Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Go to Page...
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.
Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
I am currently working on my new store. I have the retail space, and I started doing a little remodeling. I do print shirts, but I am looking to carry other shirts as well. I would like the shirts already printed and ready to go, so I just have to order them and put them on the racks. It's unlikely that I will be able to go to a trade show since there aren't any in Ohio, and the closest one is at a bad time (it overlaps with some other plans I already made).
I have a radio station coming down for the big grand opening as well as several other forms of advertising. I don't really want to spend all that money to promote an empty store. I can't really find any distributors, so I have been looking for the people that actually print the shirts. Otherwise, I will have to create more designs to print myself. The only people I can find use CafePress, and they are $15 per shirt. For high-quality shirts, I can print them for $6 to $8 with hang tag.
Someone gave me the idea to ask the CafePress people if I could sell their shirts in my store, but actually print them myself. If you use CafePress and I wanted to sell your shirts, would you get mad if I asked you if I could print them?
On the one hand, I can do it cheaper, so I would be more willing to sell them. I could actually sell them for $15 and we would both make a profit. However, there is the whole issue of knowing how many I made/sold. I haven't found the best way to handle that. I am sure you would want some sort of way of knowing how many designs I printed and sold, other than me just telling you and you having to believe me.
Would it be too unreasonable to ask for hang tags? I have mine printed, but the minimum order was 5,000. I have a generic tag that I use for all shirts printed by me. I then use a bar code sticker so I can keep track of sales. I could just as easily put my tag on the shirts, but that would give you no credit. I don't really want to order 5,000 tags for your company because I highly doubt I will sell 5,000 shirts from a single company all that quick.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
I'll offer another suggestion. I sell many manufacturered tees from The Mountain.
If you're not familiar with them, I know you have seen them. One pass through their site and you'll say "Oh, Yeah."
$ 200 opening order, then they'll ship one at a time. Regular tees are $ 10 and they give a 5% discount if you use a card. No dropship, but will send one to you.
They are redoing their site and have ruined a good one. It's now messed up.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
I get the impression most people think I shouldn't ask. White shirts for $15 for the lesser known shirt companies seem kinda high, especially when I could print them for $8. Plus, that's with the seller making no money at all. One seller has the shirts for $20 to $25. There's no way I would be able to sell it for more than that.
Think I should just ask, and if they say no, then screw them? They have a lot of nice shirts that I know I could sell.
The Life Is Crap shirts are kinda funny, too. I could always go with them, but I would like a little bit more variety than just those and the ones I print.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sjaguar13
I get the impression most people think I shouldn't ask. White shirts for $15 for the lesser known shirt companies seem kinda high, especially when I could print them for $8. Plus, that's with the seller making no money at all. One seller has the shirts for $20 to $25. There's no way I would be able to sell it for more than that.
Think I should just ask, and if they say no, then screw them? They have a lot of nice shirts that I know I could sell.
The Life Is Crap shirts are kinda funny, too. I could always go with them, but I would like a little bit more variety than just those and the ones I print.
If it is a particular store front on cafe press than maybe the owner would be willing to design some similar designs for you and just pay them for the graphics so you own them. It cant hurt to ask , If they are willing to do that then you would own the designs and not have to worry about tracking how many are sold or any of that because you could print as many as you want.
__________________
Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
If you don't ask you don't get!
I would be flattered if someone approached me for any of my designs and if there was money in it i would say yes.
I would look at buying the design rather than any other route as it would be a pain to track sales and work out how much to pay etc. Also if the design sells big you will be able to do whatever you want with it as it's yours.
Find designs you like and ask, the worst they can do is say no, then move on to the next.
Lee
__________________
trying to help, sometimes i don't!
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
I just went through the mall and walked into a Steve and Barry's. Nothing priced over $8.95...t-shirts, jeans, jackets etc. Tees printed on Gilden ultra cotton and probably at least 300 different designs in all catagories. I also noticed that every athletic shoe store was now a tee vendor. Even Sears had some awesome tee designs. Unless you are brand specific or fashion oriented or custom I think the tee business in the mall is saturated.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Quote:
Someone gave me the idea to ask the CafePress people if I could sell their shirts in my store, but actually print them myself. If you use CafePress and I wanted to sell your shirts, would you get mad if I asked you if I could print them?
Now this is a good one. I would not get mad. I would try and cut cafe out, seeing that they are just doing the same as you are wanting to do. Then I'd work with you and let you get them at wholesale. But that is just me. That's one of my over all goals, so I'd jump right on it.
What kind of tees are you selling? What niche? I don't use cafepress, but we might be able to do something by the summer.
__________________ You can learn a lot from the TSF.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Well, it doesn't look like this is going to work out. They aren't interested in letting me use their images, and CafePress is the only place they will deal with.
I will take highstyleinc's advice and check the classifieds section.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Quote:
Well, it doesn't look like this is going to work out. They aren't interested in letting me use their images, and CafePress is the only place they will deal with.
I find that a lot of CafePress seller's don't really know the logistics of selling outside of cafepress (wholesale), so they tend to pass up opportunities like this.
Not out of not wanting to sell wholesale, but just not knowing how and maybe being anxious about asking the wholesale buyer how it all works.
Many don't realize that they can take the same design that they sell at CafePress and take it to their local screen printer to print at a much lower cost and then turn around and sell the design wholesale to a retail store.
When they get asked about wholesale rates, their first instinct is to check the CafePress "bulk rates" and then quote the buyer on those rates, which are waaay too high for most retail settings.
I think if you explained the process to them and let them know they they can get the t-shirts printed themselves, outside of cafepress (not by you), then they can get a better price for the printing and still make a profit when they sell them to you wholesale, they may be more receptive.
Many are very protective of their images, so if you are asking to print them yourself, you may set off red flags, since they really have no control over how many you print.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
I can buy that Rod. It sounds good and I can beleive someone left everything up to cafe, does not know much about the biz or don't want to put in the work. I don't see site like cafepress being good for any but artist. I feel if you want to do tees you should learn it all. If you want to sale your art work on tees, go to cafe or some place like it. Just my 2 cents.
__________________ You can learn a lot from the TSF.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buechee
I can buy that Rod. It sounds good and I can beleive someone left everything up to cafe, does not know much about the biz or don't want to put in the work. I don't see site like cafepress being good for any but artist. I feel if you want to do tees you should learn it all. If you want to sale your art work on tees, go to cafe or some place like it. Just my 2 cents.
There are lots of "real businesses" using cafepress and other services.
Using CafePress has nothing to do with how much you know about the business.
It's not just new artists and small time companies using CafePress. They have large corporate clients (star trek, dilbert, tupac, charlie brown, etc) using their services because people realize that "doing it all yourself" is not always an option or a desired business model to get into.
Remember, many big name brands don't do all the printing/production/selling themselves.
Outsourcing is a common way of doing business and a smart business model for many people.
Re: Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this?
What kind of shirts are you looking for? Why not search on the web for the type of shirts you are looking for? They can lead you to small clothing companies and you could contact them about buying their products wholesale.
This is a discussion about Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this? that was posted in the Offline Retail and Tradeshows section of the forums.
Would you get mad if a store owner asked you this? 
, If they are willing to do that then you would own the designs and not have to worry about tracking how many are sold or any of that because you could print as many as you want.
