A friend was asking me about this earlier and while at one point I was able to answer it off the top of my head I’m now sorely lacking in the info for the best answer. Rather than do the right thing and respond with “I don’t know” I’m turning to you all for help. The basic question is in 2008 if you wanted to print and sell a couple of T-shirt designs on the web, how would you do it?
Things I think I know:
- Proper screen printing is a requirement, no “print on demand” using iron on or heat transfers.
- Printing a gross of shirts at a time is way cheaper than small runs.
- Men’s S, M, L, XL are required.
- Local printing with in person pick up is always cheaper than printing elsewhere and shipping.
- Storage of and fulfillment is a nightmare.
Things I know I don’t know, but would like to:
- Of men’s sizes, which are the most commonly ordered?
- Which women’s sizes are most common and worth producing?
- Does the shirt printed on still matter (American Apparel vs Hanes Beefy T, etc)?
- Is it better to have a simpler shirt with no branding of who made it, or some credit somewhere so people know where it came from?
- Are there any companies doing storage & fulfillment that are worthwhile? (I know at one point there was a guy in Chicago who ran a business where he did nothing but stock products for other people’s companies and handle their mail order in exchange for a % of the sales, but he’s long since stopped.)
- If selling the shirts online, is it worth taking orders from outside the US or is shipping still prohibitively expensive? (Or is the exchange rate so good that it doesn’t matter?)
Any info (e-mailed to me or posted in the comments) would be super appreciated. I know for a fact that this person is looking to add merchandise to their existing non-merchandise related company so options like Threadless are out of the question from a business standpoint. Suggestions? Ideas? KTHXBAI
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If the shirts are targeted at hipsters (the Threadless crowd) American Apparel is a must. They run smaller, so you have to take that into account.
I know precisely one woman who fits into an AA small. It’s good to stock M, L, and XL. A woman of average or above height with a C cup or greater is going to need a L, unless she wants that porny look.
We sell way more Men’s shirts than women. Probably true for “funny” shirts, or maybe even printed shirts in general, other than more decorative prints.
A little branding can be a nice touch, if appropriate to the audience, the seller, and done well. We have largeish branding because our shirts are as much a promotional item as a money-maker for us.
We work with Brunetto T-shirts for printing and fulfillment. Kurt is a star!
We get a lot of orders from outside the US. I think we are still eating some shipping costs because we use PayPal. Whatever you charge will be basically free for Europeans, so I’d say it’s worth it.
Hope that helps!
Hope that helps.
I think the most striking is, it wasn’t me that made this request. I look forward to seeing the answers.
. Large was the most popular size when i worked in retail follow by xlarge and medium.
. Women sizes are trickier. Don’t go smaller than american apparel medium/one size. Its funny though, when I made my own tees, it was as if I never had the size they wanted.
. American Apparel is great for girls. Lot of guys I know don’t like the soft feel of AA. I like Hanes beefy tee because its their version of AA but run slightly cheaper and most guys don’t know or care about the tee shirt brand (although if they wear alot of tees, they will note that the hanes is pretty well made).
. A little branding isn’t bad on the design because ultimately, unless you’ve got money to burn, you ain’t going to put a label on the tee (theres a financial and or labor cost in having the original label cut and putting your own on. Its cute at first and than you realize its not practical). I put my label on the sleeve so it wasn’t too obnoxious and people liked that little extra.
. dunno about the warehouse storage deal.
. Initially i say no to foreign shipping because they’re too much of a hassle. You either lose on the shipping and/or insurance.
. One extra piece of advice. As pretty as you think a design looks on paper or your computer, navy and black tees are the most popular colors. Yes, I know you might think this emerald green is perfect and you know people who wear it but I guarantee you’ll be looking at emerald green forever while you’re reordering your black and navy’ tees.