[Troopersworld]

Utterly new. I am currently an artist and I am building a small business related to pets. As such i am doing some dog designs, cartoons mostly, and plan to sell them via some arrangement of drop shipping printed shirts. I just currently cannot carry inventory or have a huge upfont cost. I know I prefer cerrtain types of printed shirts over others but beyond that I am a total n00b. I have to learn the terms on methods etc. I had thought screen printing was my only option if I wanted quality... idk if that is true or not. I don’t know enough yet to ask a lot of questions. I have a lot of reading to do! If anyone has tips tricks or really imp info that can save me painful lessons, please feel free to share!

I am doing this to augment our income. It’s just me and my little disabled dog. I LOVE making stuff... i love creating artwork... i am not so good at turning that into money. 🙁 I understand there are rules etc about self promotion but i will just assume in an intro post it should be ok to say that I would be willing to have a go at designing graphics if anyone needs something. It isnt normally the sort of art I do but hey... a gal has to eat right?

Cheerios boys n girls

 

[webtrekker]

Hi. Well done you. Taking the plunge is the first hurdle and often the hardest as you have no prior experience to build on.

You don't say where you're from. You may obtain help better tailored to your situation from people in your own neck of the woods.

I'm UK based and don't dropship or screen print. I primarily do sublimated items, mainly mugs, aluminium clocks, etc and some heat transfer vinyl and vinyl sign work. Small scale stuff buy hey, I'm retired now!

I can suggest a starting point though that will cost you nothing at all. Sign up for somewhere like Redbubble or Zazzle, where you just need to upload your designs, select which products you'd like them on from a vast range, then sit back and the company will market your designs worldwide, take orders, and fulfill them using their own products and their own printing machinery with no further input from yourself.

This is purely passive income. You get a percentage of every sale and will receive monthly payments for them. I use Redbubble myself and it works well. Even if you don't make a lot of money, it's a good place to test the popularity of your designs and gather info on which products sell best. You will then be in a better position to consider which designs to dropship or make yourself to increase your profits.

Remember, this costs you NOTHING and requires no work other than to upload your designs. If it's unsuccessful then you've wasted no money and no time.

 

[danversatrans]

Welcome to the forums

 

[Troopersworld]

Wow. I spent 30 min typing a response bc it is vastly more complicated than that for people who do not live in Canada... but this website logs you out without warning then deletes what you typed when you log in as part of postimg the reply. Fun times.

I am in Canada and ty for the kind response. But most US based companies are now required to have non us sellers have a TIN from the irs and that is complicated. I spoke with a local firm who is an acceptance agent for the irs and they told me that while it is just 1 form and a few documents, it is one of the hardest to get approved. Six to eight weeks and it starts over with every mistake. You can pay $300 to a company that guarantees it will be correct but no guarantee of approval just the same. I dont have $300 or 8wks to wait.

So Amazon does this with kindle publishing and without it the irs takes an additional 30%... on top of the fees charged by amazon. Spreadshirt requires it, represent... pretty much all of them. I dont know if zazzle, cafe press or similar require it but i do know that they cost the seller a lot more, as does red bubble. Being american sites i imagine the same new rules for foreign sellers are the same.

Canada doesn’t have a site that operates with DTG drop shipping. Period.

So atm I am dead in the water.

I wont try to re-explain it all but any american company would be a problem if i have buyers in canada bc i would have no way to track customer locations and apply provincsales tax -which varies broadly and you cannot average it like shipping cost bc it is illegal to charge more than their home province charges.i can sell from the us to americans... but i cant get past the tax id fiasco.

I am in serious trouble bc of this. I have 3000+ people wanting to buy and I cant find a company that works inside canada who can do dtg drop shipping. Without this we will be living in my car next month... literally.

 

[Troopersworld]

Thanks so much!