Anyone Sell T-Shirts?

58 replies
I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
2. How much do they cost?
3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
#sell #tshirts
  • Profile picture of the author nicolasmd2112
    A lot of people make money with Teespring. Try investing in a Teespring related product for more info on the subject.




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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Addams
    Look into these:

    1. TeeSpring.com
    2. Fabrily.com

    Cheers,

    Tom
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      TeeSpring is extremely simple to get started with/

      Marketing through FB is a viable option if you know how to do it properly



      - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author DaveTheSinister
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
    Teespring will be your easiest to set up. There are a ton of options though. Zazzle, Sunfrogshirts, spreadshirt (really like spreadshirt). But for what you are talking about you might want to look into Design Invent Print. Its a bit more work but you will have your own site (they pay for hosting), they will handle the processing, manu, and shipping, and they have manu in USA, CA, UK and a couple other countries. So shipping is faster and more affordable for your customers.

    Hope this helps
    D
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    • Profile picture of the author Denise Hall
      Originally Posted by cindynorwood View Post

      i dont know about sunfrog but i tried them a while back there platform was not as user friendly as that of tspring.

      This is true, but updates and improvements are being made almost on a daily basis to make it more user-friendly.

      But since you don't have to create your own shirts to earn money with their platform, they're a good option for anyone who doesn't want to design shirts.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Moore
    Teespring is great and super newbie friendly, really works great!
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Wells
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
    #1 Print Myself
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  • Profile picture of the author PorterSummers
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
    1. I use teespring, I have tried other platforms but it works best for ME
    2. My base cost is usually between $9.50-$10.20
    3. Shipping is $3.99
    4. Teespring does all fufillment
    5. Again, Teespring

    If you are looking for a stand alone option, Shopify with the Scalable Press plug in works really well. The downside I have heard is that the prints aren't the best quality BUT there are some great upsides to it. The opportunity to truly make a brand is great, the ability to capture buyer emails is great and with shopify it offers great sales tracking.,

    Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I have a high school friend who sells his t-shirts on facebook for $20 each. Straight from teespring. You should start there first. Also, don't just create t-shirts for the sake of it. Do market research to see what kind of t-shirts work the best, along with the colors and wording, then conduct tests - and start making money by promoting them on a large scale.
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  • Profile picture of the author nicoli
    Teespring all the way, mate. It is our biggest earner, and we have tried every platform
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  • Profile picture of the author CtrlAltRage
    Teespring is definitely the way to go if you're starting out.

    Down the road you may want to check out Represent and Teechip. I know Teechip had a quite the hiccup in fulfillment during the month of April and May but they are all caught up and the profit margins are insane.

    Represent has less profit margins than both Teespring and Teechip, but I personally like their back office a little more, and they allow as many colors of tees that you want.

    But Teespring is a more solid beginner's choice since they have the an established fund for their own marketing ventures.
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    • Profile picture of the author here2learn
      Originally Posted by CtrlAltRage View Post

      Teespring is definitely the way to go if you're starting out.

      Down the road you may want to check out Represent and Teechip. I know Teechip had a quite the hiccup in fulfillment during the month of April and May but they are all caught up and the profit margins are insane.

      Represent has less profit margins than both Teespring and Teechip, but I personally like their back office a little more, and they allow as many colors of tees that you want.

      But Teespring is a more solid beginner's choice since they have the an established fund for their own marketing ventures.
      A lot of the responses are coming from those looking to create original designs and that's all well and good but..what about those of us who want to sell retail from wholesale? You know, T-shirt designs already made? Wish I could get them shipped through fulfillment houses but then that would eat up the profit margin.

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  • Profile picture of the author DWaters
    Along with Teespring you may want to take a look at represent.com, They appear to be an up and coming platform in the t-shirt market.
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    • Profile picture of the author maxpoweraff
      I sell on Teespring. Right now I'm at a little over 28,000 units and almost $400,000.00 in sales in about a year and a half. It's my main income. You are limited with teespring though, your not actually building a business. It can now become compare to running affiliate offers almost. You design a shirt, setup and ad and sell the shirt, over and over and over. Teespring keeps the buyers emails, you can e-mail them 3 times a week but you never actually own anything. They are strict with copyright and since all the hype about walrmart, amazon etc. not selling confederate flag stuff anymore, teespring has banned selling confederate shirts. That's going to be just the beginning, so don't expect complete freedom. I'm looking into starting my own site with a backend full-fulfillment center or something. Anyone have an ideas?
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      • Profile picture of the author khill98
        maxpoweraff What's your marketing strategy? I've been hesitant to pull the trigger on a Teespring campaign simply because I can't figure out how to run successful ads on Facebook. Any tips?
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        • Profile picture of the author haddy
          I second his question!
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        • Profile picture of the author haddy
          Originally Posted by khill98 View Post

          maxpoweraff What's your marketing strategy? I've been hesitant to pull the trigger on a Teespring campaign simply because I can't figure out how to run successful ads on Facebook. Any tips?
          I second this !!
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          • Profile picture of the author delibcreate
            My husband has been building his own t shirt brand for a couple of years now, The success has been patchy but mostly because he's been figuring it out as he goes. He prints his own designs on demand on blank t shirts he buys wholsale - base cost btwn $4-$5 per shirt. He looked at using services like Teespring but was insistent on quality and keeping his prices as low as possible. He sells on Amazon, Etsy and Ebay, and has just recently started selling in batches to local non-profits. He has his own website but most sales happen through the other online vendors. He also handles all his own shipping. His marketing has been minimal and definitely needs to expand, also having challenges getting Facebook ads to produce the way many claim they can. Most of his success has been with particular designs that struck a cord and sold. If you already have a niche following it will be much easier. Using Ebay and Etsy is pretty easy, Amazon is a whole different animal, but it's by far where most sales happen.
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            • Profile picture of the author here2learn
              Originally Posted by delibcreate View Post

              My husband has been building his own t shirt brand for a couple of years now, The success has been patchy but mostly because he's been figuring it out as he goes. He prints his own designs on demand on blank t shirts he buys wholsale - base cost btwn $4-$5 per shirt. He looked at using services like Teespring but was insistent on quality and keeping his prices as low as possible. He sells on Amazon, Etsy and Ebay, and has just recently started selling in batches to local non-profits. He has his own website but most sales happen through the other online vendors. He also handles all his own shipping. His marketing has been minimal and definitely needs to expand, also having challenges getting Facebook ads to produce the way many claim they can. Most of his success has been with particular designs that struck a cord and sold. If you already have a niche following it will be much easier. Using Ebay and Etsy is pretty easy, Amazon is a whole different animal, but it's by far where most sales happen.
              Thank you so much for chiming in with this informative and empathetic post! I wish I could give a thanks but I guess we're limited to how many we can give a day!
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  • Profile picture of the author quinnj102
    There are many choices when it comes to promoting T-Shirts. Obviously the most popular is T-Spring but there are many others. I like Sunfrog. They don't set a limit on the number of shirts that need to be sold in a certain timeframe like T-spring does. They do have a scarcity option that you can implement but it's not a necessity like it is on T-Spring.

    Explore all of your options and test them all if you need to. Hope this helps. These are print on demand sites so they print and ship the shirts and you earn an affiliate commission for each shirt sold and an artist royalty if you are the designer of the shirt; at least that is how it works with Sunfrog. Every print on demand site is different and offers different commissions. You can also bulk order shirts at a cheaper price and make a larger profit. The minimum for bulk orders is 48 of a single print, but if you choose this route be sure you can sell all of them that you order. The commission for orders less than that is less but there is also no risk because there is no minimum number of sales promoting it in this fashion. There is training on this business model on the market and if you wanna send me a friend request on FB, feel free and Ill answer any questions you may have.

    Here is my FB profile: https://facebook.com/josephquinn.35

    If you send me a friend request please also send a msg so I know what the request is in regards to. Good luck.


    Joseph
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  • Profile picture of the author msanate
    sign up on teespring.com they do all the hassle u sale it.
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  • Profile picture of the author tshobie
    If you want to have shirts printed and shipped to you to sell yourself, take a look at this site - Custom T-Shirts, Sweatshirts, & Hoodies | Allied Shirts. I'm getting ready to order some to sell on ebay since I can't sell my teespring shirts on ebay and I have a good niche audience already on ebay I sell other products to. And besides the ones mentioned, (teechip, teespring, and sunfrog) there's also teegear and viralstyle.
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  • Profile picture of the author mreespinosa
    I use to have shirts promoted via YouTube using Spread shirt. Its not so much the company you use, though that does play a part. The secret is building a following. I made over $8K.
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    • Profile picture of the author here2learn
      Originally Posted by mreespinosa View Post

      I use to have shirts promoted via YouTube using Spread shirt. Its not so much the company you use, though that does play a part. The secret is building a following. I made over $8K and "I can design you a website or any marketing material to get you started in the online marketing world. Check out my responsive website here ".
      Okay, so...
      1.) How did you get the rightfollowing?
      2.) For $300? What's the difference between your (website) design and getting one built using a cheaper Fiverr designer?
      signed,
      Inquiring minds wanna know!
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      • Profile picture of the author mreespinosa
        Originally Posted by here2learn View Post

        Okay, so...
        1.) How did you get the rightfollowing?
        2.) For $300? What's the difference between your (website) design and getting one built using a cheaper Fiverr designer?
        signed,
        Inquiring minds wanna know!
        1.) You build it.

        For example, do you have a YouTuber you constantly watch and they have a lot of followers?

        The truth is, the internet is massive and the people are endless. There are literally people for everything and anything. There is no "right" following. You just take action and you'll eventually create a following. YouTube is the next Google. Wait, doesn't Google own YouTube? Video is the next best thing I should say. You just focus on ANYTHING. Well, not really anything, but you know what I mean.

        For example, one of the best things to target would be the weight loss niche. Another thing to target, would be the romance niche. We all know that, but those niches are jam packed with promoters. Do your research and you'll strike a niche with low competition. I'll be releasing a tool for that soon so stay tuned!

        2.) The difference is not only am I designing your website, providing your domain name, but I'm also providing the yearly hosting as well. Need I say more?
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        • Profile picture of the author here2learn
          Okay, but what if the person already has hosting and a domain name? I never pay more than $5 for my domain names and a years worth of hosting cost me $13 bux.
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          • Profile picture of the author madman
            Hi

            I have never sold T-Shirts before and am thinking of selling children's T-Shirts with a theme running through them. Like most other people I want to have them printed as the orders come in rather than buy in bulk etc and risk them not selling.

            I realise it will make things a little more expensive to do it that way and I am paying for the convenience but does anyone have any thoughts on the production costs and profit margins on T-Shirts please?

            I was thinking about 40% mark up, however, looking at the production costs with all the mentioned companies it would make the sale price in the region of between £16 and £18.99 and that seems rather high when looking at what is selling online.

            Does anyone have any ideas on the mark up, and how to keep the costs down as it all looks more expensive than I had hoped?

            If any experienced T-Shirt sellers have any suggestions that would be very much appreciated.

            Thank you.
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            • Profile picture of the author fantrom
              Originally Posted by madman View Post

              Hi

              I have never sold T-Shirts before and am thinking of selling children's T-Shirts with a theme running through them. Like most other people I want to have them printed as the orders come in rather than buy in bulk etc and risk them not selling.

              I realise it will make things a little more expensive to do it that way and I am paying for the convenience but does anyone have any thoughts on the production costs and profit margins on T-Shirts please?

              I was thinking about 40% mark up, however, looking at the production costs with all the mentioned companies it would make the sale price in the region of between £16 and £18.99 and that seems rather high when looking at what is selling online.

              Does anyone have any ideas on the mark up, and how to keep the costs down as it all looks more expensive than I had hoped?

              If any experienced T-Shirt sellers have any suggestions that would be very much appreciated.

              Thank you.
              Printing t-shirts one at a time can be very costly if using a printing press. Especially since you must make a screen before printing the t-shirts.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_printing

              So here is what we do:

              Heat Press/INKJET/LASER Transfers - Print transparent inks using a computer onto a special piece of paper. Use heat to adhere the ink and paper onto the cloth. We use this method for one offs or very small orders.

              Screening Printing - Creating screens pressed up against cloth to place paint onto shirts one color per screen. We use this method for big orders which require up to 6 colors.

              Direct to Garment - Print inks directly onto cloth. We are in the process of getting a DTG printer machine to do more complex designs.

              A client just sent me the Big Cartel link to a t-shirt/hat line I designed (based on his ideas) for his company:

              Nygerian &mdash; Home

              Note: I just did the t-shirts/hats design artwork and not involved on anything (printing, photo shoot, etc) else.

              The mark up will depend heavily on your niche market, unique designs and demand. In the nygerian case above, their very unique market allows them a high markup.

              There are many ways to cut production cost and make a profit doing this but it relies on many variables unique to every person or company. I would need more info before I could give more concrete solutions.
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              • Profile picture of the author Matthew Moyer
                I sold shirts off and on for about 8 months.

                The place would print them and ship them to me in batches at a cost
                of $6 a piece. They were gildan shirts which were nice.

                I found them by picking up the phone and calling about 40 different places.

                Since I had no interest in design cause I'm not an artist I let my market
                make their designs which they gladly did.

                My market was people with followings or people who wanted followings
                and didn't do the hard work of picking up a phone and finding a cheap
                place that printed up decent shirts.

                I targeted new or little known bands, and youtube channel personalities.

                It wasn't to hard to sell 50 to 100 shirts at a time.

                I wasn't very serious at all when doing it and my only out of
                pocket cost was for the initial phone calls I made to printing
                places and a few people I was looking to sell them to.

                The rest was contact through their youtube channels or twitter or
                facebook or soundclick or their websites.

                Anyways thats just a little bit about what I did when I dabbled in selling shirts.
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          • Profile picture of the author mreespinosa
            Originally Posted by here2learn View Post

            Okay, but what if the person already has hosting and a domain name? I never pay more than $5 for my domain names and a years worth of hosting cost me $13 bux.
            I tell you what, if you're serious, and if that person wants a responsive website. PM me the details and I'll be more than happy to get them set up in a jiffy.
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            • Profile picture of the author itsajeepshirt
              Originally Posted by cindynorwood View Post

              i dont know about sunfrog but i tried them a while back there platform was not as user friendly as that of tspring.
              Originally Posted by quinnj102 View Post

              There are many choices when it comes to promoting T-Shirts. Obviously the most popular is T-Spring but there are many others. I like Sunfrog. They don't set a limit on the number of shirts that need to be sold in a certain timeframe like T-spring does. They do have a scarcity option that you can implement but it's not a necessity like it is on T-Spring.
              Doesn't Sunfrog only pay $1 per sale to designers? I remember looking into them, but that was such a rip off that I never went back.

              Originally Posted by here2learn View Post

              A lot of the responses are coming from those looking to create original designs and that's all well and good but..what about those of us who want to sell retail from wholesale? You know, T-shirt designs already made? Wish I could get them shipped through fulfillment houses but then that would eat up the profit margin.

              You'll probably soon find that when you have nothing unique to offer, you'll be fighting for the lowest price and the least margins. If you have a huge following this could work if they will buy from you without price comparison, but usually it's best to have something unique to sell that they can't get from anywhere else - it keeps their attention on you.

              Originally Posted by here2learn View Post

              Okay, but what if the person already has hosting and a domain name? I never pay more than $5 for my domain names and a years worth of hosting cost me $13 bux.
              I guess that works if the website you threw up gets little to no traffic? You will never see a fortune 500 company gloat about only spending $13 a year on hosting. If my website stays up 100% on a $13/year or free plan, I'm doing something majorly wrong.
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              • Profile picture of the author aussiebrah
                I don't understand how Tee Spring can be a good place to start.

                I just searched for 'beer' on tee spring and there's heaps of "1/50 sold" results on the first page.

                I hate the idea of putting up a design and then people have to commit to buy and they don't even know if they'll be getting the shirt. Sounds ridiculous, i don't even know why they need a minimum number for the design to be printed, other sites like spreadshirt don't.

                Also, lol at their weak explanation ;

                "Set a sales goal (tipping point)

                Decide the number of shirts you plan on selling. This is the minimum you need to sell for the shirts to be printed."


                oh ok, what? why?


                it seems like you'd need to advertise the hell out of any shirt to have a chance.
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                • Profile picture of the author itsajeepshirt
                  Originally Posted by aussiebrah View Post

                  I don't understand how Tee Spring can be a good place to start.

                  I just searched for 'beer' on tee spring and there's heaps of "1/50 sold" results on the first page.

                  I hate the idea of putting up a design and then people have to commit to buy and they don't even know if they'll be getting the shirt. Sounds ridiculous, i don't even know why they need a minimum number for the design to be printed, other sites like spreadshirt don't.

                  Also, lol at their weak explanation ;

                  "Set a sales goal (tipping point)

                  Decide the number of shirts you plan on selling. This is the minimum you need to sell for the shirts to be printed."


                  oh ok, what? why?


                  it seems like you'd need to advertise the hell out of any shirt to have a chance.
                  On the flip side of things - printing can get expensive. I know TeeSpring has a process, and I'm sure it's optimized, but in traditional t-shirt sales, many companies charge a 24 piece or 72 piece minimum to make the work of setting up the design worthwhile. (This is where the history of minimums came from.)

                  Regardless, whether you have a kick-ass design, or a crappy one, you can sell it if you advertise. Therefore, either way you have to do that work; whether it's on teespring, or any other sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author fantrom
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
    Here is my 2 cents.

    #1 We Print Them Ourselves using this printing press:

    Riley Hopkins Win Series Screen Printing Press with XY Micro Registration - 8 Color 4 Station | ScreenPrinting.com Powered by Ryonet

    #2 Prices vary based on Quantity and Quality.

    We use mainly Hanes and Gilden but there are may more brands available.

    #3 It depends on certain variables.

    Which shipping method (UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHL) you use is very important.

    #4 Interns (they are paid and supervised)

    They apprentice to learn the business/printing process.

    #5 Woocomerce/Paypal and Cash at Festivals, Shows, etc!

    There is demand both Online and Offline so we oblige.

    We also custom design t-shirts for various individuals, small business and agency clients.

    Let me know if you have any further questions... I'll try to help.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan2929
    As someone who knows very little about teespring, Id be interested to hear the answers to the points brought up by Aussiebrah
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  • Profile picture of the author nicoli
    Unfortunately, Aussiebrah is obviously very new to the game too.

    Firstly, most of those failed campaigns are because they are noobs who copy designs and ideas and suck at targeting.

    Secondly, the sales goal is to reach the profit margin. You only need to sell 3 to go to print regardless of sales targets.

    If you can't spend time on research and correct targeting to sell a measly 3 items, this game ain't for you
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  • Profile picture of the author abdullah93312
    If you have fund, then i advice you to contact any clothing factory in china and get printed t-shirt with your own brand, when you buy in bulk you will get cheap and best quality t-shirt...so you can compete the clothing market and make money..
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  • Profile picture of the author simonmks
    I can not help because I have not ever busy but very interesting, maybe one day I will start this
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  • Profile picture of the author LesterRussell
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!
    1. I get them done up in China for large order or in-house for anything below 200 tees. But when outsourcing, never completely trust your vendor until you've developed a good relationship with them. There will be scam companies that provide a lot less than what they promised.

    2. This would actually depend on how large your quantity and the type of quality you need. For most part, Gildan is one of the most commonly used tees for printing and they will cost you around $3 to $5 depending on your sources.

    As for the cost of doing up the print on the tees, that will vary according to the type of prints used and the complexity of the logo.

    3. Not too sure about shipping costs since i don't deal with those countries but you could easily get a quote from companies like Fedex or DHL. Call in to each company and register for a corporate account. That will give you significant costs savings!

    4. My team of staff.

    5. Paypal, it hasn't failed me so far. haha.
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  • Profile picture of the author MMartin89
    Just sign up for a simple, free account for teespring and you will have all the questions answered my friend
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  • Profile picture of the author Virtualghost
    Look around for local printers,ask a local shop owner they may tell you who prints them.I know here in Canada you can get shirts under $3.00 each and heat press your own designs off of your computer with press paper.We are in tourist area and have a supplier who does white shirts with local tourist design printed for $1.75 yes you read right.They are guildans.Also we sell coloured ones not printed our cost same as white but we do our own print pressing.
    We sell our shirts in shop for $2.99-$9.99 and find they sell as we average 30+ sales a day and sometimes in bulk to private buyers for functions like family reunion of 100 people.So we bought shirts at $1.75 already printed and sold 100 for $2.99 as we are not trying to get rich quick.
    So for someone to say they are paying $10 for a t-shirt then selling for higher cost to make money I see no need as heat press can be bought for around $400.00 and bulk prints can be bought it's all on sourcing the products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hartnana
    I LOVE Sunfrog they pay 35-40% commissions, the support is outstanding and they print on demand so no tipping point. You don't even have to design your own shirts you can simply sell other people's designs and make reasonable money.
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    • Profile picture of the author Denise Hall
      Originally Posted by Hartnana View Post

      I LOVE Sunfrog they pay 35-40% commissions, the support is outstanding and they print on demand so no tipping point. You don't even have to design your own shirts you can simply sell other people's designs and make reasonable money.

      Me too!
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  • Profile picture of the author Teesane
    We print ourselves, but we have noticed that Facebook Fan pages can bring an enormous amount of sales, but requires a lot of tweaking to get there.
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  • Profile picture of the author KevL
    There certainly is potential in Tshirts, it's a product practically everyone buys, and it's a rare product in that there is a good margin in it!

    There are so many different markets you could focus on too as well as the most obvious gift retail market; corporate workwear (which is great business for people printing in house as it's usually very simple small logo designs), personalised Tshirts for groups such as stag and hen parties, school leavers tshirts / hoodies, group holidays, sports clubs, and any other kind of club you can think of.

    T-Shirt Forums would be a good place to get some advice as it's full of folk who're in the Tshirt business.

    Other similar areas in that they're popular and there's a margin, is mug printing, and other gift printing such as smart phone cases, mouse mats, tea towels, photo cushions.

    The best margins would come from printing in house, but I acknowledge that most people would want to focus on marketing and leave the messy work to someone else ;-). The margins if you print in house though can be VERY attractive.

    If you are interested in printing in house, for Tshirts the main options are screen printing, vinyl, laser transfer & direct to garment printing. For the gift decoration business the dye sublimation printing process is the most popular.

    Dye sublimation does work for Tshirts too (and it's the most permanent process you could imagine, as the dye particles bond with the polymer molecules present in the substrate), but it's restrictive for garments as dye sub will only work with white or light coloured Tshirts with a heavy polyester content - doesn't work for dark garments or 100% cotton.

    Screen printing is good for volume, but isn't great for doing one offs - so if you're thinking of entering the personalisation business where you would print just one or two of a design, screen probably wouldn't be the right option. You have to have a screen made for each design, for each colour in the design.

    Direct to Garment can be a good process but the entry cost is usually high, and the machines can be a real pain in the rear to maintain.

    Laser transfer is a good process, the entry cost is fairly low & it's quite a straight forward process, wash-ability / colour fastness is pretty good now with modern transfer media.

    Vinly can be a bit of a faff when it comes to weeding out (pulling off all of the unwanted bits of vinyl) but can be a good process for single colour logos and text.

    Dye sublimation is a low entry cost process, and the amount of items you can create with this process is staggering, most of the sublimation blanks resellers such as subli (in the UK) or conde in the US, have hundreds of different blank products that you can use to create custom printed giftware.

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author RayAcevedo
    If you want to sell in USA and Canada, go with teespring, they are the best,

    If you want to try our European countries, go with fabrily, they are cool too
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  • Profile picture of the author DonDraper
    Originally Posted by Casey Hicks View Post

    I'm really interested in starting to sell t-shirts as I think it's something my target market would really be in to, but before I dive in, I was hoping to get some advice from some people who have gone down that road.

    So if you could answer any of these questions I'd love to learn from your experience!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed?
    2. How much do they cost?
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada?
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping?
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts?

    Any other advice would be appreciated to! Thanks!

    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed? are you going to do the printing and designs? like screen print or heatpress
    2. How much do they cost? you can start in small capital
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada? it depends to the volume of the orders
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping? find affordable to tie up courier services
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts? - you can advertise & sell it in Facebook as well as you can sell your product like in amazon.
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  • Profile picture of the author globalexperts
    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed? --> I'm using Teespring and Sunfrog
    2. How much do they cost? --> I price the shirts between $17 to $25 (cost is between $7 to $12)
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada? --> $2 to $3
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
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    • Profile picture of the author easternwawoman
      When do you use Teespring versus SunFrog? Have you explored ViralStyle?
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      • Profile picture of the author Denise Hall
        Originally Posted by easternwawoman View Post

        When do you use Teespring versus SunFrog? Have you explored ViralStyle?


        As someone else said Teespring is good for time-limited campaigns. SunFrog is great for evergreen sales. You can limit the time they're on the market but most people just leave them online selling.


        And with SunFrog you can generate sales of your designs through affiliates. Plus, if someone views your designs and then purchases something else from the SunFrog site you get affiliate commissions on the items you sell that aren't yours.
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    • Profile picture of the author freshmonk
      Originally Posted by globalexperts View Post

      1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed? --> I'm using Teespring and Sunfrog
      2. How much do they cost? --> I price the shirts between $17 to $25 (cost is between $7 to $12)
      3. How much is shipping to US/Canada? --> $2 to $3
      4. Who handles your orders and shipping? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
      5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
      1. FreshMonk (it helps me tap the vast Indian audience)
      2. I get considerable portion of the profit my tshirts make. and it increases with the sale.
      3. I get extra profit when my tshirts get shipped to US/Canada, considering the currency!
      4. FreshMonk only handles everything from shipping to logistics and payments.
      5. FreshMonk offers their own shopping cart and individual stores that I use to sell my t-shirts!
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  • Profile picture of the author easternwawoman
    Sooo, has anyone used Scalable Press?? Just ran into them online... prices look great.. shopify plugin... Anyone?

    I can build a site so not concerned about that aspect. I have this amazing dragon/fire fighter illustration that I want to print continuous color on black t's. Marketing them to residents of our county and will be providing proceeds after expenses to fire chief association here. This didn't start out as a fundraiser, interestingly enough. Artist goofed around and came up with this dragon design.. next thing I knew there were firefighters in it....group of people saw it and one wants the illustration painted on his garage door..lol... so I decided when we sell them, I'd go ahead and give a few dollars out of every sale to the firefighters. Odd how it turned in that direction but fine by me.

    The art does not work for TeeSpring, though. Here it is: http://i.imgur.com/42s3c5U.jpg

    Soooo now I'm all over online looking for the best place to print that kind of design.... I'm exhausted at the search!!! What would you do?
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    • Profile picture of the author Denise Hall
      Originally Posted by easternwawoman View Post

      Sooo, has anyone used Scalable Press?? Just ran into them online... prices look great.. shopify plugin... Anyone?

      I can build a site so not concerned about that aspect. I have this amazing dragon/fire fighter illustration that I want to print continuous color on black t's. Marketing them to residents of our county and will be providing proceeds after expenses to fire chief association here. This didn't start out as a fundraiser, interestingly enough. Artist goofed around and came up with this dragon design.. next thing I knew there were firefighters in it....group of people saw it and one wants the illustration painted on his garage door..lol... so I decided when we sell them, I'd go ahead and give a few dollars out of every sale to the firefighters. Odd how it turned in that direction but fine by me.

      The art does not work for TeeSpring, though. Here it is: http://i.imgur.com/42s3c5U.jpg

      Soooo now I'm all over online looking for the best place to print that kind of design.... I'm exhausted at the search!!! What would you do?

      I've been hearing a lot of bad things about ScaleablePress lately - orders are taking 2 or more months to arrive, things like that.


      SunFrog Shirts might be a good option for you. There's no color limit and they print on demand with DTG printing. They don't have a shopify plugin yet, though.


      But they have a wholesale department if you want to order shirts to sell outright, rather than have your customers place individual orders. Wholesale orders are screenprinted and you have to order 48 minimum.


      Btw, your artwork is beautiful.


      Good luck with your fundraiser.
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      • Profile picture of the author easternwawoman
        Hi there --

        I read you re Scaleable. I'm always a bit hesitant to discount a company because of bad reviews, unless the "no's" are so loud and pervasive that one would be foolish to ignore them. I've read those reviews and just not sure. But goodness, two months is not OK, is it?

        Odd that they have an A+ rating from BBB.

        I'll revisit Sunfrog this afternoon. Thanks for that suggestion. I see that unlike Tee, when orders go up, the margins do not increase. < rats >

        Not comfortable with wholesale/holding inventory on an untested product in the market product..... but thanks for pointing that out.

        I've also looked at Fabrily and am going to look at Represent.

        Anyone have any other ideas, suggestions?

        As I said, we really weren't planning a fundraiser, lol. Strange how things unravel. We were focusing on small business and fighting the dragons on the way to success... when this popped out!

        I'd love to use it in California and Oregon, too, but no idea who we'd donate money to as one check. Here were doing $2 per sale to keep it transparent, clear as to what the promise is. Keeping it inside our county but our county only has 43,000 people. Rural NW. I met with Fire Chief yesterday and he said any amount would be a great help and he'd distribute it among the four volunteer firefighter groups here and would attest to the gift. That works.

        But using it elsewhere... feeling a bit hesitant. Donating dollars can get you in all kinds of hot water and I'm not wanting that.

        I do LOVE the design. That's what has motivated me. I already have 30 people who want it -- Oregon/Idaho/California -- and have not even marketed it.

        Any words back to me are oh so welcome.... as I think, think, think on this!
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        • Profile picture of the author Denise Hall
          I agree about not discounting a company because of bad reviews. And in this case I think they're going through growing pains and that's why they've gotten so far behind on orders. SunFrog went through the same situation less than a year ago. The orders suddenly flooded in and they couldn't hire people fast enough to keep up.


          Good luck to you, whichever direction you decide to go.


          Originally Posted by easternwawoman View Post

          Hi there --

          I read you re Scaleable. I'm always a bit hesitant to discount a company because of bad reviews, unless the "no's" are so loud and pervasive that one would be foolish to ignore them. I've read those reviews and just not sure. But goodness, two months is not OK, is it?

          Odd that they have an A+ rating from BBB.

          I'll revisit Sunfrog this afternoon. Thanks for that suggestion. I see that unlike Tee, when orders go up, the margins do not increase. < rats >

          Not comfortable with wholesale/holding inventory on an untested product in the market product..... but thanks for pointing that out.

          I've also looked at Fabrily and am going to look at Represent.
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  • I wrote this blog post about how to monetize your website by selling custom merchandise. Teespring is good if you're launching one big campaign but doesn't help you with continuing residual sales.

    Sites like cafepress are good but the problem is you're visitors have to leave your website and setting up your store to look good is very time consuming.

    https://merchoo.com/blog/how-to-mone...m-merchandise/
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  • Profile picture of the author huyha
    A lot of people make money with Teespring. Try investing in a Teespring related product for more info on the subject.
    1. Where do you get your t-shirts printed? --> I'm using Teespring and Sunfrog
    2. How much do they cost? -->you set a price
    3. How much is shipping to US/Canada? --> $2 to $3
    4. Who handles your orders and shipping? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
    5. What shopping cart/system do you use to sell your t-shirts? --> Teespring and Sunfrog
    if you wana sell in UK, try with Fabrily.com
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