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Originally Posted by Thao1mage |  | | | | | | | | | It boggles my mind on how anyone can make any money using these fulfillment services... I mean... they charge so much for their product and by the time you mark your prices up enough to make a decent living, your customers end up having to pay $20-$25 a tshirt.... that's crazy... I don't know which economy you guys are living but in Northern California where the gas is sky high... people think twice about buying a $25 tshirt... how do I make money if my customers don't want to pay that much for a tshirt... something I am forced to do because these fulfillment services are charging me a ridiculous price for their products... insane...
Let me know what you guys think... I hate to think so negative but the fact is... unless it is name brand clothing, I don't think anyone is willing to pay over $20 for a tshirt... Maybe I am thinking it the wrong way. I would appreciate it if someone would talk to me about how these fulfillment services really work... | |  | |  | |
Make sure you have the pricing right for each service you're talking about. Not all of them are the same
PrintMojo's pricing is not the same as CafePress's pricing or Spreadshirt's pricing (different business models).
That being said, I live in Northern California, and if you go to any mall, you will see people paying $20+ for t-shirts without blinking an eye.
In a recent survey of t-shirt shoppers, the second highest response for how much people paid for t-shirts was $19+. Only .5% away from the #1 answer of $14-$15 (which you can also price some shirts at and make money at cafepress)
People pay for what they want. If your design is strong and they can't get it anywhere else, they will pay for it.
The fulfillment companies like CafePress/Spreadshirt aren't charging a "ridiculous" price, they are charging a price based on the amount of work and risk they are doing.
The base prices don't just cover the cost of the t-shirt and the printing. They have to cover all of their business costs in that base price.
That means, the warehousing, the web hosting, the electricity, the customer service, the merchant account credit card processing fees, the web design, the programmers, the marketing, the phone lines, the computers, the very expensive printing equipment, the blank t-shirts, the shipping supplies, etc. Since their main income is the t-shirt sales, they only make money when you sell a t-shirt. All those costs need to be built into the base price to allow you to be able to sell a t-shirt without paying anything up front (something unheard of just 10 years ago...selling a full line of custom printed t-shirts in a full online store without paying a dime in up front investment!)
I've used CafePress since 1999 and I've sold well through them for years. Why, because I design an original t-shirt, I drive traffic to that t-shirt design, a customer sees a t-shirt that they want and that they can't get anywhere else, and they buy it. Simple as that.
There are LOTS of people on CafePress and Spreadshirt making good money. How? They have original designs, they take the time to market and promote a product and build good traffic to their stores, and the customers go there and buy. It's really that simple.
Sure, there may be some customers that don't buy because of the price, but it's not all of the customers, and there are plenty that will buy.
You also aren't forced to use those services to sell your t-shirts
You could make the investment in your own Direct to Garment printer ($15,000 - $200,000+) or your own heat press equipment, (or get some t-shirts pre printed from a screen printer), setup wholesale accounts, buy some blank t-shirts, get a website designed, find web hosting, get your own merchant account to accept credit cards, warehouse your product, print it as the orders come in, make sure you have the right number/sizes/colors/styles of blank t-shirts in stock to fulfill your orders in a timely manner, handle customer service, etc.
You may end up spending a lot to get it all up and running, but in the long run, you won't have to worry about a base price of $15 for a t-shirt since you'll be taking all the risk and controlling the costs.
Many people on the forums here do just that.
But the beauty of a fulfillment service is that you don't have to worry about all those time consuming tasks. For the print on demand fulfillment companies, you don't have to worry about the risk of buying equipment and printing shirts. The tradeoff for not having to make that risk or spend that time doing all the work is that you have to pay a "convenience fee" (or a "base price" or a "fulfillment fee") to cover all the work that the company is doing for you.
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Let me know what you guys think... I hate to think so negative but the fact is... unless it is name brand clothing, I don't think anyone is willing to pay over $20 for a tshirt... Maybe I am thinking it the wrong way. | | | | | | |
Let me also say that not all the t-shirts/products at cafepress or spreadshirt will end up costing the customer $20+ after your profit.
I've done it the "do it yourself" way by getting t-shirts screen printed by a local screen printer, setting up my own website, learning web design, setting up my own shopping cart, getting my own merchant account, handling my own shipping and customer service. And because I take more the risk, more of the profit goes in my pocket. If you are a do it yourselfer, or if you like total control, that may be the way to go for you.
I've also used fulfillment services (cafepress/zazzle/spreadshirt/printmojo) and I appreciate all the work that they do. For example, I think of a t-shirt idea and have it up for sale in a fully functioning online store in 10-20 minutes! I've actually seen a news story, went to my computer, created a related funny t-shirt, uploaded it to cafepress, and had a sale within an hour. I've had days where I was on vacation and all the while I was on vacation, I was still making sales and t-shirts were still getting shipped on time. I've had big spikes in sales and I was able to spend time doing other things (like marketing, working on a different website, watching TV, sleeping) and all the while, I was still making money, t-shirts were getting printed, and I didn't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to pay money for that kind of service.
Sometimes you have to decide what's your goal and how much you wan to put into your company. The more you put in, the more you get out of it.
I wouldn't get too hung up on the pricing part though. The services have been around for *years*. If no customers were buying at those prices, they would be out of business by now instead of growing rapidly each year.
So there must be more to it if other seller's using those services are able to make money. You just have to figure out how you can be original and do the same.