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Originally Posted by pixelrage |  | | | | | | | | | 1) I looked into Cafepress, Zazzle and others and my first impression is that they are probably the wrong way to get started in this business, as these services already take nearly $20 up front per shirt, and you only make lunch money afterwards - sounds like an awful business model on the seller's end, when I have gotten quotes of $9-10 for printing + fulfillment at local places (however, I don't know what quality I'd get from them). Is the convenience of using Cafepress & related services really worth losing that much profit per shirt sold?
I'm sure there are people making a living on Cafepress, but I would rather spend $9 per shirt instead of $20, and keep the rest. Please let me know if I'm thinking about it all wrong, though! | |  | |  | |
It really depends on what you want to achieve. How much profit margin are you looking for? What areas of the business do you want to handle yourself, and what do you want to outsource? The best way to figure it all out is to do a cost analysis of using a fulfillment service and doing it yourself. Then choose based on your info.
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Originally Posted by pixelrage | | | | | | | | | | 2) The legality of t-shirt designs is utterly confusing to me. When I go to Cafepress, I see vectorized images of movie stills, characters, vehicles, etc and cannot imagine how it is legal to profit off of those designs, unless there is a law that says you can modify an image to a certain degree where it can be used? I look at sites like 80stees.com in amazement and wonder how on earth they can afford the enormous licensing fees...or do they not have to pay them for some reason? I'm just wondering what the loophole is here. | | | | | | |
Perhaps the shirts you are seeing are legal, perhaps they are illegal. Perhaps these people are being sued, perhaps they are getting away with it. You really can't - or shouldn't - base your business on what someone else is doing, willing to do, or getting away with.
I'll clarify the legal aspect... You cannot legally profit off registered copyright, registered trademark or right of publicity without license or permission. Nothing is really stopping you from doing it if you wanted to, but you would be at risk to be sued if you did it.
A popular way that a lot of sites do it, is to purchase product from licensed vendors. New World Sales is a common one. There are others, but I don't know them off hand.
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Originally Posted by pixelrage | | | | | | | | | | 3) There seem to be a million t-shirt printing + fulfillment places out there. Many of the ones I've seen have truly poor looking websites and images of their samples, which scared me to think about what their products looked like in person. I would want my stuff to turn out in the same quality of the shirts found at big sites like BustedTees or TShirtHell. Any pointers in regard to finding a good service, preferably a reliable, larger print shop? | | | | | | |
The only way to find out the quality, is to get samples. If a print shop refuses to show you their work, that tells you all you need to know.
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Originally Posted by pixelrage | | | | | | | | | | 4) How are these orders processed with a t-shirt printing service? Do you have to manually send an invoice, or is it all automated somehow through a database or applet? | | | | | | |
Are you referring to a CafePress type service? Or a screen print shop? Do you want a print on demand service? You need to be more specific for me to answer.
Not sure how to start in this industry! 
