If you’re thinking about starting a brand new online business, designing and selling your own T-shirts isn’t a bad way to get started. T-shirts are always in demand, and setting up your own T-shirt business is surprisingly quick and easy, once you know how. It’s also a low-risk option, and a cost-effective one, and you don’t even necessarily need to invest in your own equipment or materials, as you can leave the actual production and shipping of your tees to other companies. Let’s take a look at how to get started.
Is an Online T-Shirt Business Profitable?
The first thing you might want to know is “Can I make money selling t-shirts?” and the simple answer is yes. Online T-shirt businesses can be very profitable, and one of the big reasons for this is that T-shirts are so popular! Men, women, and kids all around the world buy and wear t-shirts daily, and many people like to buy a nice mixture of tees with different colors, styles, and slogans to suit their mood. So there’s definitely potential here to make a profitable and successful business. Plus, start-up costs for an online T-shirt business tend to be quite low. You can get into the business with minimal investment and start selling tees and building up your brand in no time at all.
How to Start an Online T-Shirt Business
If you’re interested in selling T-shirts online and want to know how, this guide will cover all you need to know. We’ll look at some key concepts you need to focus on when starting out and useful tips that could make the process easier, cheaper, and more convenient for you.
Find a Niche for Your Online T-Shirt Business
Before you start your T-shirt business, you’ll need to decide on a niche that you wish to target. It’s not a good strategy to simply make general tees, as there are already so many brands doing that. Instead, try to specialize in something that will help you stand out. You might like to exclusively focus on funny t-shirts, for example, with humorous images and slogans. Or, you could focus on sports-themed tees or nerdy-style tees. Do some research online to find possible niches that aren’t already saturated with too many brands.
Create Your Own T-shirt Designs
Of course, if you want to run a T-shirt business, you’ll need to make some great T-shirts designs that people want to buy. This is arguably the biggest part of setting up your brand, and it can be a make-or-break factor. Try to create unique and attractive designs. If you have artistic talent, you can try graphic illustrations with lots of detail, but even those who are less artistic can use simple slogans, typography tees, or abstract imagery to make their designs.
Discover a Good Printing Company, Then Prioritize Marketing
Many people mistakenly think that they need to buy an expensive T-shirt printing machine to run a T-shirt business. But, in reality, you don’t have to do any physical printing of your own; you can get a custom printing company to handle it for you. Once you’ve got a printing partner, you can focus your time and energies on the other most important area of your business: marketing. Even if you have great products, you won’t make sales unless people know about them. Invest in marketing campaigns on social media, Google, and other platforms to spread the word.
Focus on Wholesale Orders
If you want to make a lot of money in quick fashion with your T-shirt business, you may want to specialize in wholesale orders. These are orders that involve bulk quantities of tees being purchased by the same buyer. You can try to target certain audiences to get these wholesale orders, like schools, gyms, organizations, businesses, or events.
Design T-shirts for Stores and Corporate Clients
Following on from the previous point, one way to differentiate yourself from all the other T-shirt brands out there is to try and focus on selling for stores, corporate clients, and businesses. There are several advantages to this. First, it increases your odds of getting bulk orders. Second, it can help you build up a network of buyers who will recommend your brand to other businesses. And third, there’s usually less competition compared to regular T-shirt designs.
Allow Customers to Design Their Own T-shirts
One of the things that people love about T-shirts is how they’re great for expressing a little part of a person’s personality. You can wear a tee to show off one of your passions or hobbies, for example, or tell people a bit about your character. If you really want people to feel that personal touch with their tees, you might like to offer them some kind of design service. Offer custom message printing, alternate colors, and other options that let customers pick and choose the specific kind of T-shirt they want.
Offer More Than T-shirts
Selling T-shirts is a great way to get started with your online business, but why stop there? There are so many other products that you can offer, and many brands choose to expand their offerings to include other clothes items and accessories. Once you’ve built up a brand, you can start selling lots of other items, from footwear to caps and bags. There are lots of great branded merchandise ideas you can find online or by checking out your competitors.
Outreach to Influencers
These days, influencers are some of the most powerful people in marketing. Just a single post, picture, or video from a leading influencer can get thousands or even millions of eyes on your products. So, if you want to make a big splash with your new T-shirt brand and boost your marketing drive, consider reaching out to some influencers, offering freebies or discussing possible deals that can benefit both sides.
Ask for a Referral
One of the best ways to get new customers is through your old customers. In other words, if you have customers who can recommend your brand to their friends and family, you can suddenly get many more potential buyers with minimal effort on your part. So, when making sales, consider following-up with your buyers and asking them to leave a positive review or recommend your store to people they know on social media.
Conclusion
And there you have it. As you can see, starting a T-shirt business doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. There are lots of tools out there you can use and other business partners you can team up with to provide printing and design services. The key is to make sure your brand stands out with great designs and excellent marketing that gets eyes on your products and gives you those early sales you need to make an impact. So, if you’re ready to get started, take these tips and bring your T-shirt business to life.