Sometimes when you are having a mental block when trying to come up with your next t-shirt design you can help yourself by choosing a niche. Focus on a niche that seems to be popular and start brainstorming ideas. Design a shirt, no matter how stupid it is or how much you hate it, just design one. This will get the creative juices flowing and you may design two or three more that are equally as bad, but perhaps that fourth one will be a gem! Sometimes we can think too much about a design. Just start doodling around, fooling around with your software program you use, or even sketching on paper. Designers block is a serious problem, but you can defeat it.
So how do you find a niche? Just think about things popular in the news today, or even things that never go out of style, like pets. You could come up with a niche focused on pets. Perhaps some clever pet drawings or captions could bring you an entire new client base. Maybe a few political designs based on current events in that arena could spark your creativity. There certainly isn't a lack of niche's to be covered and there are always customers looking for your new shirt. All you need sometimes is a little inspiration to know how to make a shirt that sells. Happy Designing!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Designing A Seller
So you brought those few good ideas to the table with you when you started your t-shirt company and they aren't exactly flying off the website, right? It's very common for a newcomer to put up a few clever or cool designs and just expect that everyone wants one or two, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. I got lucky fairly early in my stores life cycle and made a quick sale. I thought I was on a gravy train with biscuit wheels at that point, but it's amazing how quickly that train can derail. How many times a day do you go to your website to see if you made a sale? It's almost like trying to watch a pot of water boil, isn't it?
Don't let a lack of sales up front hurt your enthusiasm, or a rush of sales make you overly confident. The best thing you can do is to stop watching the pot of water and start filling up more pots! Yes, go back to designing! The more designs you can put up that are top quality the more success you will have. So what makes a design top quality? Well, in the end the customer is the ultimate judge of that. If a design sells then it is at least a decent shirt. I'm sure you are not the kind that settles for decent, however, so it's time to take your designs to another level.
How do you do that? Ask the internet of course! You have a great resource available to you online. Look at other shops online that are similar in theme or style to your own and see how they have their layouts. If you find the site by clicking on the first page of Google search then they are most assuredly getting great traffic and making sales. Study the way they have their designs created and how professional they look. Compare them with your own and see where your designs could use some improvement.
If you are using CafePress for your print on demand company I recommend putting good descriptions with each design. Simply labeling a t-shirt "dog t-shirt" isn't going to turn up a ton of targeted search traffic in the marketplace or on search engines for you. Try to narrow down what your t-shirt actually is. Perhaps "running poodle t-shirt" describes your design in more detail. If you get someone typing that in to a search engine or in to the CafePress marketplace search then they are pretty specific about what they are looking for and more likely a buyer. Keep researching and designing and you'll find yourself seeing that water boil dollar signs! Happy Designing!
Don't let a lack of sales up front hurt your enthusiasm, or a rush of sales make you overly confident. The best thing you can do is to stop watching the pot of water and start filling up more pots! Yes, go back to designing! The more designs you can put up that are top quality the more success you will have. So what makes a design top quality? Well, in the end the customer is the ultimate judge of that. If a design sells then it is at least a decent shirt. I'm sure you are not the kind that settles for decent, however, so it's time to take your designs to another level.
How do you do that? Ask the internet of course! You have a great resource available to you online. Look at other shops online that are similar in theme or style to your own and see how they have their layouts. If you find the site by clicking on the first page of Google search then they are most assuredly getting great traffic and making sales. Study the way they have their designs created and how professional they look. Compare them with your own and see where your designs could use some improvement.
If you are using CafePress for your print on demand company I recommend putting good descriptions with each design. Simply labeling a t-shirt "dog t-shirt" isn't going to turn up a ton of targeted search traffic in the marketplace or on search engines for you. Try to narrow down what your t-shirt actually is. Perhaps "running poodle t-shirt" describes your design in more detail. If you get someone typing that in to a search engine or in to the CafePress marketplace search then they are pretty specific about what they are looking for and more likely a buyer. Keep researching and designing and you'll find yourself seeing that water boil dollar signs! Happy Designing!
Friday, May 27, 2011
How To Start A T Shirt Business
My primary focus in the T Shirt Design business has been on the online side of things as this is where I spend most of my energy and time. I use CafePress as my print on demand company, as anyone who has read previous posts knows, but there is another side of the business that I feel gets left out. Fifteen years ago if you were starting a t shirt business you were opening a brick and mortar store front or working out of your garage and soliciting clients thru traditional advertising methods. Perhaps you printed up a dozen shirts specific to different companies or organizations and mailed it to them hoping to land a bulk order from one of them. Inserts in mid-week advertising flyers, small newspaper ads, radio, and many other forms of old school communication were necessary to get the word out that you were there. With the amazing ease of print on demand publishing anyone with $60 and a few design ideas can break in to the online side of things. This probably isn't the best route to go, however, for the bulk order from a local group. If you are using CafePress or any of the other POD's I'm sure your focus is strictly on search engine optimization techniques, ad words, and other forms of online traffic generation. So what does the business owner who wants to have a real world shop do these days?
I'm happy to say that the report of the death of small t shirt shop has been greatly exaggerated. Believe it or not there is still plenty of money to be made locally, or in printing your own t shirts. The online POD method has it's flaws.
1. Pricing - It's nearly impossible for a CafePress shopkeeper to compete with someone printing shirts in their garage, the cost comparison is too far off. CafePress base price currently for a standard white t shirt is $14.99, add a few bucks profit and you are at $17.99, well above what a local creation can sell for.
2. Local Orders - You are unlikely to get a local church group to order 20 shirts from your CafePress store and pay over $360. But if you are making them yourself with a cost outlay of around $6, and you sell them for $12 it costs them $240, and maybe you give them a break for the larger order.
3. Personable - Some people still don't buy online or do business online. There are many people out there who want that personal connection when they are making a purchase. It wouldn't take you much time at all to get a shirt made that was a test shirt for a group to make sure it looks as they want it to, if you did that with an online POD you are talking more money and a waiting period for shipping.
My point is there is money to be made in the local market or even making the shirts yourself for online distribution. You can sell them for less money, but it will be more hassle taking care of payments, shipping, returns, etc.
In a previous post I discussed the heat press and ink jet printer transfers that you could use to make test designs. I feel this is a great option for people out there and with the costs of heat presses dropping you can get in to this for around $600, including the press, ready made transfers, and some blank ink jet transfers. This is a cost that you can easily recoup in a short amount of time with a few good orders. In my opinion the designer who is using the heat press at home method and POD online is covering a much broader market and opening themselves up for more chance of success.
So what is the best way to get started with your at home t shirt business? I have partnered with a young lady who has successfully traversed the waters you are thinking of swimming in and she arrived safely on the sandy beaches of accomplishment island. There is no reason to set out on a journey without a GPS or road map. Others have been there and found the way. Others have experienced the pitfalls and made the mistakes. It's worth quite a bit to have them share those experiences with you and guide you down the quick path to reaching your goals. I invite you to take a look at her information and put it to use. This Mega Pack E-Book she has put together from her own real world experiences is worth a bunch to you, but it will cost you less than an annual Premium Shop subscription on CafePress. Think of this as your road map to success in your new business. Let me know how you like it. Happy Designing!
I'm happy to say that the report of the death of small t shirt shop has been greatly exaggerated. Believe it or not there is still plenty of money to be made locally, or in printing your own t shirts. The online POD method has it's flaws.
1. Pricing - It's nearly impossible for a CafePress shopkeeper to compete with someone printing shirts in their garage, the cost comparison is too far off. CafePress base price currently for a standard white t shirt is $14.99, add a few bucks profit and you are at $17.99, well above what a local creation can sell for.
2. Local Orders - You are unlikely to get a local church group to order 20 shirts from your CafePress store and pay over $360. But if you are making them yourself with a cost outlay of around $6, and you sell them for $12 it costs them $240, and maybe you give them a break for the larger order.
3. Personable - Some people still don't buy online or do business online. There are many people out there who want that personal connection when they are making a purchase. It wouldn't take you much time at all to get a shirt made that was a test shirt for a group to make sure it looks as they want it to, if you did that with an online POD you are talking more money and a waiting period for shipping.
My point is there is money to be made in the local market or even making the shirts yourself for online distribution. You can sell them for less money, but it will be more hassle taking care of payments, shipping, returns, etc.
In a previous post I discussed the heat press and ink jet printer transfers that you could use to make test designs. I feel this is a great option for people out there and with the costs of heat presses dropping you can get in to this for around $600, including the press, ready made transfers, and some blank ink jet transfers. This is a cost that you can easily recoup in a short amount of time with a few good orders. In my opinion the designer who is using the heat press at home method and POD online is covering a much broader market and opening themselves up for more chance of success.
So what is the best way to get started with your at home t shirt business? I have partnered with a young lady who has successfully traversed the waters you are thinking of swimming in and she arrived safely on the sandy beaches of accomplishment island. There is no reason to set out on a journey without a GPS or road map. Others have been there and found the way. Others have experienced the pitfalls and made the mistakes. It's worth quite a bit to have them share those experiences with you and guide you down the quick path to reaching your goals. I invite you to take a look at her information and put it to use. This Mega Pack E-Book she has put together from her own real world experiences is worth a bunch to you, but it will cost you less than an annual Premium Shop subscription on CafePress. Think of this as your road map to success in your new business. Let me know how you like it. Happy Designing!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Heat Press Ink Jet Transfers
In an early post I mentioned something fairly new to the market in Ink Jet heat transfers. Now these aren't the Wal Mart heat transfers that you print off and then iron on with your standard $12 iron. These are from a professional company that sells heat presses and their own transfers. I sent an inquiry to the company and found out a little more about the process. Keep in mind I haven't personally tried these yet but the company basically broke it down like this:
"The transfers printed by our company are screen printed onto paper using plastisol ink. The only part of the transfer that shows on your garment is the area where the ink is. These transfers have a longevity that is similar to a silk screened tshirt.
With that being said, our ink jet transfer papers are a bit different. They are made by using the standard ink from your ink jet printer. The entire sheet will
transfer to your garment rather than just the ink, so any area you do not want, you will need to trim away. We offer 2 different types of ink jet paper, one
is for light color garments and the other is for dark color garments. The light color garment paper has a clear residue that appears on the garment if the area is not trimmed away, and the paper for dark color garments has a white backing that will transfer if not trimmed away."
So basically you have to do some trimming with these plastisol ink jet transfers and I get the impression they aren't as long lasting as their other transfers. I have done some further research and found that the type of ink and printer you use also makes a difference. For the best results using these transfers you are going to want a pigment based ink printer. Typical dye based ink is absorbed in to the paper, whereas pigment based ink sits on top of the paper in tiny, encapsulated particles. I can only assume since it's not absorbed it makes for a better transfer to the shirt.
If you are going to heat press your shirts yourself I would recommend using the ready made transfers most companies have, or having them print your custom designs on plastisol for you as opposed to ink jet transfers. Trimming and ink cost could get rather expensive and traditional at home printers are not known for durability. One way I could see using them is to have a supply at home for 'test designs'. Sometimes you just aren't sure how your image is going to look on a shirt, so you put it on Cafe Press in your media basket and hope for the best. At the same time if you are sending off for a company to do your transfers for you it wouldn't make sense to order 250 transfers of a design you aren't sure about. So have a supply of ink jet transfers on hand just to simply test designs! They would work good enough for you to transfer to a shirt and see if the text is large enough or if the colors work as you had anticipated. I'm sure this is an ongoing technological advancement that could get better with time, and I'm still anxious to see how they work in person. If you have any info on them I'd love to hear what you have to say. Happy Designing!
"The transfers printed by our company are screen printed onto paper using plastisol ink. The only part of the transfer that shows on your garment is the area where the ink is. These transfers have a longevity that is similar to a silk screened tshirt.
With that being said, our ink jet transfer papers are a bit different. They are made by using the standard ink from your ink jet printer. The entire sheet will
transfer to your garment rather than just the ink, so any area you do not want, you will need to trim away. We offer 2 different types of ink jet paper, one
is for light color garments and the other is for dark color garments. The light color garment paper has a clear residue that appears on the garment if the area is not trimmed away, and the paper for dark color garments has a white backing that will transfer if not trimmed away."
So basically you have to do some trimming with these plastisol ink jet transfers and I get the impression they aren't as long lasting as their other transfers. I have done some further research and found that the type of ink and printer you use also makes a difference. For the best results using these transfers you are going to want a pigment based ink printer. Typical dye based ink is absorbed in to the paper, whereas pigment based ink sits on top of the paper in tiny, encapsulated particles. I can only assume since it's not absorbed it makes for a better transfer to the shirt.
If you are going to heat press your shirts yourself I would recommend using the ready made transfers most companies have, or having them print your custom designs on plastisol for you as opposed to ink jet transfers. Trimming and ink cost could get rather expensive and traditional at home printers are not known for durability. One way I could see using them is to have a supply at home for 'test designs'. Sometimes you just aren't sure how your image is going to look on a shirt, so you put it on Cafe Press in your media basket and hope for the best. At the same time if you are sending off for a company to do your transfers for you it wouldn't make sense to order 250 transfers of a design you aren't sure about. So have a supply of ink jet transfers on hand just to simply test designs! They would work good enough for you to transfer to a shirt and see if the text is large enough or if the colors work as you had anticipated. I'm sure this is an ongoing technological advancement that could get better with time, and I'm still anxious to see how they work in person. If you have any info on them I'd love to hear what you have to say. Happy Designing!
Friday, May 13, 2011
Researching T-Shirt Design Options
I've spent the better part of this week researching T-shirt design options as it pertains to the best route to go in actually creating the products. I have looked at screen printing machines, heat presses with transfers, heat presses with ink jet transfers, and the POD (Print On Demand) options like CafePress, Zazzle, etc. There are some interesting pros and cons to each of these. Unless you are pretty seasoned at what you do the screen printing is not the best option for new comers. The heat press and plastisol transfers are a great option if you want to control more aspects of your delivery and sales options. With CafePress you have no access to your customers information so a follow up sale initiated by you is impossible. Here are a few comparisons for those of you trying to decide the best route.
CafePress - This is the method I have used for my company successfully for the past three years. CafePress has come a long way in their presentation and offerings. They use DTG (Direct To Garment) printer on their shirts and every shirt I have bought from them has been top quality.
Pros
1. Low start up cost - You can open a CafePress Premium Store for $60.00.
2. Payment Processing - CafePress handles payment processing for you, no merchant account needed.
3. Shipping - As with the payment processing shipping is done by CafePress. No Cardboard laying around the garage.
4. Traffic - CafePress gets lots of traffic. This doesn't translate in to traffic at your particular storefront, but it does put people on the system to find your design in searches.
5. Freedom - You can put any style design up as long as you don't trademark infringe or put up something that gets filtered for content. I've put up some graphic wording and passed muster so it's not strict by a long shot.
6. Flexibility - Don't like your dark themed store as much as you did the first day? No worries, just select another template or plug in your own HTML to design the storefront of your dreams. It's hard to imagine changing an entire website could be that easy.
Cons
1. Pricing - Ok, so I've heard complaints from other shopkeepers about the products having to be priced above market value to make any money. A t-shirt for $23.00 seems high, but people are still buying them! I've sold t-shirts for $25.00.
2. Commission changes - CafePress changed the structure of how much you get paid for items bought that you designed thru the marketplace. Meaning if someone buys your design while searching all the stores in the marketplace you just made $2.00. Tough to get rich at $2.00 a pop.
3. Amateur designers - This covers a couple of different points. First you have CafePress putting the option out there on their front page for anyone to design their very own t-shirt. This doesn't concern me a whole bunch because most people won't design a good looking one or know exactly what they want. The second point is amateur designers who put up cheap knockoffs of other sites t-shirt designs. Don't do this! I wish I had a nickel for every shirt in the marketplace that had the phrase "I'd rather be snorting cocaine off a hookers ass!" Stealing designs is cheap, stupid, and infringing upon the original designers copyright. Have all original material in your shop, it's more professional and you'll get customers.
I was going to do a pro vs con for heat press and transfers as well but I have just recently gotten in to this side of the business. One good thing is you can control every aspect of your business. One bad thing is you have to control every aspect of your business.
If you order 200 blank T-shirts and start pressing images on them with your new heat press and some don't turn out so great and most of the others you can't find a home for you just sunk around $700 on the low end for all that merchandise.
On the other hand you should have somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 - $6 invested in the average heat transfer t-shirt. Now how much less could you sell that for than CafePress? But don't forget you still have to ship it and process the customers payment unless you are selling out of the back of your van.
In the end I feel like a combination of CafePress and heat press transfers out of your home or business is a good model to work up to. Start with CafePress and build your brand on line, then take your designs locally and see how you do with the lower price items. With a little research, a little luck, and some good designs you could be on your way to a profitable business doing something you love. Good luck!
CafePress - This is the method I have used for my company successfully for the past three years. CafePress has come a long way in their presentation and offerings. They use DTG (Direct To Garment) printer on their shirts and every shirt I have bought from them has been top quality.
Pros
1. Low start up cost - You can open a CafePress Premium Store for $60.00.
2. Payment Processing - CafePress handles payment processing for you, no merchant account needed.
3. Shipping - As with the payment processing shipping is done by CafePress. No Cardboard laying around the garage.
4. Traffic - CafePress gets lots of traffic. This doesn't translate in to traffic at your particular storefront, but it does put people on the system to find your design in searches.
5. Freedom - You can put any style design up as long as you don't trademark infringe or put up something that gets filtered for content. I've put up some graphic wording and passed muster so it's not strict by a long shot.
6. Flexibility - Don't like your dark themed store as much as you did the first day? No worries, just select another template or plug in your own HTML to design the storefront of your dreams. It's hard to imagine changing an entire website could be that easy.
Cons
1. Pricing - Ok, so I've heard complaints from other shopkeepers about the products having to be priced above market value to make any money. A t-shirt for $23.00 seems high, but people are still buying them! I've sold t-shirts for $25.00.
2. Commission changes - CafePress changed the structure of how much you get paid for items bought that you designed thru the marketplace. Meaning if someone buys your design while searching all the stores in the marketplace you just made $2.00. Tough to get rich at $2.00 a pop.
3. Amateur designers - This covers a couple of different points. First you have CafePress putting the option out there on their front page for anyone to design their very own t-shirt. This doesn't concern me a whole bunch because most people won't design a good looking one or know exactly what they want. The second point is amateur designers who put up cheap knockoffs of other sites t-shirt designs. Don't do this! I wish I had a nickel for every shirt in the marketplace that had the phrase "I'd rather be snorting cocaine off a hookers ass!" Stealing designs is cheap, stupid, and infringing upon the original designers copyright. Have all original material in your shop, it's more professional and you'll get customers.
I was going to do a pro vs con for heat press and transfers as well but I have just recently gotten in to this side of the business. One good thing is you can control every aspect of your business. One bad thing is you have to control every aspect of your business.
If you order 200 blank T-shirts and start pressing images on them with your new heat press and some don't turn out so great and most of the others you can't find a home for you just sunk around $700 on the low end for all that merchandise.
On the other hand you should have somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 - $6 invested in the average heat transfer t-shirt. Now how much less could you sell that for than CafePress? But don't forget you still have to ship it and process the customers payment unless you are selling out of the back of your van.
In the end I feel like a combination of CafePress and heat press transfers out of your home or business is a good model to work up to. Start with CafePress and build your brand on line, then take your designs locally and see how you do with the lower price items. With a little research, a little luck, and some good designs you could be on your way to a profitable business doing something you love. Good luck!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Interesting New Development
I'm not exactly sure how new it is but I was researching direct to garment printers the other day and found a website with an intriguing method I had never seen before. If you have done any research in to starting your own T-shirt design company you've probably heard of the standard screen printing, heat press, and direct to garment printer options available. This is the path I have a goal of getting to at some point, but the pricing on the DTG (direct to garment) printers are pretty high. I've seen some for around $26,000, which is an insane amount of investment to have to recoup selling shirts for $15 to $20 at a time.
Anyway, I recently came across a site selling plastisol transfers, these are the special papers that designs are placed upon that you then heat press on to a shirt, that only require a standard ink jet printer. What?!? Exactly my reaction. How could your standard Wal Mart purchased printer handle the kind of quality out put necessary for quality t shirt transfers? Well, I am in the thinking stages of giving this a go. I am not giving out the website or recommending it to anyone at this time as I want to check out exactly how good the method is. To say the least I am skeptical.
This could be a game changer in the my opinion as I'm sure all of us who are serious about doing our own designs and controlling our own pricing want to do it all at home or in a place of business. The limitations of online sites like CafePress, Zazzle, etc. are the somewhat limiting options. What if you wanted a design or message way down the shirt? Well you are out of luck at this time online using the print on demand sites. If a person can get in to the business with a press and do it yourself transfers for under $1000 that is a game changer for all of us small timers! Imagine being able to sell your design for $15 and still make a profit instead of waiting on the CafePress marketplace to send somebody your way and make a $2 commission. I'm anxious to see this method in action and I will report on my results soon.
Anyway, I recently came across a site selling plastisol transfers, these are the special papers that designs are placed upon that you then heat press on to a shirt, that only require a standard ink jet printer. What?!? Exactly my reaction. How could your standard Wal Mart purchased printer handle the kind of quality out put necessary for quality t shirt transfers? Well, I am in the thinking stages of giving this a go. I am not giving out the website or recommending it to anyone at this time as I want to check out exactly how good the method is. To say the least I am skeptical.
This could be a game changer in the my opinion as I'm sure all of us who are serious about doing our own designs and controlling our own pricing want to do it all at home or in a place of business. The limitations of online sites like CafePress, Zazzle, etc. are the somewhat limiting options. What if you wanted a design or message way down the shirt? Well you are out of luck at this time online using the print on demand sites. If a person can get in to the business with a press and do it yourself transfers for under $1000 that is a game changer for all of us small timers! Imagine being able to sell your design for $15 and still make a profit instead of waiting on the CafePress marketplace to send somebody your way and make a $2 commission. I'm anxious to see this method in action and I will report on my results soon.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Make Money With T-shirts
I first got the itch to design T-shirts back in the mid 90's. After researching what it would take I quickly gave up as all the talk about heat presses, design transfers, and screen printing equipment made dollar signs fill my head. Even today if you wanted to start this process in your basement or garage it would cost around $10,000 to get going. Then you have website costs and design, shipping, taking orders, and all the other headaches. There has to be a better way!
Well, thanks to Cafe Press, Zazzle, Printfection, and numerous other sites there are alternatives that require little out of pocket expense. I will talk about Cafe Press because this is the company I use for my own shop and they were one of the first ones I discovered when starting this venture.
So what do you need to get started?
1. Some ideas
2. $59 for a year subscription
3. Some sort of editing software for your designs
4. Patience to learn the correct methods to getting your designs looking good
There are many editing software programs out there that are cheap or free that you can use to get your designs uploaded to the Cafe Press servers and in to your own shop for sale. You can put as many t-shirts as you want. You are limited only by the number of ideas you come up with.
Perhaps you are part of a niche hobby like Pigeon racing, quilting, stamp collecting? All of these could be put in to use with some T-shirt designs. For example something as simple as "Real Women Quilt". You could put a picture of a woman quilting if you have the skills to do that, or simply the text itself. Probably half of the shirts I see on Cafe Press are text only designs. Come up with something clever and it has a great chance of selling.
I'll cover some more on this topic in a later post. If you have any questions or want help with your T-shirt ideas please let me know.
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