Started a T-Shirt E-Commerce Business

[Kabylfx]

Hi guys,

I've been waiting for a long time for this to happen and it finally did, I started a business.

It might not look like a huge deal to many of you fastlaners, but to me, it is. This is the first time I actually put my mind into something and dedicated a lot of time and effort into it. Of course, starting a T-Shirt company is not that big of a project (thanks to @AgainstAllOdds post, which helped me a lot) but it is still a huge step to me (and it wasn't THAT easy to put together to be honest).

I'm a very VERY greedy guy and I am fully aware of this. I have a little under 1k in savings that I never spent and it's been like this for many years now. I never invested into things I found scary and even found myself sometimes in hesitation whether or not I would order a pizza or go to the cinema (seriously) even though I'm young and still living in my parents house (so bills and taxes are often not a problem for me).

But now that I've started this project, I feel like this is slowly changing even though I'm fully aware that I might not even get one sale and fail miserably.

More on the project now :

I targeted a very specific group of people (more precisely, an ethnicity, people from a very specific part of the world) and dedicated my designs to fulfill a need that I've noticed when travelling to my native country : the need to express their origins and to show the world their culture which is really important to us.

So that's how it started. For now, I have my website up using Shopify, bought a domain, have two Twitter accounts, an Instagram and a Facebook page.

I have 9 designs in total and planning on making more of them and taking suggestions from my audience.

In total, I've spent around 45 bucks and planning on spending way more for ads if this goes well.

My objectives :

1- Learn SEO techniques or hire someone on Fiverr to do it.
2- Grow my accounts fanbase with valuable followers (which is going to be a bit difficult)
3- Buy Ads on Facebook and maybe Google Adwords
4- Promote my website in as many blogs, pages, forums as possible
5- Make new designs
6- Get a sale
7- Have enough monthly income to pay for my hosting

My goals :

1- Have enough money to start a new more profitable business (for example : investing in a prototype, pay manufacturers etc.) which often costs a lot of money.
2- Be able to help pay my parent's house mortgage (if not entirely) and be able to help them financially through out the upcoming years.
3- Develop a passive income stream to have enough money to stop worrying about my future when finishing school (I'm 17, Canadian college student and plan on studying engineering in university)
4- Become a millionaire by age 25?

What I'm worried of :

I am a bit worried my niche being too specific. In my native country, people are not that wealthy and most of them make around 3k a month (probably just enough to pay the bills). Also, shopping online is not something everyone does over there. Thankfully, I can also still rely on the ones here in Canada or in France to sale my products to.

I will be posting updates in this thread following this journey.

Thanks to everyone for reading this and have a wonderful day

 

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[Scot]

Sounds good so far, you've got a niche and a need. I agree, start with the local community where you currently live. I don't know which ethnicity, but I'll use Fillipino as an example. People in the Philippines aren't your target, but the Filipinos in your country, the ones who are part of the Fillipino clubs and have the big social events that are solely about Fillipino culture, those are your customers.

One change I'd suggest. Your objectives #6 get a sale, should be #1.

Sell first, validate your idea, sell again, then a few more. Use that money to advance the other objectives.

 

[Mikkel]

Congrats on making the leap @Kabylfx

If you need any help with your social media accounts, specifically Instagram, I wouldn't mind giving some pointers. There are also a good amount of forums on this site that talk about social media also, that you can look into.

 

[Kabylfx]

Congrats on making the leap @Kabylfx

If you need any help with your social media accounts, specifically Instagram, I wouldn't mind giving some pointers. There are also a good amount of forums on this site that talk about social media also, that you can look into.

Hey thank you!

I wouldn't mind learning some tips on social networking, especially Instagram, which I'm pretty new to it (never had a personal account) and which is growing a lot slowly compared for example to my Twitter accounts. I am using Instagress.com but I feel like I could be more efficient.

I also found out that a Facebook page is a bit hard to make it stand out when you're just starting. I've also been requesting to join some specific groups and posting in them. I will consider promoting some posts and use tools for it.

I will follow your advice and look up some forums to learn more.

Thanks again

 

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[Kabylfx]

Sounds good so far, you've got a niche and a need. I agree, start with the local community where you currently live. I don't know which ethnicity, but I'll use Fillipino as an example. People in the Philippines aren't your target, but the Filipinos in your country, the ones who are part of the Fillipino clubs and have the big social events that are solely about Fillipino culture, those are your customers.

One change I'd suggest. Your objectives #6 get a sale, should be #1.

Sell first, validate your idea, sell again, then a few more. Use that money to advance the other objectives.

Totally agreed. I will rectify my objectives.

Thanks for the support!

 

[Insaint]

1- Learn SEO techniques or hire someone on Fiverr to do it.

Definitely learn SEO yourself if you're going to do it. The SEO industry is full of people trying to make a quick buck and they don't care at all if they destroy your site in the process. You need to be able to tell the difference between someone that knows their stuff and someone that is selling you garbage. Once you can do that you can think about outsourcing it.

Whatever you do, don't let anyone from Fiverr near your SEO. They have no idea what they're doing and using their cheap ancient techniques is a guaranteed way to get destroyed by Google.

To be honest, I think you'll be far better off focusing on social media and ads for this type of business.

 

[Kabylfx]

Definitely learn SEO yourself if you're going to do it. The SEO industry is full of people trying to make a quick buck and they don't care at all if they destroy your site in the process. You need to be able to tell the difference between someone that knows their stuff and someone that is selling you garbage. Once you can do that you can think about outsourcing it.

Whatever you do, don't let anyone from Fiverr near your SEO. They have no idea what they're doing and using their cheap ancient techniques is a guaranteed way to get destroyed by Google.

To be honest, I think you'll be far better off focusing on social media and ads for this type of business.

Wow, I really had no idea about those risks. Thank you for clearing this up.

I'll learn as much as I can about SEO since I can't even find my website using the most specific keywords in Google, I guess there's a lot to be done there.

Again, thank you @Insaint

 

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[Mikkel]

@Insaint is absolutely right, don't use Fiverr for SEO. However, I wouldn't suggest learning SEO on your own. I would understand the basics, but to be able to do all of it on your own is a waste of your time. Googles algorithms change almost quarterly. That means you will have to constantly be up on the newest tricks to rank in Googles searches.

If you understand SEO, you can at least make an educated decision on who to hire for the job.

 

[Kabylfx]

Have you looked into international shipping costs? If money is going to be a concern with your customers, this is something I would investigate sooner rather than later, as it could (literally) double -- or more -- the total cost of your product to your customer.

Thanks for pointing that out, I just checked and shipping costs are about 10$ in Canada and 20$ international which is ridiculous. I'll see if I can do anything to lower that cost.

 

[Kabylfx]

UPDATE : (Day 2)

I've been joining Facebook groups and promoting my content, so far, I've had a low success rate so I'll switch to promoting posts very soon to get more clicks and likes. Instagram grew to 21 followers overnight and it's a decent step forward. I'll be creating attractive images for my products using realistic T-Shirt mock-ups and see what results they get. My Twitter accounts have received a decent amount of impressions from my first tweets about my new website and I'm planning on using Buffer to schedule others at the most profitable times of the day.

Some stats :
- 12 sessions in total since launch (yesterday) from Canada, USA and France.
- 27.50% of users were aged between 18-24.
- 54.15% were men. I'll be opening a women section and see what this does.

I've also managed to get my website show up on google search by registering my Website with Google Webmasters Tool. I looked up ''my keyword here'' T-Shirt and found out my site shows up on the 3rd page, which isn't that bad (a bit of SEO should do the trick) considering the competition is not very high and most e-commerce businesses related to my niche don't have a domain name on their own and use outdated e-commerce services, poor designs and low quality t-shirts.

 

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[Scot]

UPDATE : (Day 2)

I've been joining Facebook groups and promoting my content, so far, I've had a low success rate so I'll switch to promoting posts very soon to get more clicks and likes. Instagram grew to 21 followers overnight and it's a decent step forward. I'll be creating attractive images for my products using realistic T-Shirt mock-ups and see what results they get. My Twitter accounts have received a decent amount of impressions from my first tweets about my new website and I'm planning on using Buffer to schedule others at the most profitable times of the day.

What do you mean low success rate? Just measuring clicks?

 

[Kabylfx]

low success rate? Just measuring clicks?

Group posts didn't seem to have an impact on anyone and haven't brought a lot of attention to my page (if not any) and my website in general.

 

[Scot]

Group posts didn't seem to have an impact on anyone and haven't brought a lot of attention to my page (if not any) and my website in general.

Are you measuring by google analytics?

Also, if you feel comfortable posting here, post an example of your ad so we can give feedback. If not, PM me and I'll take a look at it.

 

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[Kabylfx]

Are you measuring by google analytics?

Also, if you feel comfortable posting here, post an example of your ad so we can give feedback. If not, PM me and I'll take a look at it.

Yes I'm using Google analytics and I'd be happy to post an example of my ad but it's in french. So I'll translate it to the best of my abilities.

Translation :

Hello all,

I'm Kabyle and, like many others, I have this strong nationalist feeling and have always dreamed of sharing my background and values to the world .

Recently I read a story about a young Kabyle who was stripped of his T-shirt showing proudly kabyle colors and was sent home , humiliated and I immediately condemned this act that proves the cowardice of those that we try to stay away from.

So I decided to bring a new project to the table in hope of bringning together the Kabyle communities across the world and revive this pride characterizing a legendary story accompanied by a rich and unique culture of its kind to fight this hatred.

Here is the result :

Hoping that my efforts will please you.

Best regards,

Mehdi

I didn't try to promote the quality of my products nor the designs a lot because I'm afraid they will react negatively considering this is basically a free ad.

 

[Scot]

While it's a good story, that may be something you'd post on an "about us" page. If you're trying to convert clicks and get sales, you need two things. You'll need some good copy, not a story. Also, you have no call to action. No where in there does it have a "click here to buy" or "click to learn more"

To be honest, I was actively trying to read and critique, but I got bored after the first paragraph. I'm not saying it's a bad story, but as a sales pitch, people have short attention spans. There are instances where long copy works for sales, but not for t-shirts.

If you have a landing page for a shirt, I'd recommend posting the link, a short 2 sentence ad, and boost that on FB. That way there's a definitive call to action.

 

[Kabylfx]

While it's a good story, that may be something you'd post on an "about us" page. If you're trying to convert clicks and get sales, you need two things. You'll need some good copy, not a story. Also, you have no call to action. No where in there does it have a "click here to buy" or "click to learn more"

To be honest, I was actively trying to read and critique, but I got bored after the first paragraph. I'm not saying it's a bad story, but as a sales pitch, people have short attention spans. There are instances where long copy works for sales, but not for t-shirts.

If you have a landing page for a shirt, I'd recommend posting the link, a short 2 sentence ad, and boost that on FB. That way there's a definitive call to action.

Alright, I understand what you mean. I read it myself and realize that's not what people were looking for, even if the story might appeal to them. I'll remake my ad.

 

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[Kabylfx]

UPDATE : (Day 3)

- Instagram account growing good so far (60 followers) and 18 likes on first post. About to post my first free Ad on it.
- Facebook ad has reached around 300 people (all paid) but only generated 1 click. Campaign costed 13$ and will go on for 4 days.
- Kept posting free ads on Facebook groups related to my niche, doesn't seem to have a significant impact but will keep on going.
- In total, I've received (according to google analytics) 33 visitors but I do wonder if this does include myself.
- No sales so far, I realized it is pretty difficult to target people in my area as most of my visitors weren't from Canada. I need a better targeting strategy.

I will boost my Facebook pages likes (using AdMeFast) since the very low like count seems to scare away potential clients.

Unfortunately, school is in the way this week so the time accorded to this startup will eventually decrease a lot.

 

[Kabylfx]

UPDATE :

- Paid $13 to boost a Facebook post and it gained approx. 1800 impressions in 4 days and brought 10 likes to my page and 17 link clicks. Not bad.
- Instagram account grew to 106 followers and followers seem pretty active.
- Received a Twitter DM from a potential customer who asked if my T-Shirts will ship to France and told him they did but still no response.
- No sales so far
- I added a women clothes section as a good portion of my visitors are women (about 30%) and will see what this does.

I will do everything I can to get that single first sale so this can give me a boost.

 

[Kabylfx]

UPDATE :

- No sales yet, only some potential customers and visitors that aren't converting to sales
- Facebook ads don't seem to be working, I usually get more clicks by posting my content on groups
- Social media accounts are growing slower now but still getting good attention over my posts and tweets
- Trial ended and paid for my first month of Shopfiy (approx. 45CAD)
- My website is now ranked on the first page of Google, should I start using Adwords to have it show up without the need of having people type ''keyword here'' t-shirts?

The keyword by itself is generating around 100k searches per month but the addition of ''t-shirts'' doesn't seem to give any results on Google Keyword Tool. Would that be worth giving a try and how much should I spend on this particular campaign?

I must be doing something wrong with my business because I see a huge potential in this small niche and I refuse to blame the ''maybe those customers just don't buy online that much'' excuse. I need to look forward on learning how to sell and create ads. If there's any Gold thread I missed on this subject, please let me know! Thanks.

 

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