selling tshirts?
- Thread starter Stanley
- Start date
- Status
Hey I am thinking of doing just the same thing. My 2 year old inspired me for a t-shirt design 2 weeks ago. Cafepress could be an easy solution or I think threadless may do dropshitting.
Cafepress is the easiest way to go. Just upload your design, set your price and your done. But from what I understand the quality of the shirts suck ass. But if you don't care then go this route. There's also Zazzle or something like that. It's just like cafepress.
Cafepress is who makes the real money. There base price for a value t-shirt is like $8.99. That's fucking crazy. I use to be in the t-shirt biz and I could crank out the same shirt design with better quality for $2 to $3 bucks tops.
But cafepress, imho isn't a money maker. Unless you get lucky and people go ape shit over your design. But hey, you never know.
Cafepress is who makes the real money. There base price for a value t-shirt is like $8.99. That's fucking crazy. I use to be in the t-shirt biz and I could crank out the same shirt design with better quality for $2 to $3 bucks tops.
But cafepress, imho isn't a money maker. Unless you get lucky and people go ape shit over your design. But hey, you never know.
Amazon is working on a beta fulfillment service but it is limited to only certain items right now: Amazon Business Solutions - Fulfillment by Amazon - An Amazon Fulfillment Services Group
You'll want to go google "fulfillment" - I had found this one as well: PRODUCT FULFILLMENT SERVICES ORDER FULFILLMENT | EFULFILLMENTSERVICES.COM but haven't fully looked into this.
You'll want to go google "fulfillment" - I had found this one as well: PRODUCT FULFILLMENT SERVICES ORDER FULFILLMENT | EFULFILLMENTSERVICES.COM but haven't fully looked into this.
shoemoney uses dropshippers for his shirts and they go the pre-shrunk compacted ones that can be compressed into any shape you like (the blue logo on white ones) are shrunk into a palm sized superman logo shaped bundle.
i saw the link on his blog somewhere, i guess you could do a google "site:shoemoney.com" to find it.
i saw the link on his blog somewhere, i guess you could do a google "site:shoemoney.com" to find it.
cafe press is shitty iron stuff. i wouldn't bother with it if you are serious.
when i ran a clothing line, we used merch direct. you basically pay them to print your shirts. they print them then set up a store for you and take care of all the orders and everything. you do lose money though. Theres also like 3-4 other places I know that do this, I have to dig up their links though.
MerchDirect
if it were me, i'd just have them printed and set up a paypal estore. if you want to go that route, let me know, i still have some hook ups and can get stuff printed pretty cheap.
when i ran a clothing line, we used merch direct. you basically pay them to print your shirts. they print them then set up a store for you and take care of all the orders and everything. you do lose money though. Theres also like 3-4 other places I know that do this, I have to dig up their links though.
MerchDirect
if it were me, i'd just have them printed and set up a paypal estore. if you want to go that route, let me know, i still have some hook ups and can get stuff printed pretty cheap.
Last edited:
You're referring to:
The $2.95 Guys t-shirt compressed shirts shrinkwrap
I was thinking about using them in the future, too.
Custom T-shirts - Design, Buy and Sell Customized apparel: Spreadshirt do shirts and stuff as well. Haven't tried them though.
dont know if this is what u are looking for or not but here it is anyways.
CafePress.com : Sell Online : Introduction
Open a shop!
At CafePress, you can create and sell products with your designs - all with no upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website, blog or in our Marketplace. CafePress handles all product creation, credit card processing, shipping and customer service.
Sell products featuring your designs. Learn more
T-shirts & Clothing
Posters & Prints
Housewares
Custom US Postage
Self-publish your book. Learn more
Sell your own audio or data CDs. Learn more
Be an Affiliate!
Independent artists in our community have created over 20 million unique products including t-shirts, posters, books and CDs. Send your site traffic to the CafePress Marketplace just by adding a link to your web site or blog. Choose products that perfectly match your site visitors' interests. When someone you refer makes a purchase, you can earn up to 20% of product sales. Learn more
CafePress.com : Sell Online : Introduction
Open a shop!
At CafePress, you can create and sell products with your designs - all with no upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website, blog or in our Marketplace. CafePress handles all product creation, credit card processing, shipping and customer service.
T-shirts & Clothing
Posters & Prints
Housewares
Custom US Postage
Be an Affiliate!
Independent artists in our community have created over 20 million unique products including t-shirts, posters, books and CDs. Send your site traffic to the CafePress Marketplace just by adding a link to your web site or blog. Choose products that perfectly match your site visitors' interests. When someone you refer makes a purchase, you can earn up to 20% of product sales. Learn more
Yeah... that's who he used. And they don't do drop shipping.
I've gotten shirts from them before. They've got great pricing, but you've got to order in bulk... 504 shirts at a time. And they took a couple times to get the proofs right, but in the end... it's a good deal.
Spreadshirt looks like they have a pretty decent setup. I'm having my programmer take a look at their API for some one-off designs we cooked up.
If you want to test out your design I would start with CafePress. It's a great way to test the demand for your product for almost zero cost or effort. Then if you find they are hot sellers you can find a reliable dropshipper and squeeze some more profit margins out of it.
I was a top CafePress shop seller last year. Their service is top notch and they finally added some decent quality t-shirts and colors to their site. While the profit margins are slim on the t-shirts ($3-$6 average markup) they are doing all the work.
So is your profit margin $3-6? or is it a portion of that?
Either way, that's not bad at all for a t-shirt. At one point I was thinking of getting into shirt printing and got a ton of info on it. In the end, I decided not to because it's very competitive with low margins.
For example, the t-shirts you see in the stores, probably only made the printer $0.03 - 0.30 per shirt. Their error rate has to remain below 0.04% for them to remain profitable. It's a dog-eat-dog business.
Point being, if you can get $3 - 6 per shirt, you're killing it!
So is your profit margin $3-6? or is it a portion of that?
Either way, that's not bad at all for a t-shirt. At one point I was thinking of getting into shirt printing and got a ton of info on it. In the end, I decided not to because it's very competitive with low margins.
For example, the t-shirts you see in the stores, probably only made the printer $0.03 - 0.30 per shirt. Their error rate has to remain below 0.04% for them to remain profitable. It's a dog-eat-dog business.
Point being, if you can get $3 - 6 per shirt, you're killing it!
The $3-$6 is the total profit markup I select for each t-shirt I sell. It just depends on the type of shirt. If it's a plain t-shirt then it's usually around $3, if it's a colored, long-sleeve or women's raglan style you can mark it up to $6 each. It also all depends on how "hot" the design is and if it's trendy.
Actually, the margins on selling t-shirts are huge if you are doing everything yourself. If you are just doing a simple design that is only a couple of colors you could probably make the shirt for less than $4 each (including cost of the shirt itself) and sell it for $18 or more.
DeezTeez has an affiliate program where they pay you $7 per shirt
for each sale so you know they have a nice profit margin.
T-shirt Hell pays out $4 per t-shirt
Threadless t-shirts is doing very, very well. They did $6.5m in revenues last year. Also, Busted Tees (owned by CollegeHumor/ConnectedVentures) is another t-shirt site that is making a killing. I believe half their revenue comes from selling t-shirts.
I have a friend that really wants to start our own t-shirt biz (print, ship everything) but the thought of customer service and billing just sounds like a real pain.
Btw, I really enjoy your blog, Mike. good stuff!
- Status