*I believe it’s okay to solicit this kind of advice? Apologies if not, but hoping I can get some input.
I’m looking to establish a business selling custom T-shirts online. I’ve done some initial research and it seems like using a back-end service like Printify will give me the best quality for lowest cost to me, versus using a site like such as, for random examples, Teespring or Cafepress. Look forward to comments on this.
Assuming I do go with a service like Printify, I’ll need to use a front-end service to create my “store.” I know there are many options here–Shopify is one. Does anyone have experience using these? Opinions on service, cost, ease of use?
Seems to me this would be almost as big a longshot as starting a new online book store and having it succeed–there are already major sites for custom t-shirts. (This earlier thread might be helpful.)
Your backend and front end are less important than driving traffic to your site. Be ready to put in LOTS of time on social media. You are entering a very competitive market.
Also there are tons of podcasts and YouTube videos to help you. Use them.
Thanks for the responses. I did look at the referred threads, and they only apply a little to me.
The business is meant more as an experiment or hobby. I think I can make my money back–though the investment is small. And if people like them and they sell like hotcakes, great; I think the designs will get a good response in the intended market but I’m not gambling my retirement on it.
My intent is to use existing printing and fulfillment companies to make shirts from my designs. The way it’s set up these days makes it very easy to sell things with no inventory and minimal up front cost. The potential profit is smaller as the per unit cost is high, but if the business takes off, I can look at other ways to run it, like keeping inventory and doing fulfillment myself.
My main question, which as often happens I didn’t frame that well, is what “front end” software to use to create my online store. I know Shopify is a big one. Omar Little, I’m wondering if you have experience using Etsy to sell and what the pros and cons might be?
Can’t speak to those services, but I use Facebook for selling, and it’s stupid simple to create your own page (separate from your personal Facebook stuff, but under the same account) where you can add photos of each design, clarify shipping (if you offer that) and - far more importantly - advertise yourself far & wide across the umpteen jazillion groups people have formed on Facebook.
If your shirts have a dog theme, for example, go find groups for that breed or whatever and post a link there. People will often tag their friends and stuff, too (free direct contact advertising! hey, social media at its best!) and it’s a good visual medium so you can start getting word out to people.
Are you going to design them as well? If you have just the right sense of humor, you could take a look at Woot!. They feature new shirts every day, all designed by (more or less) random people. All you do is send in a design, they take care of everything else and send you a royalty check.
But, as I said, you have to have just the right sense of humor. Their shirts are mostly nerd/science and thinly veiled parodies of movies and tv shows, with just enough distance from the source that they won’t have to worry about copyright issues.
I have no idea how much the designers make, but other than your time and concept, you’re not out any real money. You won’t have to worry about having 200 t-shirts in your basement that you can’t sell.
I’d recommend doing some research into the competition because t-shirts seems to be the first thing that EVERYBODY and their dog thinks of as a small online business to launch. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, just that you need to find some tiny niche that’s not already served. Super unique designs or something.
I know little to nothing about ecommerce software, logistics, etc, but I’ll give you my anecdotal experience using custom T-shirt sites like Redbubble and Designbyhumans.
Their printing quality is generally good, BUT the selection of women’s shirt styles they offer are frustratingly limited. I’ve given up buying shirts for myself from Redbubble because all but one of their women’s fit shirts are “skinny/slim fit” and the XXXL is a mere 1 inch bigger in the bust than the Medium. Dafuq? The one women’s fit shirt on Redbubble that is reasonably sized for a person with boobage has a neckline straight out of Flashdance. Men’s tshirts are too square and make me look like a squat tree trunk, so I really need women’s fit shirts.
On Design by Humans they have a style that fits me well, but not all vendors on the site offer it and getting them to add it to their storefront is usually impossible.
I guess my advice boils down to: don’t offer only unisex shirt styles ('unisex" = “men’s”, trust me), and include women’s fit styles that fit women who are larger than a B cup.
Stick with high quality T shirts. Don’t just look at the price per dozen. Buy some samples first. Nothing will sink your business faster than people leaving negative reviews about the quality of your merchandise.
Thanks Motorgirl! I was intending to but I appreciate the thought. Do you know the brand of the shirts you liked? I’m thinking they probably source the shorts rather than making their own–could even be a tag on the shirt.
Don’t go cheap with the screen printing, either. I much prefer cheap tees with ink that lasts over fancy tees whose decoration peels off after a dozen launderings.
