Threadless tees.
- Thread starter MCole
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donn said:
I think it is, considering this quote from Jon on his blog...
"The rules, as I’ve stated before are pretty simple. Don’t spam, and don’t harass the crap out of people. Poking fun is fine, but don’t go too far or you’ll be warned."
But it's a thin line and we'll see what happens once more and more people try posting links to cool offers with their affiliate code...
GeorgeB said:
How simple/comlex is your logo?
There's a bunch of ways to go about it. If it's a simple logo and you want to just do a few shirts, you can create a stencil, use a little roller, and some fabric ink and it will come out great.
If it's a bit more comlpex you could screen print it, though this does take some practice.
Or you could just do the basic iron on approach, with paper you could buy at wal-mart, staples, etc..
If you have any questions let me know, I print shirts all the time for fun.
HOw many do you want? If you're only doing 20-30, your best bet is CafePress and click on the "make your own" link at the top of the page (or something like that).
If you want to buy hundreds, I have some links to cheap places, but I will need to figure out what they're filed under. I have been thinking of doing some in bulk, but the CafePress deal is too good if you don't really want to get into stocking and sending t-shirts. CafePress is pricey on a per shirt basis, but when you consider that you have no stock, no overstock, can just log in and send your shirt to anyone direct from CP and so on, I think it's a good deal. They handle customer service and returns and everything.
If you think you're the kind of company where people might actually buy your logo shirts (sell performance car parts or organic coffee, or something people identify with), then it might be worth it to create a free CP shop and sell your shirt for a breakeven price. It would be like completely free, hasslefree marketing if people actually purchased.
Word of warning: do NOT sell black t-shirts. I just ordered one of my own that should have been good (black and white design) and it was total junk. Everything else has been great quality, but the black shirts are in beta and it is not ready for public release yet.
One last thing - you can upload one high res design and get stickers, fridge magnets and everything at CP. It's fun actually. I put up some designs to give to friends, so it's a total surprise to get $100/month out of CafePress. I mostly take my money and buy my own stuff to send to friends. It's cheaper fun than lots of other things and if you have a couple of decent designs, you can make a few dollars.
I don't get the ThreadlessTees thing. I can't believe people are willing to give away their designs for free like that. Total BS. I have some designs that sell a bit here and there, so why exactly would I give them away for the chance of $1500 when I can let them sit where they are and give me about $100/month every month? If I went to the trouble to promote, possibly more.
To me threadless is a total Tom Sawyer ploy - painting fences is so much fun, I'll let you do it for free if you want. Creating designs is so much fun, we won't even charge you to submit your designs and let us sell them without giving you a cut. I can't believe that people are so willing to give their hard work to some company.
If you want to buy hundreds, I have some links to cheap places, but I will need to figure out what they're filed under. I have been thinking of doing some in bulk, but the CafePress deal is too good if you don't really want to get into stocking and sending t-shirts. CafePress is pricey on a per shirt basis, but when you consider that you have no stock, no overstock, can just log in and send your shirt to anyone direct from CP and so on, I think it's a good deal. They handle customer service and returns and everything.
If you think you're the kind of company where people might actually buy your logo shirts (sell performance car parts or organic coffee, or something people identify with), then it might be worth it to create a free CP shop and sell your shirt for a breakeven price. It would be like completely free, hasslefree marketing if people actually purchased.
Word of warning: do NOT sell black t-shirts. I just ordered one of my own that should have been good (black and white design) and it was total junk. Everything else has been great quality, but the black shirts are in beta and it is not ready for public release yet.
One last thing - you can upload one high res design and get stickers, fridge magnets and everything at CP. It's fun actually. I put up some designs to give to friends, so it's a total surprise to get $100/month out of CafePress. I mostly take my money and buy my own stuff to send to friends. It's cheaper fun than lots of other things and if you have a couple of decent designs, you can make a few dollars.
I don't get the ThreadlessTees thing. I can't believe people are willing to give away their designs for free like that. Total BS. I have some designs that sell a bit here and there, so why exactly would I give them away for the chance of $1500 when I can let them sit where they are and give me about $100/month every month? If I went to the trouble to promote, possibly more.
To me threadless is a total Tom Sawyer ploy - painting fences is so much fun, I'll let you do it for free if you want. Creating designs is so much fun, we won't even charge you to submit your designs and let us sell them without giving you a cut. I can't believe that people are so willing to give their hard work to some company.
From reviews, CafePress isn't that great.
Here are some alternatives:
http://www.printmojo.com
http://www.zazzle.com
http://www.spreadshirt.com
I haven't tried any personally so I don't know how the quality is for those sites.
Best bet is to just go to a local screenprinting store if it's just for yourself.
It could become a great way to get noticed. Threadless has become quite popular so if someone is interested in one of the designs, they may hire that person.
Here are some alternatives:
http://www.printmojo.com
http://www.zazzle.com
http://www.spreadshirt.com
I haven't tried any personally so I don't know how the quality is for those sites.
Best bet is to just go to a local screenprinting store if it's just for yourself.
It could become a great way to get noticed. Threadless has become quite popular so if someone is interested in one of the designs, they may hire that person.
krzyxflip said:
I think CafePress is great for what it is - a totally hassle free on demand printer who can handle complex designs (a lot of the cheaper tshirt printers will limit you to a few colors or things like that).
You're definitely right, though, that if you want to buy more than 50 shirts of the same design, you should go to a place that will do them in bulk. When you get up to 1000 shirts, you're down to about 1/3 of the CP price. For a few shirts for fun or for employees if you have a real small business, though, I don't think CafePress can be beat.
I've bought and sold stuff there and I think that aside from the unforgiveably crappy black tshirts, everything else looks pretty good.
I use cafepress as a quick and easy way to completely handle everything from billing to printing to shipping to customer service for me. The profit margins are terrible, so I don't use it as a way to make money. I just set everything at cost and try to use it as a way to turn people into walking billboards for my site.
If you want to actually turn a good profit, you'll probably need to pre-buy in bulk somewhere and then ship them out individually yourself.
If you want to actually turn a good profit, you'll probably need to pre-buy in bulk somewhere and then ship them out individually yourself.
BTW another one to look at is GoodStorm.com
I checked out the links you had. PrintMojo looks really good, though I notice that on their circleprinting.com site they say to go to CafePress if you just want one shirt. I didn't really like Zazzle or spreadshirt, but it all depends on what you're looking for.
I also found my link to the bulk printer I was thinking of. These guys appear to only do two-color designs, so that's somewhat limiting, but a 2-color/1-side print run of 600 shirts is priced at $4.29 per shirt.
http://www.customink.com/services/wholesale-t-shirt-printing.htm
I checked out the links you had. PrintMojo looks really good, though I notice that on their circleprinting.com site they say to go to CafePress if you just want one shirt. I didn't really like Zazzle or spreadshirt, but it all depends on what you're looking for.
I also found my link to the bulk printer I was thinking of. These guys appear to only do two-color designs, so that's somewhat limiting, but a 2-color/1-side print run of 600 shirts is priced at $4.29 per shirt.
http://www.customink.com/services/wholesale-t-shirt-printing.htm
ergophobe said:
See, the deal is, most people aren't going to make that much money off of CafePress per month-they'd rather get a shot at making $2000 (new award) on Threadless. It's also alot bigger deal to say 'I've designed and won on Threadless' then to say that about CafePress.
Hmm. That may be so, but here's the catch as I see it based on my limited experience with CafePress
- a design that is good enough to win a $2000 contest at Threadless will bring in $2000/year and then keep giving after that unless it's about the Duke Lacrosse team or something ephemeral
- a design that would bring in say $500/year on CafePress will lose the Threadless comp and bring in nothing.
I don't know. Maybe the average shopkeeper on CP doesn't make anything at all. All I know is that I put up some pretty mediocre stuff and am not a designer at all, did no promotion and voila $100 per month. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy to make real money with CP and I wouldn't even try unless you have fantastic designs and are a marketing genius. In my case, for this paltry sum, a photoshop amateur like me has to invest a lot of hours and I would make more bagging grocieries, but the thing is I did not expect to make anything at all with this. I put designs up so I could give and sell them to friends. I was shocked to find out that anyone else was interested. In fact, I put up an embarrassing "beta" design just to see how the store worked. Granted this was two weeks before Christmas. Still, it looked like total crap. I went to bed and woke up eight hours later and had an email saying I had made a sale. I was shocked. Why would anyone buy that crappy design? Well, an improved variation has been selling about one item every other day for six months now. It's just bizarre really.
Anyway, if you want to have some fun, check out CafePress
If you want to make money, spend your time elsewhere. Somebody had a blog post recently about the stupidest possible "frat guy" money making schemes and t-shirt store was at the top, not because no t-shirt stores make money, but because 99.999% do not and unless you're very good, yours will not be the exception.
- a design that is good enough to win a $2000 contest at Threadless will bring in $2000/year and then keep giving after that unless it's about the Duke Lacrosse team or something ephemeral
- a design that would bring in say $500/year on CafePress will lose the Threadless comp and bring in nothing.
I don't know. Maybe the average shopkeeper on CP doesn't make anything at all. All I know is that I put up some pretty mediocre stuff and am not a designer at all, did no promotion and voila $100 per month. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy to make real money with CP and I wouldn't even try unless you have fantastic designs and are a marketing genius. In my case, for this paltry sum, a photoshop amateur like me has to invest a lot of hours and I would make more bagging grocieries, but the thing is I did not expect to make anything at all with this. I put designs up so I could give and sell them to friends. I was shocked to find out that anyone else was interested. In fact, I put up an embarrassing "beta" design just to see how the store worked. Granted this was two weeks before Christmas. Still, it looked like total crap. I went to bed and woke up eight hours later and had an email saying I had made a sale. I was shocked. Why would anyone buy that crappy design? Well, an improved variation has been selling about one item every other day for six months now. It's just bizarre really.
Anyway, if you want to have some fun, check out CafePress
If you want to make money, spend your time elsewhere. Somebody had a blog post recently about the stupidest possible "frat guy" money making schemes and t-shirt store was at the top, not because no t-shirt stores make money, but because 99.999% do not and unless you're very good, yours will not be the exception.
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