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ssociety · February 22nd, 2007

I hvae been playing with several ideas. For starting out I am going to take your guys advice intially and do printing on demand. I have several routes I can take some cost moremoney than the others and some save more.

I want to have samples so I can take to retailers and sell at different car shows, clubs etc.

I can either:
A. Buy in small quanities, start with a black Tshirt with my 8 color design with a min of 10 ts
B. Buy in bulk 504 from the 295guys.com and get the ts with no setup charges for 2.95
C.Buy my own tshirts and take them to a screen printer!
D.Buy my own digital on garmet printer but from what I can tell the technology isnt quite there.
E. Use a place like cafe to handle everythign I mention a-z for alot less initial money.

Curious from your expieriences whats the best plan of attack starting out a on a low budget around 6k.

We are working now on a price/line sheet, website, catalog, and stickers to reach out to the audiences.

In taking this first step would it be best to start out small with a local screener and have him buy the T's make his margin and take my small cut. Or start out in bulk. The thing is I want to make sure people are reciptive to our designs (which we know they are on the PC) on a T. Thanks for yru help

Jasonda · February 22nd, 2007

If you want to do tradeshows and sell to retailers you should pretty much eliminate Cafepress from your options. It's just not well suited for those applications.

Rodney · February 22nd, 2007

Quote:


	I want to have samples so I can take to retailers and sell at different car shows, clubs etc. I can either: A. Buy in small quanities, start with a black Tshirt with my 8 color design with a min of 10 ts B. Buy in bulk 504 from the 295guys.com and get the ts with no setup charges for 2.95 C.Buy my own tshirts and take them to a screen printer! D.Buy my own digital on garmet printer but from what I can tell the technology isnt quite there. E. Use a place like cafe to handle everythign I mention a-z for alot less initial money.

If it's just for samples, I wouldn't buy a whole bunch of printed t-shirts in bulk.

Depending on how many you need, you could:

* Get them done on a DTG printer (sub contract it out, not buy the printer). Buy a sample printed shirt and see if the quality is there. It might just work for your needs.

* Get custom screen printed transfers made and press them to the shirts yourself. Screen printed transfers have smaller minimums that traditional screen printing.

If your goal is just a handful of samples and not actual shirts to sell, then you shouldn't need to make much of a dent in your 6K budget.

ssociety · February 27th, 2007

OK I wanted to see from people with expierence what would be the best route to take on my journey to starting up a Tshirt Business! I have 10k to starup and I have 5 designs to work with. I believe they will sell without question. The thing is I want to make sure I do my homework so I dont have to realy learn from mistakes off the bat. I was goign to put 3k into website, catalog, business cards, and a line sheet for pricing and information. The rest I want to dump into inventory. Several ways to handle this.

A. have 10 samples printed off Digital on garmet for 20.00 a shirt. That would give me 50 Tshirts for 1k. The reasoning would be so I can test the market place by goign to surf, skate, punk shops and selling our brand, and then establish printing on DEMAND.

B. Order 144 shirts from each design and dive in knowing they will all sell at some point.

C. Buy my own gear and print off my own to start

For now I was goign to use the 295guys.com !! I can get up to 4 colors 144 white ts, for 2.95 with no setup fees and there print quality is GREAT. I ahve used them int he past. We dont want to bury ourselves off the bat we want to take our time and slowly build up our business infrastructure. The only other places need to put cash is in trademark, corporation llc, and get all the other loose ends.

Can somone with expierence let me know what woudl be the BEST startup solution. I knwo nothing is bullet proof, I am mainly curious what others have done in this situation. THANKS alot for all yoru help.

Rodney · February 27th, 2007

:merged new thread with existing thread on the same topic

:

Quote:


	Can somone with expierence let me know what woudl be the BEST startup solution. I knwo nothing is bullet proof, I am mainly curious what others have done in this situation. THANKS alot for all yoru help.

Best is always going to be a matter of opinion. A few of those opinions have been posted already for you

It seems like you just aren't sure about making that next step.

Why not weigh your options here:

What would you say is stopping you from buying 144 shirts if you are absolutely sure they will sell without a doubt?

Quote:


	A. have 10 samples printed off Digital on garmet for 20.00 a shirt. That would give me 50 Tshirts for 1k.

If you are printing only 10 sample shirts at $20 a shirt, that's only $200, not $1,000.

If you buy 50 shirts, the price won't be $20 per t-shirt, so you would need to adjust your figures for the quantity printing discounts.

If I had 10K to start a new t-shirt line, I don't think I would buy 144 printed t-shirts on an untested design, no matter how much I believed in the design. That comes from experience

Break down the actual numbers, so we can give you more accurate starting figures.

You have 5 designs. Exactly how many samples per design do you want to get printed?

ssociety · February 27th, 2007

sorry I guess I am bad at translating what I am trying to convey.

I have 5 designs right now ready for press. When I said 1k for DOG I meant because it would cost me 20.00 per Tshirt printed and since I would have 5 designs and I would want 10 samples of each design that would equal out 1k. Sorry for the confusion. Then with those samples I was going to see what was HOT and what wanst by goign to retailers. From there I was goign to do printing on demand that way I guarantee that the inventory will be sold. I was mainly curious if someone had 5 designs, a selling product, and 6k what route would be the best to limit or reduce the amount of failure through inventory buildup

Thanks rodney for always being the one to organize my thoughts here. I appreaciate your help

harleyrider11 · February 27th, 2007

If you are thinking of tradmarks and LLC that should be first to finish, protect your design an yourself,
then I would have to say spend the 1k on the DTG then hit the bricks find out which ones will be a seller in the market place you are targeting. Then use the rest to print either dtg or screen-printed the one that are a big hit and sell them. While promoting the designs have a roll out date and presale the ones that are a big hit.

Just m2c worth.

Rodney · February 28th, 2007

Quote:


	I have 5 designs right now ready for press. When I said 1k for DOG I meant because it would cost me 20.00 per Tshirt printed and since I would have 5 designs and I would want 10 samples of each design that would equal out 1k.

That is still 50 shirts being printed. That would not cost you $20 per shirt to get 50 t-shirts printed via a DTG printer. Probably less than $10 per shirt.

Quote:


	From there I was goign to do printing on demand that way I guarantee that the inventory will be sold. I was mainly curious if someone had 5 designs, a selling product, and 6k what route would be the best to limit or reduce the amount of failure through inventory buildup

Sounds like you answered your own question

By printing only when you have orders, you reduce inventory and risk.

StickerNut · February 28th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ssociety


	OK I wanted to see from people with expierence what would be the best route to take on my journey to starting up a Tshirt Business! I have 10k to starup and I have 5 designs to work with. I believe they will sell without question. The thing is I want to make sure I do my homework so I dont have to realy learn from mistakes off the bat. I was goign to put 3k into website, catalog, business cards, and a line sheet for pricing and information. The rest I want to dump into inventory. Several ways to handle this. A. have 10 samples printed off Digital on garmet for 20.00 a shirt. That would give me 50 Tshirts for 1k. The reasoning would be so I can test the market place by goign to surf, skate, punk shops and selling our brand, and then establish printing on DEMAND. B. Order 144 shirts from each design and dive in knowing they will all sell at some point. C. Buy my own gear and print off my own to start For now I was goign to use the 295guys.com !! I can get up to 4 colors 144 white ts, for 2.95 with no setup fees and there print quality is GREAT. I ahve used them int he past. We dont want to bury ourselves off the bat we want to take our time and slowly build up our business infrastructure. The only other places need to put cash is in trademark, corporation llc, and get all the other loose ends. Can somone with expierence let me know what woudl be the BEST startup solution. I knwo nothing is bullet proof, I am mainly curious what others have done in this situation. THANKS alot for all yoru help.

IMO think about what you are looking to in the furture ...

A. Smart Idea ... I would do this if you deside on option B

B. Not a bad way of doing it but everytime you try to restock you are paying the same price and if you decide to try/change a new design thats more initial cost.

C. This is what I did and works great. The intial purchase kills but for every order or stock you fill it costs you a fraction of the price. If you are serious about the business this IMO is the best route for the furture.

----

The best suggestion I can give is think about the furture ... do you want to be stuck with shirts from the same 5 designs? Would you like to create 5-10 shirts of 30 different designs and see waht works?

IMO with option B you are giving yourself limitations right from the start.

Option C gives plenty of room to expand or experiment with little cost.

erinmystic · March 1st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ssociety


	I hvae been playing with several ideas. For starting out I am going to take your guys advice intially and do printing on demand. I have several routes I can take some cost moremoney than the others and some save more. I want to have samples so I can take to retailers and sell at different car shows, clubs etc. I can either: A. Buy in small quanities, start with a black Tshirt with my 8 color design with a min of 10 ts B. Buy in bulk 504 from the 295guys.com and get the ts with no setup charges for 2.95 C.Buy my own tshirts and take them to a screen printer! D.Buy my own digital on garmet printer but from what I can tell the technology isnt quite there. E. Use a place like cafe to handle everythign I mention a-z for alot less initial money. Curious from your expieriences whats the best plan of attack starting out a on a low budget around 6k. We are working now on a price/line sheet, website, catalog, and stickers to reach out to the audiences. In taking this first step would it be best to start out small with a local screener and have him buy the T's make his margin and take my small cut. Or start out in bulk. The thing is I want to make sure people are reciptive to our designs (which we know they are on the PC) on a T. Thanks for yru help

Hey, I would say E, but don't use cafepress, they are way expensive and have pretty poor quality compared to goodstorm.com. You can get their t-shirt wizard at http://tshirts.goodstorm.com. Its on demand, with lower base prices, no up front cost, and you keep 100% of the profits. The quality is really good too!

Twinge · March 7th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ssociety


	I have 5 designs right now ready for press. When I said 1k for DOG[...] Then with those samples I was going to see what was HOT and what wanst by goign to retailers. From there I was goign to do printing on demand that way I guarantee that the inventory will be sold.

First, the technology is usually referred to as DTG, or Direct-to-garment

Anyway, how are you planning on printing on demand AFTER you figure out what samples do best? If the answer isn't DTG -- why are your samples different than your actual product is going to be? If you're going from DTG to Plastisol you'll probably be fine, but if you jump from DTG to heat transfers without telling the potential buyers the product will be different than the sample, you might hit problems.

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