The Blackburn-based outfit, which last month quadrupled in size by relocating to a new 750sqm unit, installed the machine earlier this week. Since it was launched in 2013 by the then-18-year-old founder Alex Cunliffe and his partner Amy Dunn, the business has relocated five times.
Inkthreadable's main USP is drop-shipping, where upon recieving the order from a client it prints, packs and fulfills the product direct to the consumer or individual retailer.
Inkthreadable uses custom-built software, which is now integrated with the Shopify and WooCommerce e-commerce platforms, so that when an order from a customer comes in it automatically goes through the print process and is shipped directly to the end-user.
Cunliffe confirmed the doubling of capacity, as the Hexa joins Inkthreadable’s 10 Polyprint Texjet direct-to-garment (DTG) printers, and said that he had been extensively searching the market for around the last 12 to 18 months before settling on the Hexa in May. It was supplied by UK-based Kornit distributor Amaya Sales, the first it has sold since taking the machines in May.
“The reason is to keep up with the demand and growth and this is the only machine that can handle the volumes on a scalable level,” said Cunliffe.
“We had a big growth spurt towards the end of last year, at which point we added a number of Texjet machines, but we are currently going on another spurt again, which is the main reason for adding the Kornit.”
The seven-colour Hexa (CMYK plus red, green and white), which was launched at Fespa Digital last year, can produce up to 170 light garments per hour in high productivity mode, utilising 16 printheads. It has an in-built pre-treatment system, a four-litre bulk inks system and an integrated humidity system.
Cunliffe singled out the pre-treatment system for praise, which he said takes one step out of the process and is another way in which the machine prints faster than its competitors. It is likely he will bring in another Kornit in the near future.
Inkthreadable, which has now grown to employ circa-13 staff, offers around 170 garments and promotional products, with all products printed on demand.
“From a customer’s perspective, there’s no risk in capacity because they don’t order any stock; you can’t get left with printed stock that the end user doesn’t want,” added Cunliffe.
Kornit launched another Storm machine at Fespa three months ago.
