Discuss the process of getting your t-shirt line into brick and mortar stores and selling offline. Topics include industry tradeshows, events, line sheets, sales reps and other retailing tips and advice.
I am still quite a newbie, having only started heat transfer and sublimation a month ago in Melbourne, Australia.
Now next year I will start doing a couple of craft markets and got my equipment for that, generator, trestle tables, gazebo. I have read through a couple of the event threads but have a couple more questions.
Beginning of Feb a local Rotary Club is doing an inaugural Blues Festival, so no empirical data whatsoever. I have offered to do their event merchandise and it looks as if they will agree. I will be the only one selling event merchanidse and it looks that apart from food booths they do not have anything else. Now I do not have any experience in outdoor markets nor event merchandise nor the blues scene. I would assume as it is during the day the event will be visited by families as our area is full of young families.
When I asked how many people they expect they said between 2000 - 4000, though as the festival is new this could be a lot less. They are a bit non commital in everything at the moment which makes it hard for tme to plan. I guess as it is a first for them as well for a blues festival all is guess work.
I am planning to do Heat Transfer Printing on the spot with event design and names of the people on the Shirt. I thought of 20$ per shirt. No clue how many shirts in which sizes to stock though.
What is the normal percentage of people buying event merchandise? 10% my layman's guess?
Also as a second line I was planning to sell premade sublimation beer coolers with event design, no personalisation. Problem is if I do too many and can't sell them I cannot sell them anywhere else. The blank T-shirts however will not go off and last for other events. And with the uncertainty of expected people the coolers are big risk. So I thought what I could possibly do is do some coolers, then print out sublimation transfer sheets at home to have them ready if I need to put them on the coolers at the festival, so I do not loose the cooler blanks, just paper and ink if I don't sell.
But I don't want to do two on demand lines with different printers, different heater settings as I only have one small heating press. I am doing this at the moment next to my day job.
Lastly as Rotary does fundraising for a good cause and I am in a similar club called Apex (this is how I know the organisers) I thought I give them 1$ per sold item. Does that sound okay?
Sorry about all these questions but as I don't know anybody around here who can help me or has experience I thought in the world wide T-shirt community maybe somebody can help even though Australian and American data may differ a bit.
Okay, nobody seems to have any ideas, maybe my post was a bit long. So KISS - keep it short and simple:
- What percentage of people at an event actually buy event merchandise - And has anybody experience with a blues festival?
Meanwhile they have come with their fees - they want 10% of takings up to 500$, 15% of takings up to 1000 and 20% thereafter. Takings, meaning turn over not profit. It is for a good cause, so I don't have a problem with it, but I would assume other vendors do, sounds quite high to me.
Okay, nobody seems to have any ideas, maybe my post was a bit long. So KISS - keep it short and simple:
- What percentage of people at an event actually buy event merchandise - And has anybody experience with a blues festival?
Meanwhile they have come with their fees - they want 10% of takings up to 500$, 15% of takings up to 1000 and 20% thereafter. Takings, meaning turn over not profit. It is for a good cause, so I don't have a problem with it, but I would assume other vendors do, sounds quite high to me.
Cheers
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
PM me and I will discuss this with you... I have 11 years music merchandise experience in Australia, and a lot of that is festival experience...
Okay, nobody seems to have any ideas, maybe my post was a bit long. So KISS - keep it short and simple:
- What percentage of people at an event actually buy event merchandise - And has anybody experience with a blues festival?
Meanwhile they have come with their fees - they want 10% of takings up to 500$, 15% of takings up to 1000 and 20% thereafter. Takings, meaning turn over not profit. It is for a good cause, so I don't have a problem with it, but I would assume other vendors do, sounds quite high to me.
Cheers
Andrea
While you're waiting for more posts, you can find LOTS of information that has been shared about exhibiting at festivals and events here:
Event Merchandise for a Blues Festival 
Re: Event Merchandise for a Blues Festival 
