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!