Digital Textile Printing offers the established print service provider an incredible opportunity for expansion, as the marketplace for digital textiles continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. CMYUK talk about the exponential growth expected and why they are best placed to help your business discover a new marketplace.

The reaction to CMYUK’s Décor exhibit at the recent Sign and Digital UK exhibition was exceptional, and points the way forward for new business opportunities for PSP’s.

HAZEL CARRUTHERS Collaborate with CMYUK to create a stunning Décor exhibit at Sign and Digital UK, 2019.

A recent survey by Smithers Pira highlighted a predicted growth rate for Digital Textile Printing at over 17.5% per annum over the next six years. In this period, the survey forecasts that the total available global market for Digital Textile Printing will more than double from $1.73 billion in 2018 to $3.94 billion in 2023.

To anyone deeply involved within the trade, this growth has been evident for quite some time, encouraging a plethora of small independent print-houses to develop and focus on this sector, alongside the serious mainstream established textile printers that have already started to convert their plants from rotary screen printing to digital.

Just as digital disruption within the Events and Signage industry digitised the graphics workspace, to provide an efficient, speedy and sustainable solution for manufacturing, we are now about to witness the transformation of the printed textile market. The Fashion, Sportwear and Interior Décor sectors offer exceptional new business opportunities for the PSP.

For Fashion, recognised designers have already started to set up their own print shops, enabling the supply of ‘capsule’ collections with a risk-free ‘no stock’ business model. This points the way forward for many micro-brands and fashion entrepreneurs with web-to-print businesses.

Within these varied business models, clients receive their chosen items within days, paid for in advance via an ecommerce gateway that delivers an excellent ROI to the Designer, or Print Service Provider.

Similarly in Sportswear, state-of-the-art micro-factories and dye-sub printers are now combining customised pattern making software with laser cutting and automated sewing, to enable the Sportwear Industry to keep up with the Millennial generation’s insatiable demand for customisation and personalisation.

Within the Interior Décor Sector, where the path to customisation was first opened up by the extraordinary growth in demand for bespoke wallpaper murals for domestic and contract use, we now see exponential growth in customised contract fabric printing.

As a result, interior designers and curtain makers, have made the move to customised fabric printing, and are increasingly utilising the speed and creativity enabled by the facility of Digital Textile Printing, to give their schemes and product ranges the individuality and exclusivity so popular with their clientele.

Taken in the round, all this adds up to an extraordinarily vibrant eco-system, where as demand increases, machinery and systems are increasingly available across a wide range of prices and performances.

So, from the existing Print Service Provider’s point of view, whilst looking for new business opportunities, the growth of Digital Textile Printing presents an unrivalled opportunity to re-focus and bolt-on a profitable new dynamic to their businesses, leveraging many core production skills from prepress, colour management, digital printer operation and finishing.

Making the move now, will re-invigorate their commercial offer, and will enable them to participate in the enormous growth that is forecast for Digital Textile Printing over the next five years.