Trying to sell t-shirts in a overcrowded market

[Cheshire Cat]

Just few months ago i was wondering where to start my entrepreneur adventure and since i have no experience and no money i decided to start from something i didn't have to invest money in. I started an experiment with a t-shirt shop. I know maybe i cannot make a lot of money with it but eventually i will learn something about how to rank internet sites, how to use social networks and so on and i can use this experience later on with a site that offer a service.
Anyway there are people that with this business integrate their income.
Before starting i realized that this market is overcrowded and the chances to emerge are thin, that the range of prices are really wide from $6 to infinite, that the tees we find online are bought more from men than from women. I wanted my tees to have some originality and i want to attract women attracted by fashion. I started with zazzle that i see ranks well with google. I made some t-shirts and then i started to post my links in the net. I posted to craiglist, to polyvore (a site about fashion and shopping), this next, and others. I make a facebook page, a twitter page, a myspace page, my own page, i found a name, a slogan, even a model and a photoshoot and started to ask friendship to what i thought was my target market.
In facebook i identified groups related to shops with my range price, groups about magazines for women and i tried to attract the market of vintage that i understand it's a big market on the net with vintage inspired tees.The problem is i have positive comments sometimes, i obtain their friendship but these people don't buy. Since now i sold only one tee. Maybe i wrongly detected the target market. So the question is: what did i do wrong?
The site has been running only for 5 months, should i wait and keep posting links in internet?
What can i do more?
I tried with offers like free shipping, 20% discount but they don't buy.
Should i make some marketing in real world?
Should i end the experiment or bring it to another level like find a wholesaler that prints my tees and try to sell them to shops?
What i see that almost every kind of tee is sold in shops and people even pays big money just for a cotton tee with just words written on, so maybe is worth trying.
What do you think? Thanks for your attention!

 

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[kurtyordy]

what is the site, let me see your tees.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

hi, the site i've built for the tees is: http://cooltshirt.t35.com
the zazzle page is CheshireCatDesigns: Home: Zazzle.com Store

 

[Icy]

Here are a few of my first thoughts. Please don't take this as a "hate" post, I'm posting this to help.

1. Remove the repeating background of your brand icon. You could leave it white or another "comforting" (light) color. You already have your icon on there, and anyone who has the browser wide see's a bunch the icon repeating which is unprofessional.

2. On some of the shirt "names" you have all capital letters and some you have none. This works for some but the random feel of it is kind of annoying.

3. The font for the menu bar kind of just looks like you picked a font, and then made each icon in seconds. Perhaps add an effect to it to make it "feel" like the user is actually moving the mouse over a button with CSS?

4. Quite a lot of the shirts just seem thrown together. Such as under "Graffiti" you have 7 different shirts but they are all exactly the same only different colors. Perhaps have the user be able to just select the colors they want on just one page instead of just "filling" space with 7 of the same thing?

5. The prices seem too high in my opinion

6. Consider redesigning the layout\feel of the website

 

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[ChromeKase]

CC,

Couple of questions for you, I work for a B2B distributor and we often do custom apparel and promotional products so maybe I can be of some help to your end-user efforts. Also, my fiancee may be able to give some input on this at some point later as she is a Fashion Apparel Merchandising.

I'm not trying to overwhelm you here, so take your time and maybe answer a few questions at a time, or open notepad and answer the questions as you have time and then reply to me. But these are all things you should definetly think about when attacking this kind of market. If you don't know an answer or are unsure let me know and I can try to help fill in some gaps.

Consider hard what your goal for this is, if you want this to be a small-medium thriving e-commerce option you will need to eventually invest more resources and time into website, SEO, and marketing. Third-party sites rarely achieve high standing results without a consistent, and passionate customer base, to get there you will have to generate your own exposure more than likely.


-------------

First though and foremost I'll give my opinion about the actual appearance of the items.

Consider changing your pictures in the item lists to actual mock up images of the shirt similar to when you select the item. This may attract potential customers into taking a closer look, and placing an order. That mock up is extremely important because it shows the customer what they are looking at. As it stands now all you have is a design that may look cool but without visualization many customers have no reason to click in to the item detail portion to place the order. When doing this, try to use shirt colors that would best match the design. Think in terms of who your target is, what colors they wear, and what they would wear it with to determine the shirt color that would best match.

If you are focusing on pushing your name and brand, make sure you have that logo, or brand name somewhere in there, without it the effectiveness is lost. When it comes to apparel you have something few products have, constant 'free' exposure, use that to your advantage with your logo/branding efforts.

**Keep in mind, you should know the manufacturer of the shirts your imprinting on, and wither or not you are legally allowed to have branding, and/or custom tags on your apparel.**


----------

Now for more operational/technical/product specific questions

Your prices do seem a bit high, and for these questions I will assume the following. I'm assuming that is because your cost is more than likely very high. There are a couple of ways you can counteract this but these questions will better pinpoint what methods might help.

Again keep in mind, you should know the manufacturer of the shirts your imprinting on, and wither or not you are legally allowed to have branding, and/or custom tags on your apparel.

First, who supplies you the shirts you print on? Is your shirt supplier also your printer for the shirts? If so, do they give you an breakdown of costs for the shirt(s) and the printing?

Can you choose alternative styles of apparel to be printed on?

Does/do your vendor(s) offer bulk pricing, blind shipping (shipping from their location with your name), and/or warehousing? If so, are there any requirements, and is it free? If not, can you warehouse shirts (finished or unfinished), and easily accept and send shipments from your location (a UPS or Fedex retail front will suffice)?

Are all of your shirts screen printed? Do you have plans or have any shirts for embroidery, or other forms of embellishment? Does your screen printing vendor offer these services?

Have you shopped other vendors or distributors for better pricing on the shirts/printing? What advantages or disadvantages would you have?

Have you thought of or are you planning to sell more than shirts (i.e. Pants, bags, hats, keychains, lanyards, wallets, cellphone cases, ect.)? If not, have you thought of what your target consumer typically wears for accessories or what is thier pockets, on thier desk, or commonly used and how well could your designs translate to such items?

--------------

Operationally, what do you manage right now? Just the storefront itself, or do you manage payment information as well (i.e. Paypal, or other payment processing services)? Do you manage any other aspects currently?

What software capabilities do you have, and do you do all of your own artwork? This is a VERY crucial question.

It's alot to think about but if you can hammer some of those questions out I can definetly give you some techniques, connections, or maybe even help myself in some of the aspects to get you closer to your end goal.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'd be more than happy to help.

- Scott

 

[kurtyordy]

link one gave me a spyware warning, so I did not look at it

link 2- no seo because you are riding in someone elses car.

Originality sells tshirts online. Honestly, your designs need work IMO. Not trying be mean at all, just think you need to crank it up a notch. People buy tshirts for the design, so if they are not selling, either you price is too high or your designs are not desired or both.

 

[biophase]

Too expensive for a plain no branding shirt
Site is too busy
No pictures of actual t-shirts on actual people

 

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[ChromeKase]

link 2- no seo because you are riding in someone elses car.

100% Spot on.

CC-
As I said in my reply you will want to focus time and resources into website design and SEO work if you want to really build a solid operation. The only way you will effectively market in a 3rd party setup is through your own blood sweat and tears of driving people to the site.

Depending on wither or not you want to spend the capital to develop your own site and have this done sooner rather than later is up to you. Simple website design, hosting, and E-Commerce solutions can be relatively cheap and effective and allow you to have ALOT more control over content, and help to reinforce your brand in the customers mind.

Originality sells tshirts online. Honestly, your designs need work IMO. Not trying be mean at all, just think you need to crank it up a notch. People buy tshirts for the design, so if they are not selling, either you price is too high or your designs are not desired or both.

I Agree and disagree kurty. I would say in general the best selling online t-shirts are ones where someone takes a internet or cultural phenomenon and slaps it on a shirt. Not a whole lot of originality there.

CC-
I think you do have a couple pretty good designs. It would definetly be worth your time getting some outside opinions and do some market research to find which designs are working, which aren't and plan accordingly. Don't scrap the ideas that aren't working, find ways to improve the designs, or different ways or times to use them.

Your mind is in the right place deciding to jump out there, it just requires more execution and follow through.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

CC,

Couple of questions for you, I work for a B2B distributor and we often do custom apparel and promotional products so maybe I can be of some help to your end-user efforts. Also, my fiancee may be able to give some input on this at some point later as she is a Fashion Apparel Merchandising.

I'm not trying to overwhelm you here, so take your time and maybe answer a few questions at a time, or open notepad and answer the questions as you have time and then reply to me. But these are all things you should definetly think about when attacking this kind of market. If you don't know an answer or are unsure let me know and I can try to help fill in some gaps.

Consider hard what your goal for this is, if you want this to be a small-medium thriving e-commerce option you will need to eventually invest more resources and time into website, SEO, and marketing. Third-party sites rarely achieve high standing results without a consistent, and passionate customer base, to get there you will have to generate your own exposure more than likely.


-------------

First though and foremost I'll give my opinion about the actual appearance of the items.

Consider changing your pictures in the item lists to actual mock up images of the shirt similar to when you select the item. This may attract potential customers into taking a closer look, and placing an order. That mock up is extremely important because it shows the customer what they are looking at. As it stands now all you have is a design that may look cool but without visualization many customers have no reason to click in to the item detail portion to place the order. When doing this, try to use shirt colors that would best match the design. Think in terms of who your target is, what colors they wear, and what they would wear it with to determine the shirt color that would best match.

If you are focusing on pushing your name and brand, make sure you have that logo, or brand name somewhere in there, without it the effectiveness is lost. When it comes to apparel you have something few products have, constant 'free' exposure, use that to your advantage with your logo/branding efforts.

**Keep in mind, you should know the manufacturer of the shirts your imprinting on, and wither or not you are legally allowed to have branding, and/or custom tags on your apparel.**


----------

Now for more operational/technical/product specific questions

Your prices do seem a bit high, and for these questions I will assume the following. I'm assuming that is because your cost is more than likely very high. There are a couple of ways you can counteract this but these questions will better pinpoint what methods might help.

Again keep in mind, you should know the manufacturer of the shirts your imprinting on, and wither or not you are legally allowed to have branding, and/or custom tags on your apparel.

First, who supplies you the shirts you print on? Is your shirt supplier also your printer for the shirts? If so, do they give you an breakdown of costs for the shirt(s) and the printing?

Can you choose alternative styles of apparel to be printed on?

Does/do your vendor(s) offer bulk pricing, blind shipping (shipping from their location with your name), and/or warehousing? If so, are there any requirements, and is it free? If not, can you warehouse shirts (finished or unfinished), and easily accept and send shipments from your location (a UPS or Fedex retail front will suffice)?

Are all of your shirts screen printed? Do you have plans or have any shirts for embroidery, or other forms of embellishment? Does your screen printing vendor offer these services?

Have you shopped other vendors or distributors for better pricing on the shirts/printing? What advantages or disadvantages would you have?

Have you thought of or are you planning to sell more than shirts (i.e. Pants, bags, hats, keychains, lanyards, wallets, cellphone cases, ect.)? If not, have you thought of what your target consumer typically wears for accessories or what is thier pockets, on thier desk, or commonly used and how well could your designs translate to such items?

--------------

Operationally, what do you manage right now? Just the storefront itself, or do you manage payment information as well (i.e. Paypal, or other payment processing services)? Do you manage any other aspects currently?

What software capabilities do you have, and do you do all of your own artwork? This is a VERY crucial question.

It's alot to think about but if you can hammer some of those questions out I can definetly give you some techniques, connections, or maybe even help myself in some of the aspects to get you closer to your end goal.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'd be more than happy to help.

- Scott

Hi Scott,
Yes the prices are high. The problem is i decided to start easy and cheaply. So the patner i work with does all the hard work.
It means i have no start up costs, It's a print on demand service, if someone orders they screen print the design and do the shipment.
the shipping fees are not high and they ship wordwide from america .
This is why the prices of the tees are high.
I've choosen this vendor because as beginner i don't have to manage the shipping office, the printing costs, the unsold stock, etc.
Plus i cannot lower the price enough to beat the competition with cheap prices.
There is a site that offers $6 tees, i cannot do that.
So i decided to try with higher prices that are in line with other online tee shops.
I know this mean i have to add value someway.

At this point i don't have custom tags but i'm thinking at adding a signature in each design.

I can choose different styles of apperel but they all cost more.
In any case the customer can change the style of the apparel before placing the order.

I'm thinking on the embroidery designs i can do that with the vendor.

I've shopped other vendors online with the same service and this one appears to be more convenient.
I could lower the price with other vendors but with bulk orders.
With this vendon i own the copyright of my designs and they don't have the exclusive so i could find another vendor just for bulk orders if i have to sell to shops
they don't accept blind shipping.

I was thinking at widing the offer and producing other accessories, i can easily do it with this vendor.


Operationally i manage the site and its promotion trought the web and i make my designs.
I do all the artwork.
I saw there are sites that organize online competions and encourage their visitors to send them designs, then a winner is chosen again by the visitors and then the design is printed on shirts.
The winner has the "glory" of having the design print on tees and the shops sells a lot of these.
That's an example of finding what sells,sell it, obtain a design with basically no work, it's smart!
At this point my problem is that i have to "phisically" bring people to my shop almost one by one posting my link in forums or other sites.
It works but i still don't have enought returning visitors.
The second problem i see is that i'm not targeted in a niche like "cross stich lovers" and i'm trying to understand how to target more the site.
The third problem is that there is a lot of seasonal shopping i have to intercept like halloween, the hot dog day, father's day and so on.
I was not yet in the market during the election but i can tell you that Obama tees have sold brilliantly.

 

[Icy]

Yes the prices are high. The problem is i decided to start easy and cheaply. So the patner i work with does all the hard work.
It means i have no start up costs, It's a print on demand service, if someone orders they screen print the design and do the shipment.
the shipping fees are not high and they ship wordwide from america .
This is why the prices of the tees are high.
I've choosen this vendor because as beginner i don't have to manage the shipping office, the printing costs, the unsold stock, etc.
Plus i cannot lower the price enough to beat the competition with cheap prices.
There is a site that offers $6 tees, i cannot do that.
So i decided to try with higher prices that are in line with other online tee shops.
I know this mean i have to add value someway.

From what I read it sounds like Zazzle does all the work past getting the t-shirt designs and I'll type this response assuming that (If I'm wrong please correct me).

From the sounds of it, even if you didn't go through Zazzle for the shipping and everything there is not much business. Why couldn't you just take over all operations and buy your on heat press? Sure, this will take more of your time but you need to learn more about the business and this would be a great way to get a better understand. You won't be overwhelmed at this point and if there are difficulties YOU can talk to your CUSTOMERS one on one which is very important.

If you continue to work through Zazzle and then decide to jump into the wild you could be in for quite the surprises at a time you cannot afford it.

You don't need to lower prices isn't the only way to beat competition. If you add value to your designs\quality of shirts\etc the price could be more jusitified. You need to provide the value behind the price your selling at, not just pick a price to sell at. I'd rather buy a 20$ shirt than one of the 6$ ones if it doesn't start to look frayed in a month or two.

Few key points:
1. Provide quality shirts that don't look worn out quickly
2. Provide better looking designs
3. Provide quality costumer service (especially at this point)

These 3 things will be key in the beginning. The first two will effect the price that you can sell at and the 3rd will just provide a trust in your brand (and others will talk about it causing more traffic!). I still think you'd need to lower the price from the 30-40$ range with to atleast around 20. You seemed to hint at the prices are so high in order to save on shipping costs but frankly I'd rather buy a bunch of cheaper shirts and find the S&H a little high than to see a bunch of expensive shirts, it's an instant turn down. By the point most will see the S&H they will be part way through the process of buying and not be so eager to be turned away by it, if they like the shirts!

Also, with the internet establishing a good relationship is very important. If you make one person feel special they could go on Facebook and easily allow 100+ people to hear about your brand by updating their status to let others know of the service they got from you. Make everyone feel special, and be genuine about it and you will be rewarded. People know if you're faking, I mean haven't we all experienced that and been turned away from buying things?

Sorry for the unorganized post, was just putting out my thoughts quickly

 

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[kurtyordy]

I can choose different styles of apperel but they all cost more.
In any case the customer can change the style of the apparel before placing the order.

I'm thinking on the embroidery designs i can do that with the vendor.

Do not try to add variables until you learn to sell what you have.

I've shopped other vendors online with the same service and this one appears to be more convenient.

Convenient means easy means lower bar to enter means more competition doing the same thing means harder to establish yourself means stop wasting time doing what is convenient means do what is harder than your competition is willing to do means that is you best chance for success

I was thinking at widing the offer and producing other accessories, i can easily do it with this vendor.

see above. Your designs are not currently selling well on the products you have, do not waste time adding more products.

Solve the traffic riddle (build your own ecommerce site is the first step IMO)
Solve the purchasing riddle- better designs, better pricing etc.

Then add new products to serve an established client base.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Consider changing your pictures in the item lists to actual mock up images of the shirt similar to when you select the item. This may attract potential customers into taking a closer look, and placing an order.

thanks for the advice this is one thing i could fix almost immediately!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

CC,

Consider changing your pictures in the item lists to actual mock up images of the shirt similar to when you select the item. This may attract potential customers into taking a closer look, and placing an order.

- Scott

thanks for the advice this is one thing i could fix almost immediately!

 

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[Cheshire Cat]

hi, thanks for the inputs.
I think that lower the price is a good idea. I don't know if it will still convenient to work with zazzle at that point i think i would earn more selling someone else's designs with a referral program.
I started with zazzle to understand if i can do this thing of making designs and selling tees.

 

[bflbob]

I was listening to a webinar last night, put on by Ed Dale.

It sounds like you made what he calls a classic mistake...

You came up with a product and tried to find a market for it.
Instead, you needed to find a market, and create a product for it.

Probably too late, but take a peek at Thirty Day Challenge to see if you can find a market for the product you already have.

 

[ChromeKase]

Hi Scott,
Yes the prices are high. The problem is i decided to start easy and cheaply. So the patner i work with does all the hard work.
It means i have no start up costs, It's a print on demand service, if someone orders they screen print the design and do the shipment.
the shipping fees are not high and they ship wordwide from america .
This is why the prices of the tees are high.
I've choosen this vendor because as beginner i don't have to manage the shipping office, the printing costs, the unsold stock, etc.
Plus i cannot lower the price enough to beat the competition with cheap prices.
There is a site that offers $6 tees, i cannot do that.
So i decided to try with higher prices that are in line with other online tee shops.
I know this mean i have to add value someway.

A couple things here, and again, your head is in the right place by trying to get out there but to truly make a successful online retailer of apparel you have to sacrifice the 'ease and convenience' a bit at least when starting out. While you don't pay the start-up cost or overhead on paper, you are paying it in the cost of goods, thus prohibiting a great deal of cost effectiveness and thus scaring away potential customers.

You can still not have to worry about having office space, warehousing, shipping, or inventory management and control and still keep great cost effectiveness, you just have to dive deeper and more than likely put up some capital up front. Your best bet in my opinion if you wanted to avoid having the overhead and responsibilities would be to work with apparels distributor. I'd look for one either located in the Mid-West if you plan to maintain a nation wide consumer base, or one near your region if you plan to aim more locally. I can certainly help give you some of that information and what to expect cost wise for your goods by opting to go such a route.

At this point i don't have custom tags but i'm thinking at adding a signature in each design.

I can choose different styles of apperel but they all cost more.
In any case the customer can change the style of the apparel before placing the order.

I'm thinking on the embroidery designs i can do that with the vendor.

Custom tags are not a big deal, but having your own tags on a shirt makes your customer feel as though they bought something truly yours. It helps reinforce the brand at the very least. Tagging can add a fair amount of cost though if done in small quantities.

The reason I asked about different styles was to get you to think in terms of matching a shirt style with a design, or using a higher quality shirt to give your customer something they really can hold on to and wear for a long time. The longer the shirt lives, the more exposure it has, the more likely you are to get consistent new visitors to your site. Use your designs to their maximum potential by choosing the right style for it, and your customers will be glad you did it. Giving your customer all the styles to choose from as you describe they currently do may overwhelm them, or make them feel as though your shirts are not really your product. Give them something special by showing them what you think is special, you need to help your customer by showing them what you want them to see, how it looks, and how they can make it a good purchase for them.

As for embroidery, keep that in your head because a simple but eye-catching embroidered shirt can definetly jump out, but that can be for later as, can other products and accessories.

I've shopped other vendors online with the same service and this one appears to be more convenient.
I could lower the price with other vendors but with bulk orders.
With this vendon i own the copyright of my designs and they don't have the exclusive so i could find another vendor just for bulk orders if i have to sell to shops
they don't accept blind shipping.

Selling to shops will require sales tools, research, and some hoofing it to talk to your prospects and do some serious relationship building. You also will need to really develop more than likely several samples to show and leave with your prospects. Don't be surprised if they were to ask about manufacturing specs either. To really know this you will have to know your manufacturer of your shirts and obtain a specs sheet (which is usually at no charge, but you may have to make a lot of calls before you find who you need to talk to if you are not directly ordering from a manufacturer.)

Operationally i manage the site and its promotion trought the web and i make my designs.
I do all the artwork.

What software do you do your artwork in? What graphics programs are you familiar with?

At this point my problem is that i have to "phisically" bring people to my shop almost one by one posting my link in forums or other sites.
It works but i still don't have enought returning visitors.
The second problem i see is that i'm not targeted in a niche like "cross stich lovers" and i'm trying to understand how to target more the site.
The third problem is that there is a lot of seasonal shopping i have to intercept like halloween, the hot dog day, father's day and so on.
I was not yet in the market during the election but i can tell you that Obama tees have sold brilliantly.

This is where having your own website really comes into play because you can generate the traffic by developing a strong website. You will still have to do leg work initially to drive traffic there, but once you have established a strong base the traffic should continue to come so long as you keep your products, website, and marketing updated.

If you want to discuss this more feel free to drop me a PM, I'd be more than happy to help more. Don't be discouraged by not meeting your expectations at first, it may take a couple efforts before you get it where you want it.


-Scott

 

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[Rakona]

I have a client in the e-commerce t-shirt business. We sell a ton of shirts, the site gets A LOT of visitors and it took years to build up.

I think all the above posts have spelled out the logistics, competition, SEO, manufacturing vs. outsourcing...etc I can add to any of those if you wish, but I see a bigger problem that was mentioned once above but hasn't been brought up again.

please take this constructively, I feel the need to say this flat out:

the shirts aren't very interesting.

*It's great being blonde, with such low expectation it's easy to impress

A women wearing this is telling people: I have low expectations, I'm easily impressed. Just seems odd, I think it's missing the mark.

Maybe I'm not getting some British humour there??

The site/brand is missing an overall theme, you've got the funny shirts, the grafiti ones, then a whole section on skull pieces.


Not sure of how many people visit your site, but you should be expecting to convert 1% of visitors to start, 2% if you put in some work. If you've had 100 people to the site and that's counting for your one sale, then you're doing ok. You just need 100,000 more people there.

These things can take time, there's a lot of ways to increase sales and profitability down the road, but you need to take a step back. Take cues from other successful shirt stores (the ones advertising in Google & Facebook) and retool.

I'd say sell licensed shirts first, one's that people are already looking for, a great point in a previous reply. Use that money to live out your design ideas. My client does a combo of both and the jackpot is licensing you design out to everyone else. I think the big winners come more as a result of a lot of hard work, a lot of failures vs. hitting a home run at the start.

 

[WildFlower]

My .02 cents worth.. from a consumer (I’m not a professional in apparel)

When I buy a t-shirt it’s the design I’m buying and less about the shirt. I want to see the design nice and clear! Shirt.woot.com is one of my favorite shopping sites ..they give me a reason to return often and they have a clear image of the shirt design when you click on it, they show you a larger version of the image. If it’s funny I save the image and show my kids to laugh later or I purchase the shirt and save it for when I give it to them.

I have boys so, I shop for boys and funny and clever shirts are in! Now… with the woot shirts.. have I been disappointed in the quality? a little sometimes, one of the shirts was cheaply sown. Will I continue to buy, yes. The price is right $10.00 and the shirts are so clever. And by clever I mean maybe a double meaning or a hidden meaning! One of his shirts say “There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who know binary and those who don’t†… that shirt gets the most attention. Some will read it and look confused and not say anything and others will stop and ask. Some are just plan cool shirts.. like a black shirt with a phoenix on it with red flames up the side!


I also like the Big Dog t-Shirts

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Hi Scott thanks for your very useful advices!

What software do you do your artwork in? What graphics programs are you familiar with?

-Scott

I work with photoshop!

 

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[Cheshire Cat]

I'd say sell licensed shirts first, one's that people are already looking for, a great point in a previous reply. Use that money to live out your design ideas. My client does a combo of both and the jackpot is licensing you design out to everyone else.

that's a very good advice thanks

 

[Cheshire Cat]

hi, thanks for the inputs. I know that there's a lot to work on and that the t-shirt can be improved and i'm sure they will.
I too know that my site needs exposure and marketing as you said because sometimes people don't buy the best design at the lower price:
Can someone explain me why a t-shirt like that will sell?

Markus Lupfer | Markus Lupfer Love T-Shirt at ASOS

 

[ChromeKase]

Hi Scott thanks for your very useful advices!


I work with photoshop!

CC,

That is a great place to start, and having a lot of Photoshop skills will help perfect the look of your designs.

I do recommend if you already have not, picking up Illustrator and learning it thoroughly in and out. If you are not familiar Illustrator is used to create vector art which is something if you continue to pursue your T-shirt endeavor you will ultimately want to have for submitting art to your vendors, and to also speed up your design process. Start by creating your logo or any often reoccurring graphics in your designs so that you can at least enjoy the benefit of the time saving aspect of not having to recreate already existing art work.

**For those not in the know, vector art can be graphics, text, or even entire projects/jobs that are scalable while maintaining color, aspect, size, and resolution. This is a near must in the printing industry or you end up with very fuzzy or pixelated printing. Photoshop can be used to create high quality print jobs, HOWEVER in some cases color or resolution on the physical sample, or final print may not match to the original Photoshop document. In addition to being a more reliable means of creating press ready art, vector graphics can be easily resized and reused from an original file without having to recreate the art again, and with no worry of it maintaining its original color, aspect, or size. A more prolific graphic artist could elaborate even further on why Illustrator is a great option when creating graphics.**

Good luck, and if you need any help let me know, I'll be around!

 

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[Cheshire Cat]

I know that if i'm not selling i have to do my homework and discover what sells with marketing researches
What do you think i should do?
1)be original and trying to develop something distinctive
2)sell what sells

 

[ChromeKase]

I know that if i'm not selling i have to do my homework and discover what sells with marketing researches
What do you think i should do?
1)be original and trying to develop something distinctive
2)sell what sells

CC,

Depends on what you want to do...

Being original and developing something different or new requires you to fill a want or need, so you will do a lot of proactive research and experimentation which can be quite rough in the fashion world so I've been told unless you keep up to date. But it requires most of all for you to set your self apart in someway from the rest as much as you can if you want to really cut out a piece of the pie.

Selling what is already selling requires you to react quickly to research that has already been done. You will more be selling soon upcoming or current trends rather than being on the bleeding edge or trailblazing trends. To thrive in this kind of role I believe impulse purchases or offering a service that few or nobody has.

In either case you still have to set yourself apart somehow, you have to put yourself in your customers shoes and think 'What am I looking for, and why am I going to buy here'.

It's a tough project with no definite answer, only hard work and perseverance will achieve reaching the goal.

Good luck, let me know if I can help!