I was wondering how many people focus on a niche market, such as babys, kids, girls, club kids, etc? Even T-Shirt Hell has a nich market (angry alcoholic white guys who aren't afraid to start a fight in a bowling alley?)
If not, do you try to appeal to EVERYONE? Even threadless doens't appeal to everyone?
And who on earth is the market for Johnny Cupcakes or Life Is Good? Do they have niche markets? I can't figure that out. Maybe tourists? I don't buy this idea that BANDS love the Johnny Cupcakes shirt. I know plenty of people in bands. They don't want white shirts with cupcakes on them.
Yes, most of us seek one or more niche markets. A basic business strategy is to identify who your customers are, and direct your marketing efforts towards selling your Tees to them. Easier said than done for most of us 'though.
Johnny Cupcakes and Life is Good seem to have created successful marketing approaches for their customers.
Look into the Forum's T-shirt Marketing threads for lots of good tips and discussion.
Cardinal, Johnny was in a hardcore band and toured the United States. The fans of his band and other bands like his would purchase his shirts. After that, kids that like that type of music in general started buying his shirts. Now all sorts of people do. There are plenty of signed bands that wear his stuff. He probably doesn't sponsor them either!
And who on earth is the market for Johnny Cupcakes or Life Is Good? Do they have niche markets? I can't figure that out. Maybe tourists? I don't buy this idea that BANDS love the Johnny Cupcakes shirt. I know plenty of people in bands. They don't want white shirts with cupcakes on them.
LOL, definitely not tourists!
Johnny Cupcakes doesn't have a niche market....they just use a marketing technique to show everyone that it's hip and cool to wear t-shirts designed by someone who doesn't smoke, do drugs or have sex.
Life is Good's t-shirts appeal to everyone who wants a good and happy life, and everyone who wanna live happily like their mascot, Jake.
The only people who wouldn't wear t-shirts from LIG are angry, violent people....the same kind of people who buy t-shirts from t-shirthell.com.
Heck, even unhappy people wanna buy LIG t-shirts to make themselves happy.
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I definitely cater to a specific market, and we do quite well even though the market is quite limited. As long as you KNOW your market inside and out, you can be successful in any size market.
Sometimes marketing isn't solely "niche". For something to be considered a niche in my mind, it needs to exist before the product comes along and fills it. Did anyone sit at home going "I'd really love to pay five times the amount of a regular shirt for a Cupcake and crossbones!"? Short answer, no they didn't. Once they saw Johnny's shirts, did they? Hell yes.
On the other hand, the customers of TShirt Hell (ie: 90% of my friends) all ready liked funny, slightly-offensive shirts in the first place, and TShirt Hell just came along and inflated their pants with their massive range. THAT is niche marketing. That is catering to a specific, select group of kids somewhere, who really, really wants a shirt that will make old people/Christians/whatever cry.
Both of the examples I have used are filthy rich now. But they did it in an entirely different way. No one would argue that TShirt Hell invented rude shirts, but they're making a killing off it. No one would argue that the market Johnny Cupcakes caters to is a "niche", but he's making a killing off it. The closest you could get to calling his customers a niche is that the majority of them in the early days would presumably have been young, blog-reading, social-network junkies with a lot of disposable income. But did his shirts appeal to ALL of those sorts of people? Are these the only sorts of people that wear his shirts now? No.
It is strongly advised to have a target niche, since it will prevent you from over diversifying(which can kill you business especially for young businesses). In addition, it can help you gain an identity for your business. These are the textbook reasons that you get from most people.
Personally, having a niche market isn't enough. The whole point of having niche market in the first place is to specialize, which many businesses do. Where they get that niche? For the most part you get niches because there is a demand for a type of service or product.
In other words, the whole point of having a niche is to specialize and be different. You may have a niche say for example urban wear, there are already tons of other businesses that have that niche. In some cases a niche market can be completely saturated so no point. IMO be original, make your product stand out, and it will define itself, and give itself an identity.
Do you focus on a niche market 
