[AeonTees]

What a fascinating forum. Just wanted to make my introductions and thank everyone for the seemingly endless amount of information available. It's quite exhaustive and pretty much every question gets answered. I also enjoy the community spirit displayed here. It's good to know that there is a place for honest and frank discussion on pretty much any topic regarding t-shirt manufacturing. Quite a departure from most forums I have experienced in the past (IE: Usenet).

Before I get too far ahead of myself, my name is Chris and I'm one half owner/designer/etc of a small startup called Aeon T Shirts & Apparel.

http://www.aeontees.com

The business is just now getting off the ground but we'd very much appreciate some constructive criticism regarding our designs and what we might be doing wrong thus far. I know that there isn't much variety there right now and I also need to get live action shots of the shirts on models. In addition to that, we have to get everything ready for dark shirts (HUGE, I know) and the page still needs some serious tweaking (it was looking perfect in firefox but horrible in IE. it's not looking particularly even in either browser right now but at least it is acceptable).

We are concerned that by focusing on rude/offensive shirts, we may be alienating a broad portion of our customer base. It sells well on ebay, but that might not be an accurate indicator for what will move on the website. Also, does everyone here stick to 100% original designs or do you like to branch out to stock transfers, licensed material, etc... We have been considering both avenues as well as having hot split transfers created and possibly reaching out for a screen printer.

Basically, if you have any pointers, questions, or just a comment, we would love to hear it. We currently print our own designs (Epson Stylus C86, looking at the 1280) and press them on our 15x15" Mighty Press.

Thanks again for all the great knowledge being passed around here. I hope to be able to contribute more and more as my grasp on the industry becomes more comprehensive.

Take care,
Chris

 

[jdr8271]

Hey chris. Im from philly too. Welcome to the forums...

you should deffinitely use all original designs. In the t-shirt world originality is what sells. If your shirts sold on Ebay, then they will probably sell on your online store as long as you can get targeted customers through search engine results. I would reccomend that you try to get a few hundred link exchange partners to get your website on search engines.

My other suggestion is that since your in Phily, you should buy from bodeck and rhodes. They sell t-shirts wholesale, and you wouldn't have to pay shipping. You can get t-shirts from them for as cheap as .89 ea. in the winter. In the summer their around 1.35 ea.

Peace,
Jon

 

[AeonTees]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the gracious welcome. It seems Philly is a great place for getting into this industry. After doing some initial research, I found numerous locations that service every aspect from the actual heat transfer press machines, xfer paper, etc... (All American Supply), to blank shirts (Bodeck & Rhodes as well as Alpha Shirt) and licensed but interesting "retro style" and music shirts (American Tee Shirt).

I believe that you are correct about selling only original designs. There are a few sites that sell licensed stuff, namely T Shirt King, but it seems that you have more of an identity if you keep it original ala T Shirt Hell. We picked up a couple stock transfers just to test all aspects (glitter, puffy, etc) and to see how they come out but will certainly stay focused on original designs.

In regards to link exchanges, we are working on that and also been submitting the site to as many search engines as possible through submit fire, google sitemaps, froogle feeds, manually adding to search engines, etc...

I guess it just takes time to get everything in order and working on all cylinders. Should be an interesting ride and I look forward to sharing experiences and anecdotes with all of you.

Take care,
Chris...

 

[blairrev2003]

Im down the shore in South Jersey. I'm sure you've been down here.
Welcome

 

[AeonTees]

Im down the shore in South Jersey. I'm sure you've been down here.
Welcome

Hey now!

Actually, I don't get down to Jersey nearly as often as I'd like. In fact, we were starting to look into getting a peddlers license and building a cart for the boardwalk but got the business started a little too late into the summer. Will certainly correct that next year. LOL...

Take care,
Chris...

 

[Rodney]

Hi Chris, :welcome:

The site looks great and is pretty easy to navigate.

It looks like you are using product images from CafePress although you say you're printing the designs yourself. You may want to change the product shots to your own images if that's the case.

Looks like you've got a good start there!

 

[AeonTees]

Hi Chris, :welcome:

The site looks great and is pretty easy to navigate.

It looks like you are using product images from CafePress although you say you're printing the designs yourself. You may want to change the product shots to your own images if that's the case.

Looks like you've got a good start there!

Hi Rodney.

Thank you for the kind words.

We do also have a cafepress store and had planned on linking directly to the products but due to the high base prices over there, we are reconsidering. At any rate. we are looking to have those images replaced with model shots but haven't had a chance to do so as of yet. I think once that is done, and people can see the shirts on live people, it can only help the overall product.

Thanks again and have a great day!