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've been in the tshirt business for a little under 3 months now and i attended my first even on teh weekend where i purchased my own table to vendor my wears.
To me this event wasn't about sales, but to see if this particular crowd was my target audience and which design was the most appealling to said audience.
Out of the 9 designs on my website, i was only going to bring 6 and they were going to be pre-pressed plastisol shirts. I was contemplating bringing my press along but i decided against it as electricity to my table cost extra and i didn't know how much room i had. I'm glad bring the press a i didn't as i'm quite sure i didn't have enough room.
As i was low on funds, I could only afford 100 shirts for the event. Thus bringing me to my first mistake.
The target audience for this event was smaller then i thought. Physically. The majority of the 100 shirt order i did was Large for the Men's shirt and Medium for the Womens shirt. Whereas the men wanted small to mediums and the women wanted small. At around 3:00 I had run out of mens medium and womens small. On the plus side I had completly sold out of a particular design and had a rough idea of which designs appealled to which demographic.
At the end of the first day (2 day event), we had sold 26 shirts, which i was extremely happy with as that many shirts paid for the table.
That evening, I dived into my stock and pulled out as many small womens and male medium shirts as i could and pressed more shirts. 7 medium shirts and 9 smalls. Time of sleep: 2:00am
The next day started out really slow, but the first customer bought 3 shirts straight up, then came back later after borrowing some money to buy a 4th. At the end of the 2nd day we had sold 25 shirts which i was rather happy with.
Overall I had a blast, hanging out with my designer and sisters for two days as they were helping me with my stall.
It sounds like you did well and your designs were well recieved. Good work. It also sounds like you picked the right demographic for your designs. Again congrats.
__________________
Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
Hooray!!! Congrats on your first event! It seems like you learned alot about what sizes and what you should bring to make your next event even more fabulous!
Hooray!!! Congrats on your first event! It seems like you learned alot about what sizes and what you should bring to make your next event even more fabulous!
Indeed, that was the main goal of the event. But i'm glad we did make some money.
My first event experience 
It seems like you learned alot about what sizes and what you should bring to make your next event even more fabulous!
