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Website Feedback - Dog Related

MTEE1985

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Once again, is my shirt really that (much) worse of a deal?

Forget the $545 shirt. 6 dollar shirts charge $4.99 to ship so $11 is their all in, not $17. It’s yours at $25 shipped (or $20 with your current sale) vs. theres at $11 shipped. Yours is almost double. So to answer your question, yes, it is that much worse of a deal to the average consumer which is how I’m viewing this as I know nothing about the $5-$25 t-shirt world. The two shirts look the same to me.

Now, as an entrepreneur and business owner I ask myself if your shirts might justify the higher price and my answer is....maybe, but the site as it is now doesn’t convey that.

On second thought, why not spend $11 and see how their shirt compares?
 
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minivanman

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Why not be different.... put some real pictures of maybe an action shot or doing what ever the particular dog you are taking a picture of, does. Maybe a dog playing frisbee or doing something funny.... does anyone have shirts like that? You could also offer for them to upload their own picture.
 

Castillo

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This is great stuff! Definitely has inspired me. Especially, getting the booster theme idea. This could save me a lot of time in the long run. Can't wait to implement all of this great advice! Thanks!

Just to let you know if you click on "quote" instead of "reply" you can reply to multiple people at once instead of posting many times
 

biophase

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Can you give me an example of a t-shirt design that looks "not cheap"?

I'm actually interested...

Well if you look at this link: pug life shirt - Google Search
Let's compare them to yours: Pug Life Men's T-Shirt

You will find hundreds of similar shirts. Yes, your shirts are the same and the same price. To me, they all look cheap. They are all the same.

I actually sell dog t-shirts, it's not my main business, but it's more for branding and marketing. I assume that you are using an apps that plugs in directly with a print on demand t-shirt company. My shirts are priced at $25 also, but I don't make any money on them. That's because they are printing on the front and back and sometimes the sleeve.

My closet has at least 20 dog t-shirts from various dog rescues. They range from really nice to crappy. There are 2 or 3 that are good quality and nice designs that I wear all the time. The other ones I use for sleeping or lounging around.

I think you will have a tough time getting a simple site like this off the ground with cookie cutter designs. Someone who wants a Pug Life shirt has literally hundreds to choose from.

Below are 2 shirts that I personally like. I think if your store were filled with more similar to these it would be more unique.

image-1258-500x500.jpeg 45256-1.jpg
 
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RazorCut

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Also there are other ways to stand out. Here's a great example of taking a current eco topic and turning it to your advantage:

2018-12-14_06-42-39.jpg

Microplastics T-shirt

Check out the Spec and Story tabs too.
 

Xeon

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Thanks for the rep, @MJ DeMarco!


Insane how they can even sell a t-shirt for $6. Even if one were to order 500 pieces of each design, there's a limit to how low the cost of goods per piece can go down. T-shirt blank + screen-printing cost (some designs have 2 colors = +$$) + neck tags + manpower / misc costs + cost to acquire a customer etc.


These guys feel a lot like Ivory Ella. Even the design style, company mission and the way they market the goods is the same! Maybe they're owned by the same guys. I remember Ivory Ella founders saying they want to get into other animal niches.

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

@Deangiroir :

Instead of selling them as commodities (6DollarShirts) or making it charity-based, which feels overdone to me nowadays (IvoryElla/Pawz/Animal-Hearted).....I've 2 ideas.
The basic is this:

Come up with a story --- > Give that story one mission ---> Build a brand based on that mission

Note: The 1st idea below is a lot harder to execute than the 2nd one.

IDEA #1

Your Original Story : Your fond moments with your terrier, who crossed the rainbow bridge some time ago.

Your Dramatized Story : You've a Yorkshire terrier, who watches TV with you, who watches you mow the lawn weekly, who loves to cuddle with you. Then, one morning, you and your wife came back home from work.....only to find the door opened.....and Rusty gone.

In sadness, you started having hallucinations of Rusty every day and at work.
You watch TV, and you thought Rusty is next to you, and you touch him, only to realize it's your wife.
You mow the lawn, and you hear a dog barking, only to realize it's all in your head.
You start looking for Rusty daily at the carpark, the nearby school, the grocery, the pub, the gas station.....you even see a psychiatrist.

That's your story (to put this on your website, you need to re-write it properly).

Your Story Mission : To never rest till you find your beloved dog.

That leads to your branding below....

Your Brand Name : Give your brand a name. E.g: WhereIsRusty, WheresRusty, WheresMyPup, WhereIsMyDog, MyLostRusty, ILostMyRust, ILostRusty or ILostMyDog....

The Execution :

1) All marketing collateral (logo, website) needs to be FUN and PLAYFUL. This cannot be marketed in a sorrowful or sad style (more on that at the bottom).

2) Get a logo made from Upwork/PeoplePerHour. No Fiverr. Logo should have 2 colors or less.
From your logo, pick out one of the color as your brand color.

2) You can keep the existing designs you've. On the sleeve or bottom hem of the t-shirts, get a woven label sewn in either of those 2 places. The woven label will say "WhereIsRusty" or "WhereIsMyDog".
This label must be clearly visible and distinctive. There's a few good suppliers in China and also the US itself who can provide these labels. All your t-shirts and products need to have this "signature identifier".
Or better still, make it a patch instead of a woven label.

3) Website : Website needs to be redone to tell your new story. The website and marketing materials.....everything will now revolve around your story. The website banner will show you or some actor posing comically, such as looking into the back of a van with a confused expression (tip: there's some good student photographers in California from what I've seen, but you've to find them on IG).
T-shirt should be visible in your shots.
The top banner of your site can say something like:

---------------------------------------------
Is My Dog At Your Place?
I'm coming over. Meanwhile, shop my dog t-shirts.
---SHOP---
---------------------------------------------

(just an example from the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with better ones)

Throughout the website, show pics of you/actor in various interesting locations finding your dog. You bending down to look under the car. Looking under a woman's skirt. In the pool. In the cemetery. At the beach. All about the content.

4) On social media (Instagram/FB), post daily pics of you in your t-shirts, in various poses doing different things, while looking for your dog . Get about 30 photography shots done at the start of the month, drip post 1 per day, with a witty caption. Follow all the dog lovers near you (LA?), some will follow back, then expand from there. Then, either run paid shoutouts on big dog accounts or use tools like Infinicore (I just discovered this in a FB group).
Post on Pinterest as well.

5) Run FB/Instagram ads with a simple text on the ad that says : Where Is Rusty? / Where Is My Dog and drive them all to your site.

6) Collab with Instagram influencers in your niche. Get them to repost your photo content with captions for their followers to read. Example:

"Have you guys seen this man before? I think he got desperate trying to find his lost dog. Link in bio."


The idea behind all these is to get fellow dog lovers/owners to jump onto your "one-man movement", which is you on a neverending journey desperate trying to find your dog.
During the journey, you come across interesting things in life or happenings (show all these in your photos.....can be real or posed).

Hook people, take them on an BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE where you try to find your imaginary dog, and then show them your t-shirts (no discounts or "mega sales").

When you've taken them on the adventure and they can related / identify to your story, price will be a lot less of an issue (unless the t-shirt is $545, but that's another story).

Some people might say "Hey, you're a scammer! Your dog is dead long ago and you're making all these up"

You tell them "But I'm playing with my dog's paws now. Oh, he's telling me the food's cooked. Be right back! :)"

In other words, in this story, you have gone insane / schizo after your dog left you.
You've become the sick guy who's obsessed about dogs, and thus having a dog tshirt store is only natural.
Play that up and play along!

With these, you can build a fun brand. This is why I mentioned above to keep all marketing collateral and website/brand fun and upbeat.
The potential customers HAVE to know that this is all made-up and games, without you telling them this!

I've mentioned KJP.com a few times before. This guy is an extreme example you can study from.
He's selling clothes and anchor bands. You can easily get these stuff at Aliexpress or other online sites.
But this motherfcker build an ENTIRE WORLD around the clothes he's selling.
Did he shout at you and say "20% OFF STOREWIDE AND BUY MY DRESSES"?

NO, check out his Instagram. He PULLS YOU into his beautiful world far away from mundane everyday life, takes you on a F*cking adventure, you got sucked in and became PART OF HIS WORLD, and now you're a lot more likely to buy from him if he asks you to! I know I would! If I buy from him (even if the products are made in china), I would feel EXTREMELY GOOD inside!

There's a lot of details in terms of execution which I have not listed here, it would take days, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd idea. This one is easier to do.

IDEA #2

Some time back, Twitter had this viral movement going on. See below:

8f392f95b55fe3cde9b8b29ed535436e.png


Replace sex with dog.
Make these, put these as cards and show them on your site in a masonry grid layout like Pinterest (I think Shopify has plugins for this).

Day 35 without my dog : Flirted with the photo on the packaging at the pet food aisle
(I'm not a witty guy, so you can do better than this)

You may run out of ideas after a while, so you can :

1) get user-generated content for this (this case is a good candidate for giveaways on IG and encourage others to join in)
2) use this as a supplement WITHIN Idea 1 above to increase the fun
3) expand it to other animals
4) post it once every 3 days (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5...)
5) use it in other ways as a content marketing tool to build an audience and drive sales.

Hopefully, all these ideas will spark your imagination a bit.

Everything above is just 5% or less of the whole process, the execution is what makes the thing successful....because you still have to make the website look right, get the photography right, get the content right, get the branding right.....each of which, if done wrongly, will break the entire thing.....

Btw, one shop which I bought dog t-shirts from earlier this year.....they announced that they're closing down. After 1 year in business. They even have professional product photography of models, and they even got featured by one small-time celebrity at one event. Yes, and they run a lot of DISCOUNTS after DISCOUNTS, SALES after SALES every time. Every day is sales and discounts day LOL

6DollarShirts say this on their site:

f2b394cb5fbdd5c67af6eb77a703b4b9.png


No, F*ck them and their $6 shirts.
You'll steal their girls and wear their shirts!
 

Art@AssetProfit

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Awesome taking action and shopify good platform but why not just upload designs on the Print on Demand Tshirt websites? No cost until you get paid orders? Plus they have the Traffic already.

I like the idea that you have an Asset you own you can sell later if you can get consistent monthly income but as mentioned even the quality of the shirts are much better at the print on demand websites. Just was curious did you consider those.

Art
 

Deangiroir

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Well if you look at this link: pug life shirt - Google Search
Let's compare them to yours: Pug Life Men's T-Shirt

You will find hundreds of similar shirts. Yes, your shirts are the same and the same price. To me, they all look cheap. They are all the same.

I actually sell dog t-shirts, it's not my main business, but it's more for branding and marketing. I assume that you are using an apps that plugs in directly with a print on demand t-shirt company. My shirts are priced at $25 also, but I don't make any money on them. That's because they are printing on the front and back and sometimes the sleeve.

My closet has at least 20 dog t-shirts from various dog rescues. They range from really nice to crappy. There are 2 or 3 that are good quality and nice designs that I wear all the time. The other ones I use for sleeping or lounging around.

I think you will have a tough time getting a simple site like this off the ground with cookie cutter designs. Someone who wants a Pug Life shirt has literally hundreds to choose from.

Below are 2 shirts that I personally like. I think if your store were filled with more similar to these it would be more unique.

View attachment 22840 View attachment 22841
You know on second thought...

I like the 1st design

The second design looks cheap to me
 

Deangiroir

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Awesome taking action and shopify good platform but why not just upload designs on the Print on Demand Tshirt websites? No cost until you get paid orders? Plus they have the Traffic already.

I like the idea that you have an Asset you own you can sell later if you can get consistent monthly income but as mentioned even the quality of the shirts are much better at the print on demand websites. Just was curious did you consider those.

Art
I did consider Print on Demand but I decided to print my own shirts mainly because I want Control of the print process and my business. I can not only have a "dog owner t-shirt site" but I can have a screen printing business as well. When/if business picks up, I can hire people to print shirts for me using my equipment. It also makes it easier for me to screen print on other mediums like actual shirts for dogs, koozies, mugs, glass wear, etc. I feel I have more options. Also, if I'm able to sell shirts in mass quantity, I save money on materials (ink, squeegee, screens, etc.)

Also, I'll mention that I can get better quality shirts. I'm really testing at this point more than anything. However, more expensive shirt eats profit. Not that I'm opposed to better quality shirts, it's just that it will affect price/shirt or profit and it's something that needs to be analyzed.

Plus screen printing is fun :cool:
 

biophase

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@biophase

Thanks for the insight. I like those designs as well.

I actually screen print everything myself. Which make its much easier to adapt and change the designs.

That’s a huge advantage then. You can print on parts of the shirt that others can’t do. Print on the sleeves, make a custom printed label on the inside. Print on the bottom of the shirt. Sell for $25!
 
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Deangiroir

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That’s a huge advantage then. You can print on parts of the shirt that others can’t do. Print on the sleeves, make a custom printed label on the inside. Print on the bottom of the shirt. Sell for $25!

Custom printed label is definitely something I'll have to implement.

Sleeves are a great idea too :bulb:
 

Real Deal Denver

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Thanks for the rep, @MJ DeMarco!



Insane how they can even sell a t-shirt for $6. Even if one were to order 500 pieces of each design, there's a limit to how low the cost of goods per piece can go down. T-shirt blank + screen-printing cost (some designs have 2 colors = +$$) + neck tags + manpower / misc costs + cost to acquire a customer etc.



These guys feel a lot like Ivory Ella. Even the design style, company mission and the way they market the goods is the same! Maybe they're owned by the same guys. I remember Ivory Ella founders saying they want to get into other animal niches.

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

@Deangiroir :

Instead of selling them as commodities (6DollarShirts) or making it charity-based, which feels overdone to me nowadays (IvoryElla/Pawz/Animal-Hearted).....I've 2 ideas.
The basic is this:

Come up with a story --- > Give that story one mission ---> Build a brand based on that mission

Note: The 1st idea below is a lot harder to execute than the 2nd one.

IDEA #1

Your Original Story : Your fond moments with your terrier, who crossed the rainbow bridge some time ago.

Your Dramatized Story : You've a Yorkshire terrier, who watches TV with you, who watches you mow the lawn weekly, who loves to cuddle with you. Then, one morning, you and your wife came back home from work.....only to find the door opened.....and Rusty gone.

In sadness, you started having hallucinations of Rusty every day and at work.
You watch TV, and you thought Rusty is next to you, and you touch him, only to realize it's your wife.
You mow the lawn, and you hear a dog barking, only to realize it's all in your head.
You start looking for Rusty daily at the carpark, the nearby school, the grocery, the pub, the gas station.....you even see a psychiatrist.

That's your story (to put this on your website, you need to re-write it properly).

Your Story Mission : To never rest till you find your beloved dog.

That leads to your branding below....

Your Brand Name : Give your brand a name. E.g: WhereIsRusty, WheresRusty, WheresMyPup, WhereIsMyDog, MyLostRusty, ILostMyRust, ILostRusty or ILostMyDog....

The Execution :

1) All marketing collateral (logo, website) needs to be FUN and PLAYFUL. This cannot be marketed in a sorrowful or sad style (more on that at the bottom).

2) Get a logo made from Upwork/PeoplePerHour. No Fiverr. Logo should have 2 colors or less.
From your logo, pick out one of the color as your brand color.

2) You can keep the existing designs you've. On the sleeve or bottom hem of the t-shirts, get a woven label sewn in either of those 2 places. The woven label will say "WhereIsRusty" or "WhereIsMyDog".
This label must be clearly visible and distinctive. There's a few good suppliers in China and also the US itself who can provide these labels. All your t-shirts and products need to have this "signature identifier".
Or better still, make it a patch instead of a woven label.

3) Website : Website needs to be redone to tell your new story. The website and marketing materials.....everything will now revolve around your story. The website banner will show you or some actor posing comically, such as looking into the back of a van with a confused expression (tip: there's some good student photographers in California from what I've seen, but you've to find them on IG).
T-shirt should be visible in your shots.
The top banner of your site can say something like:

---------------------------------------------
Is My Dog At Your Place?
I'm coming over. Meanwhile, shop my dog t-shirts.
---SHOP---
---------------------------------------------

(just an example from the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with better ones)

Throughout the website, show pics of you/actor in various interesting locations finding your dog. You bending down to look under the car. Looking under a woman's skirt. In the pool. In the cemetery. At the beach. All about the content.

4) On social media (Instagram/FB), post daily pics of you in your t-shirts, in various poses doing different things, while looking for your dog . Get about 30 photography shots done at the start of the month, drip post 1 per day, with a witty caption. Follow all the dog lovers near you (LA?), some will follow back, then expand from there. Then, either run paid shoutouts on big dog accounts or use tools like Infinicore (I just discovered this in a FB group).
Post on Pinterest as well.

5) Run FB/Instagram ads with a simple text on the ad that says : Where Is Rusty? / Where Is My Dog and drive them all to your site.

6) Collab with Instagram influencers in your niche. Get them to repost your photo content with captions for their followers to read. Example:

"Have you guys seen this man before? I think he got desperate trying to find his lost dog. Link in bio."


The idea behind all these is to get fellow dog lovers/owners to jump onto your "one-man movement", which is you on a neverending journey desperate trying to find your dog.
During the journey, you come across interesting things in life or happenings (show all these in your photos.....can be real or posed).

Hook people, take them on an BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE where you try to find your imaginary dog, and then show them your t-shirts (no discounts or "mega sales").

When you've taken them on the adventure and they can related / identify to your story, price will be a lot less of an issue (unless the t-shirt is $545, but that's another story).

Some people might say "Hey, you're a scammer! Your dog is dead long ago and you're making all these up"

You tell them "But I'm playing with my dog's paws now. Oh, he's telling me the food's cooked. Be right back! :)"

In other words, in this story, you have gone insane / schizo after your dog left you.
You've become the sick guy who's obsessed about dogs, and thus having a dog tshirt store is only natural.
Play that up and play along!

With these, you can build a fun brand. This is why I mentioned above to keep all marketing collateral and website/brand fun and upbeat.
The potential customers HAVE to know that this is all made-up and games, without you telling them this!

I've mentioned KJP.com a few times before. This guy is an extreme example you can study from.
He's selling clothes and anchor bands. You can easily get these stuff at Aliexpress or other online sites.
But this motherfcker build an ENTIRE WORLD around the clothes he's selling.
Did he shout at you and say "20% OFF STOREWIDE AND BUY MY DRESSES"?

NO, check out his Instagram. He PULLS YOU into his beautiful world far away from mundane everyday life, takes you on a f*cking adventure, you got sucked in and became PART OF HIS WORLD, and now you're a lot more likely to buy from him if he asks you to! I know I would! If I buy from him (even if the products are made in china), I would feel EXTREMELY GOOD inside!

There's a lot of details in terms of execution which I have not listed here, it would take days, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd idea. This one is easier to do.

IDEA #2

Some time back, Twitter had this viral movement going on. See below:

8f392f95b55fe3cde9b8b29ed535436e.png


Replace sex with dog.
Make these, put these as cards and show them on your site in a masonry grid layout like Pinterest (I think Shopify has plugins for this).

Day 35 without my dog : Flirted with the photo on the packaging at the pet food aisle
(I'm not a witty guy, so you can do better than this)

You may run out of ideas after a while, so you can :

1) get user-generated content for this (this case is a good candidate for giveaways on IG and encourage others to join in)
2) use this as a supplement WITHIN Idea 1 above to increase the fun
3) expand it to other animals
4) post it once every 3 days (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5...)
5) use it in other ways as a content marketing tool to build an audience and drive sales.

Hopefully, all these ideas will spark your imagination a bit.

Everything above is just 5% or less of the whole process, the execution is what makes the thing successful....because you still have to make the website look right, get the photography right, get the content right, get the branding right.....each of which, if done wrongly, will break the entire thing.....

Btw, one shop which I bought dog t-shirts from earlier this year.....they announced that they're closing down. After 1 year in business. They even have professional product photography of models, and they even got featured by one small-time celebrity at one event. Yes, and they run a lot of DISCOUNTS after DISCOUNTS, SALES after SALES every time. Every day is sales and discounts day LOL

6DollarShirts say this on their site:

f2b394cb5fbdd5c67af6eb77a703b4b9.png


No, f*ck them and their $6 shirts.
You'll steal their girls and wear their shirts!

Hands down the most riveting brilliant marketing post I've EVER read!

And it's done with such a simple product! Pure undiluted genius! You took a product and rocketed it up 1,000% to make it almost a QUEST!

You HAVE to post more often! I don't know how you came up with all of that. Amazing!
 

Real Deal Denver

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To me, the shirt designs look cheap. They are like clip art designs that you can get for free. I think you need some originals or to vet them more. I agree with everyone else that commented above, but even if all those changes were made, the shirts just look like $10 t-shirts.

I'm one of your best friends here, as a lot of other people are. Aside from the brilliant advice given, especially from @Xeon and @biophase - which I completely agree with - you just have to up your game. And I mean WAY UP your game.

As bio says above, so correctly, the designs look like clip art. And clip art has evolved greatly. I use clip art a lot. One of my most simple designs is of a dollar sign that is 3-d, tilted slightly, and looks like it is made out of polished gold. Real gold that has a sheen on it - not just "colored clip art" gold color. And THAT'S simple clip art! I would never use the stenciled type of designs you have on your shirts. Ever.

Your site with a white background and static T-shirts. Really? How could you make this more dull or more boring? You simply can't. Unless you type it out like an article in a newspaper with no graphics. On a scale of 1 to 10, this ranks a 1. It simply can't be more plain vanilla than it already is.

I'm not here to make you feel good, obviously. Hallmark cards gets paid to do that - but not me. Sorry, not sorry (now THAT tag line IS pretty funny!).

I just had a moment today that I dreaded, but it turned out good. I have a friend that I refer to as my acid tester. Any idea that I present to him, he will shred. He will tear it apart and spit it out. And I not only appreciate that, but I need that. So, I created a website with gently merging patterns of light that is very soothing to look at. I can literally look at this for hours. I used this as a background and have floating text in front of it. I should put the text into a text box of some sort to make it easier to read. But I just hate the idea of taking away this relaxing effect in any way. Finally I had to face it. Was I sticking to this because of my personal preference? Maybe it's a bad idea, but I can't accept that. So I asked Mr. Acid Test to tell me if the background was too distracting and took away from the text readability. I can't stand in the way of my marketing - no matter how much I might love a design. He loved it. Said he really enjoyed looking at it and had never seen anything like it before.

Solved! I know not everyone will like it. But I'm not trying to please everyone. In fact, @Bekit said she almost bounced off your site because it took too long to load. I find that endlessly amusing. My site takes a lonnnng time to load - about 5 seconds I see by professional testing results. Know what? I don't CARE! I will NOT have a bare bones site. So I might lose customers. Oh shucks anyway. On the other hand, I know I will get loads of free advertising from people that DO stop and enjoy the relaxing feel of my site, as my Acid Test friend has.

Ramp it UP. I want excitement! I want THRILLS! Better yet - as @Xeon explained, I want a story! You can do so much better. So much good advice here. This is a thread I will be rereading quite often, as I am designing my own websites.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, SORRY, don't care. (as any self respecting pug would say!)
 
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Deangiroir

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I'm one of your best friends here, as a lot of other people are. Aside from the brilliant advice given, especially from @Xeon and @biophase - which I completely agree with - you just have to up your game. And I mean WAY UP your game.

As bio says above, so correctly, the designs look like clip art. And clip art has evolved greatly. I use clip art a lot. One of my most simple designs is of a dollar sign that is 3-d, tilted slightly, and looks like it is made out of polished gold. Real gold that has a sheen on it - not just "colored clip art" gold color. And THAT'S simple clip art! I would never use the stenciled type of designs you have on your shirts. Ever.

Your site with a white background and static T-shirts. Really? How could you make this more dull or more boring? You simply can't. Unless you type it out like an article in a newspaper with no graphics. On a scale of 1 to 10, this ranks a 1. It simply can't be more plain vanilla than it already is.

I'm not here to make you feel good, obviously. Hallmark cards gets paid to do that - but not me. Sorry, not sorry (now THAT tag line IS pretty funny!).

I just had a moment today that I dreaded, but it turned out good. I have a friend that I refer to as my acid tester. Any idea that I present to him, he will shred. He will tear it apart and spit it out. And I not only appreciate that, but I need that. So, I created a website with gently merging patterns of light that is very soothing to look at. I can literally look at this for hours. I used this as a background and have floating text in front of it. I should put the text into a text box of some sort to make it easier to read. But I just hate the idea of taking away this relaxing effect in any way. Finally I had to face it. Was I sticking to this because of my personal preference? Maybe it's a bad idea, but I can't accept that. So I asked Mr. Acid Test to tell me if the background was too distracting and took away from the text readability. I can't stand in the way of my marketing - no matter how much I might love a design. He loved it. Said he really enjoyed looking at it and had never seen anything like it before.

Solved! I know not everyone will like it. But I'm not trying to please everyone. In fact, @Bekit said she almost bounced off your site because it took too long to load. I find that endlessly amusing. My site takes a lonnnng time to load - about 5 seconds I see by professional testing results. Know what? I don't CARE! I will NOT have a bare bones site. So I might lose customers. Oh shucks anyway. On the other hand, I know I will get loads of free advertising from people that DO stop and enjoy the relaxing feel of my site, as my Acid Test friend has.

Ramp it UP. I want excitement! I want THRILLS! Better yet - as @Xeon explained, I want a story! You can do so much better. So much good advice here. This is a thread I will be rereading quite often, as I am designing my own websites.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, SORRY, don't care. (as any self respecting pug would say!)
Can use post a link to the site you're referring too?

I'd like to see it
 

Xaridimos

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Hello all!

I've created an eCommerce site that sells t-shirts to dog owners. It's called Rusty's Puppy Emporium. All the t-shirts are screen printed by me and are original designs.

I've started running Facebook ads and have pretty good conversions when it comes to people clicking the link and going to my site. However, I'm still waiting on my 1st sale. Please go to my site and tell me anything that you think could be a potential issue as it pertains to lack of sales.

The website is www.rustyspuppyemporium.com

Be honest and let me have it!

You could improve your site extremely, by adding articles and blog posts about dogs. It would be really great for the customer to learn something about dogs , while browsing your site.

You can add backshots of the t-shirts for a more complete presentation

It would be beneficial to add product descriptions.

That's all for now. I hope I gave you some great ideas to think about.
 

Johnny boy

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Edit: summery: Be an dog focused media company that happens to sell related products. That’s the takeaway. Period.


Running ads for a brand is very “transactional” as Gary V would call it. You don’t have a single sale. You could play with your ad creative a bit but I have a guess it won’t be ROI positive running ads for shirts like you’re doing. I don’t know what people are talking about I think they’re awesome shirts and not overpriced. You might even want to raise the price if you can increase the quality. I’ve bought shirts from brands like redwhiteblueapperal and baseballism and they are high quality and a little pricey. That’s okay. Man I buy $25 plain white t shirts from express just because they’re nice.

I don’t think straight up cold ads to people is going to work well for you. But that would be a fantastic thing to include on the sidebar of a blog about pets. Maybe you could contact 100 blogs that are about dogs and see if they’d “bite” on an affiliate marketing deal. They put your shirts on their site and you pay them a cut from it.

If you want to be an online store and become a true “emporium” you could operate like similar brands such as baseballism. Look it up. They have creative stuff you can only get through them. You’d need some investment and more creative projects but if you make a good product people will want it.

You should do this (my opinion)

1. Get serious on social media and start building a brand. I would consider a name change but that’s just me. Something shorter. I just don’t see “Rusty’s puppy emporium” being a brand but that’s totally just my opinion. Start following niche product brands and copy their strategies immediately. Follow “baseballism” for example and watch what they do. Or “yourdadsamerica” even. Brands succeed. Salesmanship will only optimize something. Follow other brands and use social media to attract people along with blog posts and email lists. Retargetting is good too but honestly that’s just semantics. The best sales is marketing.

2. Let it grow. It will only work if it’s really good. It takes time to become really good but it’s a skill like carving wood or playing guitar. It’s not that the guitar is broken or you’ve got bad wood to carve. Social media and product selling isn’t broken. It’s all about the skill of the craftsman or the artist. If you just plain suck at being creative or growing social media accounts...HIRE SOMEONE WHO HAS THE SKILL.

3. Don’t expect income right away. This goes along with letting it grow. Don’t do it for the 10 grand you think you could make this year if your ads convert. Do it for the 40 grand a month you could be making in 2-3 years because you built a kick a$$ brand that everyone knows about.
 
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Fassina

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My main worry here is what is your margin, and what's your max cpc and cps.

Selling things in a low price range like shirts, is quite difficult to make profitable if you have to pay ads to do it.

Other than that, try having breed targeted ads using facebook pages as filters. i.e Find a bulldog page with lot's of likes and make an ad for it that links to that specific shirt page, you can target only people following some pages with facebook.

You could also message the page owners and pay for a review / post instead of using the ads platform to do it. Probably cheaper and better, but more work.

I feel like you'll spin this wheel for a long time before you realise / accept it's not really profitable enough to be worth the effort. But hey maybe you'll make it work, you obviously put a lot of work on this already so who knows.

Just remember sunk cost fallacy is a thing, and enjoy the journey. I made this mistake recently, and next time you can bet I'll be doing my math before jumping into things.
 

Roli

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. $545!!!!!! For a t-shirt! Brand or not $545 is ridiculous for a t-shirt that was just embroidered. In comparison, how is my $25 shirt a worse deal!? Just saying...

If we all bought fashion based on how much it is actually worth, then nobody would ever pay more than $5 for a T-Shirt. However that is not how it works at all.

I used to have a fun little 'job' buying Louis Vuitton for rich Chinese people in Hong Kong (I was in London).

You know why I had that job? Because LV actively turn custom away.

Try going into an LV shop looking like a scruffy nobody, they will restrict what they sell to you. In other words; our brand is way too good for you sir.

When you pay $500 for a T-shirt, you are not doing so because you believe it has amazing quality, you are doing so because you are sold on the brand, and everything it is trying to convey to you.

Like I said, I think you can sell them for $100, however your story has to be on point, and you need a logo.

If you haven't already done so, if I were you I would give @Xeon's post a good old read.
 

TreyAllDay

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I'd be curious to know more about shipping times, shipping policy, a little bit about the company. People are always a bit skeptical when they're not sure of this stuff.

I noticed some stuff in each product about your 100% satisfaction, 4 reasons - maybe this would be better on homepage as I didn't feel like clicking on a product without knowing that.

Would also be good to see some social proof - even once you get your first sale, mark that as your "best seller"
 
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Deangiroir

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If we all bought fashion based on how much it is actually worth, then nobody would ever pay more than $5 for a T-Shirt. However that is not how it works at all.

I used to have a fun little 'job' buying Louis Vuitton for rich Chinese people in Hong Kong (I was in London).

You know why I had that job? Because LV actively turn custom away.

Try going into an LV shop looking like a scruffy nobody, they will restrict what they sell to you. In other words; our brand is way too good for you sir.

When you pay $500 for a T-shirt, you are not doing so because you believe it has amazing quality, you are doing so because you are sold on the brand, and everything it is trying to convey to you.

Like I said, I think you can sell them for $100, however your story has to be on point, and you need a logo.

If you haven't already done so, if I were you I would give @Xeon's post a good old read.

Great point. My brand is pretty non existent at this point.

Very interesting about LV restricting what they sell to certain individuals. @Xeon's post is awesome. Very good advice. :thumbsup:

I'd be curious to know more about shipping times, shipping policy, a little bit about the company. People are always a bit skeptical when they're not sure of this stuff.

I noticed some stuff in each product about your 100% satisfaction, 4 reasons - maybe this would be better on homepage as I didn't feel like clicking on a product without knowing that.

Would also be good to see some social proof - even once you get your first sale, mark that as your "best seller"

Thanks for the insight! I'm gonna add those "4 Reasons" to the homepage.
 

Real Deal Denver

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If you haven't already done so, if I were you I would give @Xeon's post a good old read.

I read every post. The good ones I reread. A very few I return to and reread several times.

As for @Xeon post? THAT one is printed out and taped on my wall. I look at it every day!

I endlessly admire that brilliant post. I wonder much more how does someone get to that level of thinking?

Print that baby out. You can go years before finding something that good!
 

Deangiroir

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I read every post. The good ones I reread. A very few I return to and reread several times.

As for @Xeon post? THAT one is printed out and taped on my wall. I look at it every day!

I endlessly admire that brilliant post. I wonder much more how does someone get to that level of thinking?

Print that baby out. You can go years before finding something that good!

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
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chuckypita

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Is design your only opportunity for differentiation?

I've bought plenty of $25 t-shirts - and the reasons are more because of the "fit" than the funny slogan or witty drawing.

Also, I don't like polyester... it's itchy and I find it uncomfortable.

What are other ways your can differentiate your product?
 

Deangiroir

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Is design your only opportunity for differentiation?

I've bought plenty of $25 t-shirts - and the reasons are more because of the "fit" than the funny slogan or witty drawing.

Also, I don't like polyester... it's itchy and I find it uncomfortable.

What are other ways your can differentiate your product?

I have to agree on "fit" over design. I feel some of my current designs would look much better on a better quality, better fitting shirt.

Polyester hasn't gotten much love in this thread. :playful: I think many people will find a percentage of polyester in a lot of clothing already in their closets. 50% cotton 50% polyester t-shirts are pretty popular these days. But I digress...

I've been thinking of integrating matching human/dog t-shirts. That could differentiate my brand :bulb:
 

Primeperiwinkle

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Am I the only one on here who is sitting back gobsmacked by the missing dog story?!? I don’t even like dog shirts and I wanna know where we’re all gonna go to look for Rusty next! Somebody get Xeon to tell more stories!!
 
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Real Deal Denver

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Am I the only one on here who is sitting back gobsmacked by the missing dog story?!? I don’t even like dog shirts and I wanna know where we’re all gonna go to look for Rusty next! Somebody get Xeon to tell more stories!!

MY feelings exactly!

I endlessly admire that brilliant post. I wonder much more how does someone get to that level of thinking?

Print that baby out. You can go years before finding something that good!
 

Primeperiwinkle

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MY feelings exactly!

Yasssss!!! I’m not alone!! I have just bonded with you over a story about a company that doesn’t exist that chases a a dog that doesn’t exist! Lmfao.

Now all we need is a dude named Rusty to sit at our feet while we discuss the Goggins book! #priceless
 

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