shannonmac

I am currently selling shirts on cafepress and am considering opening a retail shop when I move back to MA. I currently live in AZ and operate the online shop from here via a myspace page. My shirts are specific to the Mass & New England area and I am thinking of jumping into a retail biz when we move back to the area.
Here is the thing, I have NEVER ran a business myself before, and I have been trying to do research and research and more research and it seems like...oh my gosh! the more I look.
My boyfriend would be the one running the store and overseeing day to day management of it while I work and go to school.
We are both graphic designers, he does both graphic design and IT work.
We are looking to open it up in Worcester, MA so I have looked into different grants the city offers to small biz's and other incentives to jump start dif. areas of the city in revitalization projects.
Basically any advice from people that have been through this would be great!
I don't know yet if I want to print in-house, or sub out the work to a local print shop.
What type of printing have people found to be more popular/cost effective/gives a better product.
Thanks in advance!!!

 

Reply With Quote

e_kalman

I never have oppened a retail store before, but your printing method would depend on how detailed/amount of colours you have, the amount of time you would have on your hands to print. It would boil down to; if your sales are high enough you just may not have the time to print all those shirts. sending them out could free up more time for you to run and advertise your store. clothing stores do have to carry a lot of stock all the time, it could be a lot to handle all on your own. just my opinnion.....

__________________
Pizza is delicious. It's a fact.
Ethan

 

Reply With Quote

sg613

Have you ever thought about renting one of those kiosks/carts at a mall. There are always people selling stuff on those things up here in Canada. Especially t-shirts. It may be cheaper than opening a full store in lets say a strip mall and you will always have traffic/potential customers walking by.

 

Reply With Quote

shannonmac

thanks for the advice!!! I wanted to do a retail store during the day, with the stock on some sort of a movable system, where I can also offer a space for artists to display their art, bands to play, etc. at night...kind of a meet & greet place for people in the worcester area.

 

Reply With Quote

customshirts123

Quote: Originally Posted by sg613 Have you ever thought about renting one of those kiosks/carts at a mall. There are always people selling stuff on those things up here in Canada. Especially t-shirts. It may be cheaper than opening a full store in lets say a strip mall and you will always have traffic/potential customers walking by.

Kiosk carts work very well there is a guy in the Arizona mills mall in Tempe AZ that sells Arizona Tshirts and he does very well. Flea markets can also be a great place to market Tshirts I have a few customers that I do contract printing for in Phoenix that sell in flea markets.

__________________
Pete
www.customshirts123.com

 

Reply With Quote