they realised there was a high demand for their products, especially for customers looking for an on-demand printing partner, and decided to leave full time education to build a business.
Amy says: “Alex's
parents bought an embroidery machine that was older than us to embroider mattresses for their baby mattress business. It ran on floppy disk, and we had to buy an adaptor to transfer files to the machine because we didn't have a computer that read floppy disks! “We then got a A4 sublimation printer and started to print tops and gifts for people at school. When we started to sell a lot on eBay we bought a DTG printer, but along the way we picked up a few customers that required a print-on-demand solution and it worked perfectly alongside our own eBay sales. Eventually we took up B2B full-time.”
During the last five years Inkthreadable has had to move five years due to issues with space. The companyʼs latest moved happened in July last year when the team moved into an 8,000sq ft unit, which is around four times bigger than the last
The Avalanche Hexa HD6’s dual print heads
premises. The unit now gives Inkthreadable plenty of room to grow and it is hoped that the company will stay put for another five years, though only time will tell. Inkthreadable now has 10 staff printing over 180 products for 4,000 active merchants. The majority of these products are clothing printed solely using the two Kornit machines, capable of decorating over a thousand T shirts per shift. Both the Storm Hexa and Avalanche Hexa HD6 can run back-to-back shifts with no break in production, meaning they can handle the pressure during periods of peak trade. In fact, the longer the machines run the more economical they are. Alex explains: “The Kornit machines periodically run
maintenance routines which consumes ink. When theyʼre printing they donʼt need to run these routines as often, so the longer they run the cheaper each product is to print.” The Kornit Avalanche Hexa HD6 will be used to guarantee production capacity, quality and price for the foreseeable future for merchants using Inkthreadable as their on-demand printing partner.
On to the future
And as for the future? Alex and Amy have set their sights on sustainable growth. Amy says: “We plan to invest in more equipment as needed to grow our printing capacity. The Avalanche Hexa HD6 has given us some breathing room, and for now our main focus is on offering unparalleled customer support and building on our environmental and social responsibility policies. “We want to make sure weʼre doing everything we can for our customers and the environment through offering a first class customer experience and embracing new technologies, like the Kornit machines, to make our products and services as eco-friendly as possible.”
The Storm Hexa’s colour channels on a single print head
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
We plan to invest in more equipment as needed to grow our printing capacity. The Avalanche Hexa HD6 has given us some breathing room. – Amy Dunn, MD, Inkthreadable
April 2018 | 31 |
Bright, sharp prints can be created
Demonstrating the printing capability of the Avalanche Hexa HD6
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