Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
Glen, I'm about to find out starting this week. My site is going live tomorrow.
I wouldn't say that your goal is unreasonable, if you have traffic enough to get the sales in the first place. How are you marketing your stuff and how many people do you know are already interested in what you have to offer?
I'm shooting for any sales through the end of this year as I get the rest of my design catalog put together, then after the 1st of the new year, I hope to see sales rise steadily with word of mouth and word of web filtering through the various communities.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
I guess this would depend primarily on the quality of your designs and the aggression and cleverness of your marketing efforts.
I'll be launching my web site within a month, hopefully. And for me, i'm actually swinging for the fences. I do think that 22 sales per month is realistic, but, like i said, you should be asking yourself and family/friends if your designs are good enough and how should you promote them.
Waiting for someone to come in and say they sell thousands per month! Though this really wouldn't mean much, if anything, for my own sales, it would be inspirational.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadowDragon
I've calculated that 22 tshirt sales a month would be a realistic and reasonable figure to work towards for my brand new start up business.
Thoughts anyone? How many did you sell in your first month or three?
Whatever you can sell will be GREAT ! That means people liked and want your product, a very good start. If you believe in it, go after it and don't let anyone tell you different ! Good luck
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
Actually, I would say find some customers first. Preferably long term ones. We hooked up with a recording label and as a result we can guaranty some basic business from the ground up. 20 t-shirts a month is a pretty low amount, but it is definately possible. Heck, just ask your friends to buy from you, and if you have 20 friends you should be able to sell them all in the first month.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
lol..
I'll be honest, I have yet to sell a shirt from my site. It's been up for 2 months. Of course, I've made no attempt to advertise or market yet.
But that's ok for me. I still need to tweak my site a bit. I want it to be perfect before I start pushing it hard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by soggie
Actually, I would say find some customers first. Preferably long term ones. We hooked up with a recording label and as a result we can guaranty some basic business from the ground up. 20 t-shirts a month is a pretty low amount, but it is definately possible. Heck, just ask your friends to buy from you, and if you have 20 friends you should be able to sell them all in the first month.
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Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
neato, why not ask your friends to help you out? Family members work well too. Heck, if you have the money to burn, try sponsoring your shirts to contests or hold one yourself. Extra publicity is always good.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
I will admit my goal at the moment for my startup in February is around 30-40 a DAY, but that is retail, and in what should be a high traffic area. But I hate to pin myself into a corner with predictions as well. I may do more, or less. You never know until you try, it's the trying that matters most. And that is my advice to you, or anyone starting out. Just TRY. Good luck!
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
For what it's worth, my first month of sales on the bOffensive.com website was a grand total of $370. At that point I started by selling the tees for just $9.99 (though I bumped the shipping up quite a bit to compensate) and had a decent number of sales for marketing only with word of mouth, posting in forums, adding links to sig files everywhere, and generally telling anyone I could about the site. After a few months of the low cost ads and once I saw the product was viable I moved into doing a number of PPC ads and posting banners etc... on sites that targeted my demographic (Fark.com, CollegeHumor.com, etc...)
As to waiting until the site is perfect, I take the opposite tact. Get up and get selling ASAP. And fix and tweak things as you find they are broken or don't work. I've gone to sites operated by major corporations that have dead links here and there, have a search function that doesn't work quite right, or has some other flaw and I still buy. The biggest issue is getting $$ in the door and getting that cash flow as a new business and if you wait until everything is perfect you leave a lot of money off the table.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
^That is sone very excellent advice. Sometimes it's best to just START and not worry so much about getting every detail perfect. It's not like you don't have the rest of your life to critique those fine details to death. ^
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyMo
As to waiting until the site is perfect, I take the opposite tact. Get up and get selling ASAP. And fix and tweak things as you find they are broken or don't work. I've gone to sites operated by major corporations that have dead links here and there, have a search function that doesn't work quite right, or has some other flaw and I still buy. The biggest issue is getting $$ in the door and getting that cash flow as a new business and if you wait until everything is perfect you leave a lot of money off the table.
Especially considering where some of the big guys started from and where they are now.
Re: Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie?
Good points guys.
I'm going to start searching for some places to market my site after the first of the year. I would like to get one or two designs more though. For some reason, I feel that 6 designs at least, would make my line complete to start.
__________________ ScreenPrintH2O.com - An Online Community of Waterbased Screen Printers SignAmigo.com - An Online Community of Sign Makers.
Is 22 shirt sales a month realistic for a newbie? 
Good luck!
