How To Network Marketing
How to Start Your Own Online T-Shirt Store
A guide to make money selling your t-shirt designs, it's easy and free!A guide to selling your own t-shirt designs online. It's easy to get started - you don't have to handle payment, production, or shipping - just design and get paid for each sale!
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| Your Shirt Design Here! |
Introduction
Have you ever seen a great design on a t-shirt and thought "I could have designed that!"? You already dream up some of your own graphic design ideas for t-shirts, maybe even doodle them. Perhaps you have even bought iron-on transfer kits, and make your own designs into shirts for yourself and your friends. Why not share your art with the world and take the first steps towards being your own boss - start your own online t-shirt store! The idea of making a business out of your casual designs may seem daunting, but it really isn't that hard and you don't have to have any money to get started! This guide will help you start your very own online t-shirt store and make money from your great designs (it's easier than you think!)Getting Started
Rather than dealing with inventory, payment, shipping, and printing, it is easiest to use a printing fulfillment service. A printing fulfillment can provide you with your own online t-shirt store, and using them is as easy as signing up for an account at their website. These services often provide your store website and space, a customizable store website template (you don't have to design a web page yourself!), t-shirt production, t-shirt shipping, payment handling, return handling, inventory, and more! So what responsibilities do you have? Upload your designs, and then customize shirts with your designs - you just collect your payment when there is a sale! The best part is, the businesses provide all of these services for free. The services charge a flat rate for a product, for example: your publishing business charges you $10 for a t-shirt and graphic printing. You place the shirt for sale with your graphic in your store for $15. When a customer orders the item, the publishing business takes the order, takes the payment, creates the shirt, ships it, notifies you that you have made a sale, and then pays you your $5.00 share. Simple, right? So where can you find a printing fulfillment service? There are many, and they all feature different products for you to sell (t-shirts, sweaters, mugs, hats, mouse pads, etc). Each site does things a little differently, so do a bit of research before choosing one that's right for you, your products, and what you would like for a store. Many of these publishing businesses have premium account options for a fee, which give you greater control over your store, more customization, more tracking options, etc., but the free account features are often sufficient for most people getting started.Some of the more popular fulfillment services are:
- Zazzle
- My Soti
Designing Products
Now that you have started a free account with a fulfillment service, you need to create your products. If your designs only exist in your head or on paper, you will have to create computer graphics. There are many different software packages for creating computer graphics; some popular ones used for drawing are Corel Paintshop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator. The price for computer graphics software packages range from free to over $1000! If you do not already have a graphics software package on your computer, you may want to start with a free one (Inkscape, Paint.net, or GIMP for example) or a free 30 day trial of one; alternatively, some fulfillment services offer free in-browser graphics editors, but these are often limited. There are a few considerations to keep in mind for your digital image: graphic type, dimensions, color, and resolution. Graphics: Vector vs. Raster Computer graphics can generally be split into two categories: vector graphics and raster graphics. Vector graphics are made up of mathematical lines and curves, and because of this they can be scaled up in size without losing any quality. Raster graphics are made up of many tiny squares, each square being only one color. Raster graphics start to lose quality when scaled up in size. Different fulfillment services have different rules and systems for these graphics types: some require one type, some allow both, some limit the number of one type you can use. Generally, vector graphics are preferred for graphic design for print. Before designing in one graphic type or another, you should consider what your fulfillment service has to say about each graphics type, what your graphic software package can create and do with each graphic type, and what graphic type you prefer to design in. Dimensions The dimensions of your graphic should be considered before you start designing. The product you are placing the image on may have minimum or maximum height and width requirements for images. Fulfillment services often provide template image files for use on each type of their shirts of other products; these can help you when dimensioning your image. Color & Background The color of t-shirt or other product you are printing on can often affect how your graphic is designed. The processes for printing on light vs. dark material can be different depending on the fulfillment service. Sometimes transparency or background of the image will mater to the printing process. You should review your fulfillment service's information on image backgrounds and printing processes before you design your graphic. Resolution Resolution is only applicable to Raster graphics; if you are using vector images exclusively, you don't have to concern yourself with it! For printing on a shirt or other product, a higher resolution is preferred to ensure the final product looks good, even up close. Resolution is often expressed in number of pixels wide by number of pixels tall, or by dpi (dots per inch). Your fulfillment service will likely specify a minimum resolution for images; you need to make your graphics at least this resolution. The larger the resolution of an image, the larger the file size will be. Keep this in mind if you have file size limits on your account. A general rule for t-shirt design is that images should be at least 200 dpi. Keeping these elements in mind, you can now let your creativity run wild and create some amazing t-shirts to place in your online store! After you design a product, ask yourself "If I saw this for sale, would I buy it?" If you always answer yes, then you know your store is full of great products that people will buy and enjoy.
Intellectual Property Issues
If your designs aren't 100% original, or involve any copyrighted or trademarked material, you may want to think twice before selling them. This is a sticky subject, and the rules aren't always clear (especially because laws vary from country to country, and an online store may span many!). If your design involves someone else's content, but is poking fun at it, it may be considered parody and be protected. But keep in mind, just because you think something is parody, doesn't mean it is, and doesn't mean that you may not receive complaints or action against you anyway. Most fulfillment services have a policy about your content and its originality; you should review this before deciding to sell any borderline designs.
Pricing
So now you have products to post for sale, but how much should you charge? This up to you, and is often a difficult decision. You will obviously want to charge an amount on top of the base fee your fulfillment service charges you so that you make a profit, but how much more? Less expensive products may entice more customers to buy, but you make less money per item sold. Conversely, more expensive products may turn many customers away, but you will make more for each item sold. If you feel you have a truly unique and premium design, a larger price may be justified (after all, you put your blood sweat and tears into the design, you deserve a big commission, right?). You may want to browse around other online t-shirt stores to see what they charge, to help you get a feel for your pricing.
Marketing
You now have your own online t-shirt store, but how is anyone going to know about it? If you want visitors and (even better) customers, you will have to market your store. This isn't as hard as it sounds, and it doesn't have to cost anything. You can start off by telling your family and friends; they will be excited to hear about your store, and eager to support you. You can also share your store with online communities and groups. For example, if you have a coffee themed store filled with coffee related t-shirts and other products, you could share it with a online coffee lovers group. Social networking websites are everywhere on the internet, share your new store with your own network. There are also many t-shirt blogs and t-shirt rating and review websites, share your designs with them. Wearing your own designs is another great way to promote them. If you want even more visitors to your online store, you could buy some online advertising. Some major sellers of online advertisement space are Google Ads and Yahoo Ads, and visits to your site can cost you as little as $0.01! To intice blogs and other people to drive traffic to your store, you can offer them an a small share of the profits from each sale they bring you; this can be done by signing up for a affiliate service like Share-A-Sale or Commission Junction.
Conclusion
From waiting for your first sale (hang in there!) to considering quitting your day job (it's been done!) may seem like a stretch, but this guide has shown you that it's easy to get started. You have design ideas, it doesn't cost anything but your time, and you now know how to get started; what are you waiting for?Resources
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