What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory
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What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory
What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory
Okay, my site's going live on April 1st and I'm going to start printing all of my shirts that I've got on the site now. The thing is I want to buy my shirts in dozens so I can get a $2 discount per shirt, but I've got 21 designs to start out with and with my math that'll add up to $3,744 to buy S-M-L-XL a dozen each for all of my shirts. I don't have that kind of scratch, so my question is: Should I scale back my designs and start off with 7 or so, or should I keep them all and order shirts as the orders come in and tell my customers it'll be an extra week? (I don't want to do the latter at all)
What do you guys think?
-Travis
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I was in the same situation as you are. After i read a few threads on popular sizes, I just decided to start out with 12 designs (i have 80+ ideas), 3M, 5L, 3XL of each, because that's all i can afford right now.
Are you screen printing or heat pressing? If heat pressing, you'll be able to print to order (you can get shirts in 3 days or less), if not, i wouldn't advise you to take that route. The setup and cleanup wouldn't make you profitable unless, like you said, you extend the shipping time and let buyers aware. I know that's how T-Shirt Hell does it since they only offer black shirts for fast shipping. Everything else will come in 2 weeks. That is enough time to take orders, group them, print them, then ship out by the end of the second week.
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Re: What Should I Do?
Are you going to have the shirts printed ahead of time (screened) or are you going to press them as orders come in? Tom me, without a a lot of start-up, I would cut my designs down to the best 7 or so. Have them plastisol printed and then get a mixed set of shirts. When an order comes in, press it, ship it out and use the money to get more shirts and such.
One thing to remember, even though your site goes live on April 1st, your sales may not. They may even take a while (months) to get going. You probably won't sell every design in every sized shirt. So you don't need all of them printed in every size, color, etc.
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Yeah, I probably won't sell very much right away. I think my designs are awesome, but I'm not very good with SEO and I'm not even on the google list yet. I'm using American Apparel. I forgot that T-shirt Hell does use that method with various colored shirts. Maybe that won't be such a bad thing to start out adding time to get the order out and just letting the customer know. I screen print everything in house and will have seperate screens for each design, so when I get an order I think I'll be able to maybe order a dozen of the size and color the customer wants, set up the screens and print a dozen instead of just one.
-Travis
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Another thought on the heat transfer route. You can gang designs on transfers if they're small enough. For instance, my prints are about 6"by 6" so I could have 6 designs ganged on 1 large sheet and then cut them apart. Last order I got was 24 sheets at around $60 with shipping. Those were one color but 6 per sheet comes out to 42 cents per design and I could print them as the orders come in, taking into account what Marlo was saying about ordering the shirts as the orders came as well.
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I would start off with fewer designs, this also allows you to spend more time at the beggining to concentrate on the selling and customer service but also release a few new designs now and then (also gives you a cushion if you go through a dry spell on the old creativity side)
I screen print my own plastisol transfers in bulk, so I don't have to set up/clean the machine every time an order comes in - I just fire up the heat press.
If it were me, id only come out with a few designs at a time. For lack of better words, you don't wanna put all your "goodies" out there all at once. Put some of your best ones out first, and tell customers to check back in for new, updated designs. It keeps them interested and wondering.
Im not even close to getting my shirts out, but thats one of the many things i've already pondered. good luck
like said, stick to about half dozen initially cause it'll tell you if you have a market if those sell. if they dont , you know to revamp your 'ideology/philosophy.' and of course print sizes that pertain to your market
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Re: What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory
I posted up a few posts that I print my own transfers. Well I did, until I had a few orders and wasn't able to apply them correctly. I spent the next week trying to make transfers that printed well and transfered well with almost no success, and now I'm back to printing individual designs. It's VERY hard to make your own transfers I've learned, so it's definitely not for everyone.
To make it easier on myself, I am only printing on the weekends now, which means that I can print all of the weeks orders of each design at the same time, so I only have to keep about 15 screens in stock. I still print in bulk, because I do all of the week's orders of design A, then all of the orders of design B, etc. This way I don't have to set up/clean up the machine for each individual order that comes in, and I don't need to keep 200+ screens in inventory - I just make screens for the week's orders. If I run out of screens, I reclaim a few after I'm done printing a design, and use them for the next one.
With a high-turnover business one weekend probably isn't enough time to print all of the orders, but it works for me for the time being.
What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory 
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