[poess]

That's my question, do art designs sell? I've sold one thing in my shop and most of my designs are art based...it's all hand drawn art...
is there an art "style" that is popular right now that I could try out? Or should I do more text type tees? These are some examples of my designs..
Thanks!

 

[hostingdiva]

I think art designs do sell because people are always trying to be unique.

Maybe you shouldn't necessarily be looking at your designs but rather your method of promotion. How long has your store been up? How are you advertising your store?

 

[poess]

Thanks for your response! I have had the shop for about a month and I've been putting my shop in my signature in all the forums I'm in and went through prweb and selfpromotion.com

 

[T-BOT]

Hollie, had a look at your CP store, you can go ahead and shoot me down, but here is what i think of your designs/tshirts.

they are too good for basic t-shirts.
I see them (some not all) in big jumbo size prints on junior/girly fashion tops. Not on cotton type typical t-shirts..... more like on SLINKY fabric type fashion tops.

 

[3leches]

I agree 100% with what Lucy said.
Your designs look extremely sophisticated for those kind of "ordinary" shirts.

I dont think its a matter of asking yourself if art designs sell (threadless.com is the prefect example of: YES they DO sell!)

Maybe its asking if you are reaching the appropiate target audience!

 

[m26gil]

Hmm... I think you'e designs are a little to complicated for printing as you may loose some of the quality of the artwork. A simple aproach will give you a better view.

Also I think that the best buy t-shirts are the ones that are transmiting a message (not words in particular).

 

[Rodney]

Yes, artistic designs do sell, but as hostingdiva mentioned, your focus should be on marketing your designs to the right people. Continually. In many different ways. All the time

Like Lucy said, your designs could sell on much higher end garments as well.

It's just a matter of reaching the right people.

 

[Despotte]

Art Designs do sell BUT not as well on CafePress as at other venues. CafePress tends to be more... College oriented... The best selling designs on CP are Political or scatological (or both) That being said you can easily sell enough to keep a "profit" moving at CP while you explore getting other venues open (maybe contacting some of the higher end manufacturers with your designs or even just some of the local printers with them.) Also the fact is CP is a LONG term plan one month and your stuff is barely even noticed in the Millions of products they have. Just keep spreading the word and eventually you will notice more hits and more sales.

 

[Rodney]

Art Designs do sell BUT not as well on CafePress as at other venues. CafePress tends to be more... College oriented

I think that only holds true if you are relying on cafepress to do the marketing for you and using them to send you customers through their marketplace.

If you are doing your own marketing *outside* of cp (maybe setup your own wesbsite/blog/etc talking about your artwork), then you can sell them just fine at cafepress or where ever.

 

[poess]

Thank you all so much for your comments! I'm still very new to all of this, so I'm not sure yet how to go about contacting anyone with my designs. I was thrilled to find cafepress. I just began this endevour a little over a month ago. I'm still having trouble finding my "target audience" I'm not sure how to find them...I've googled "artistic tees forum" and other random things to try and find a group of people with fashion interests similar to my own. But I just got new job and havent been able to devote quite as much time to this...although I still get in at least an hour or so a day.
I think I just need to be patient and keep doin what I am (And somehow hunt down my potential customers, instead of one-time browsers)
Also, I was thinking about making a blog to try and get things going, but I'm not much into the whole "blogging" thing..I have one blog and it's brought me some hits but stumble isn't one of the most popular things right now..
wow, I talk alot.
Anyway, thanks again everyone for the help! You guys really are a very helpful forum! And Rodney, you have to be one of the best moderators in a forum I have seen, you seem to be constantly aware of each post in here and always comment....it's appreciated for newbies such as myself.
~Hollie~

 

[jdr8271]

and it's brought me some hits but stumble isn't one of the most popular things right now..

Stumble upon seems to be popular, for me anyway. Ive been getting at least 100+ hits a day from people who have stumbled upon my website. I don't have a blog or anything on stumble upon. I never heard of it untill 6 months ago, when I started getting alot of hits from it. Sometimes as many as 600 a day.

 

[poess]

Yeah, I've had days where I get a ton of hits from stumble...but there are two types of hits from them...from people going to my su page and clicking from there or when people hit the stumble button and "stumbleupon" my page. Of those two the best kind of hit is the more targetted one..people who have some interest and that's why they click...
It's great to get "stumbled" but those hits tend to be very quick click throughs...less than 10 seconds.
Anyway, I'm glad you get alot of hits on stumble....actually, I think I may have thumbs upped your site on stumble...

 

[TeaandCrumpets]

If your setting up your own site, and blog then why aren't you selling the shirts yourself and not through Cafepress?

I think with art-print shirts, if you want to be serious they need to be high quality screen prints. If your going to market them as "Art" shirts, then people want that extra step that makes the shirt unique. I could go on for hours about art.

Anyway, Art shirts sell. I draw them, screen them and sell them. It's just all about networking. Set up a myspace account for your stuff, and maybe even a paypal store on there.