Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, link building, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Is there a trick any of you guys used to find stores in your demographic that you can visit and sell shirts? I opened my web store 2 weeks ago, but I found about half my sales have come from 2 shops I have found to wholesale too. I'm in the SF bay area so there's should be tons of shops, but with the small mom-pop shops that are actually willing to working with us little guys it can be hard to find them because they usually don't have websites and aren't listed in yelp. I've gotten my pitch down and confindent about my product I just need to find the stores
You could try finding a database of stores, but it might not be very current. Sometimes the best way to find small local stores is to just drive around.
Maybe someone else here has some better tips to share
Yeah, initially starting out, it's much better just to drive around to all the local shops that you think you would like to have your stock placed there, and sooner or later other shops will see the same product and call you.
Contact the Chamber of Commerce for your city and county. They will have a directory of member businesses. Look for advertisements in the local city newspapers, free weekly/quarterly community magazines, the local targeted direct marketing sent to your home (junk mail), the free advertising booklets in the lobby of grocery stores, and college newspapers. Local mom and pop stores use those advertising options a lot in my area. It's also good to read the business section which will run stories on existing business and new ones opening up.
Hi Jeff. Looking at your site you only seem to have two designs available at the moment? If that is the case, you aren't giving stores a great deal to look at, when you actually locate them.
The tees themselves look good, they just need a few friends to go to market with.
Careful with the chamber of commerce, I tried that route and we I live all we did was meet with the same 12 people every 3 weeks and we stood up and talked about what we did for 3 minutes. Which if you think about it, it is basically horrible. You tell the 12 people the same thing month after month. If they are not interested in getting something done, they could care less to help spread the word. In my experience it was not worth the money.
You can also use MerchantCircle.com | Find new customers. good place for other B2B sales. I've actually had some pretty good luck using their site. It's totally free, but you can use some of their paid services to increase traffic to your site and talk to other business owners across the country.
Cheers
__________________ Daniel Slatkin, SBE Multi-Media, LLC Fulfilling Fulfillment with free web store included. SlightlySick University The polar opposite of Higher Education!!
I am still starting out, but I have been banging my head about this as well. Phoenix has a ton of the little mom and pop joints, and it's just like you say, they are mostly unlisted on the net. I have already been doing some major driving around (also part of my "other" job), but I am planting the word of mouth bug as I go. I have gotten a few references from the people I speak with, so everything is actually starting to fall into place. Hope if continues.
If you know your competitor in your area, you should just go to their website looking for some sort of store listing where their product is available... many company have this sort of listing available on their website....
Secrets to finding stores to sell to? 
Daniel Slatkin, 
