Margins too low? Need advice!

Is the fulfillment part Amazon? If so, then I get it, as you are paying for access to Amazon's customers. If not Amazon, what are you getting that you couldn't do yourself?

5 colors, 3 locations ... The end customer sees a shirt with a design or saying on it that they like. They don't know or care that it cost more for each color and placement. Many, many good selling shirts are one color, one location. Almost all of my screen printed shirts are one color, and all are one location. I'm sure the shirt is a lovely creation to behold ... as a creator, but you could probably do a much less costly version and not affect sales at all. KISS applies to Ts as it does to most everything else.

F free returns! Why pay to encourage behavior that will actually lose you money? If your profit is ~$6 and a printed T costs you ~$10, then you lose ~$4 on a return/exchange, and you paid $2.90 upfront for the privilege! You may be selling on Amazon, but you are not Amazon. Returns will be because the person ordering misjudged the sizing, or didn't bother to even check (in the case of a gift for someone). With free returns, some people will order a couple different sizes and simply return the ones that didn't fit. Cool, huh?

I clear ~$17 a shirt, and do not offer free returns (of course, if I screwed something up, then I send them a replacement at no cost to them, and they get to keep the bad one, too. And I still would make money on the deal!).

A few years ago I looked into using Fulfillment By Amazon. I actually have an Amazon account, but never applied for permission to sell apparel. Their fees and rules and ... just too much BS for me to tolerate for too little pay. My hat is off to you for managing to get through the process

That said, I am selling on Merch By Amazon, but that is an entirely different thing, where Amazon is more or less being a POD. I do nothing but upload designs and collect money ... and selling a shirt at $19.99, would clear about a dollar less than you are at $28, and involves no upfront investment (other than the year+ I was waiting to get accepted).


All that blather aside, you are you, and need to do what makes sense for you. My suggestions to you are:

• Reduce the complexity/cost of the screen printing.
• No free returns (especially if dealing with women's styles!!!!!!!!)
• Open an Etsy shop (fees are much lower than Amazon, but you'll need to fulfill your own orders).

It's all a learning experience, and every mistake is another lesson. Just don't pay too much for any one lesson, or you won't be able to put what you learned from it into practice.

Hi NoXid, thanks for all your replies to my prev posts as well. They are very insightful.

NoXid said:

Is the fulfillment part Amazon? If so, then I get it, as you are paying for access to Amazon's customers. If not Amazon, what are you getting that you couldn't do yourself?

Click to expand...

No, the fulfillment house is another company, not Amazon.
I send all the t-shirts there for storing and they ship out and handle everything for me.
Reason being, my target market/audience is all in the US and I'm not in the US, that's why.

5 colors, 3 locations ... The end customer sees a shirt with a design or saying on it that they like. They don't know or care that it cost more for each color and placement. Many, many good selling shirts are one color, one location. Almost all of my screen printed shirts are one color, and all are one location. I'm sure the shirt is a lovely creation to behold ... as a creator, but you could probably do a much less costly version and not affect sales at all. KISS applies to Ts as it does to most everything else.

Click to expand...

I'm going for a strong branding approach here, that's why on the sleeve, there's a certain design as well that will be kind of like a "signature" style for all my t-shirts, and another location is the inner-neck label. I'll see if I can reduce a couple of colors for the front but I doubt that's going to cut the cost down too much. Or is it?

5 colors vs 1 color = maybe only 15% difference in cost? I need to check with my printer.

F free returns! Why pay to encourage behavior that will actually lose you money? If your profit is ~$6 and a printed T costs you ~$10, then you lose ~$4 on a return/exchange, and you paid $2.90 upfront for the privilege! You may be selling on Amazon, but you are not Amazon. Returns will be because the person ordering misjudged the sizing, or didn't bother to even check (in the case of a gift for someone). With free returns, some people will order a couple different sizes and simply return the ones that didn't fit. Cool, huh?

Click to expand...

Actually, I was looking at a couple of t-shirt sites and ecommerce companies like Zappos (365-day free returns). I was trying to emulate that, because maybe it will encourage way more people to buy. E.g: more returns, but also more people buying due to that

But after reading these, I think of doing the opposite. Thanks.
Yes, I'm selling women's tshirts for women.

I clear ~$17 a shirt, and do not offer free returns (of course, if I screwed something up, then I send them a replacement at no cost to them, and they get to keep the bad one, too. And I still would make money on the deal!).

Click to expand...

What about those customers email you saying the size is too small despite you stating clearly the size measurements? Do you entertain those?

A few years ago I looked into using Fulfillment By Amazon. I actually have an Amazon account, but never applied for permission to sell apparel. Their fees and rules and ... just too much BS for me to tolerate for too little pay. My hat is off to you for managing to get through the process

Click to expand...

Nope, not selling via Amazon. My strategy is to go for a branded look to specifically target the target audience (very niche market), so if I sell on Amazon, it will be like customers are buying from Amazon (the brand) and not from me. They'll remember Amazon instead of me.
Plus, I understand we have no control over the customers, meaning, we can't contact them or anything, they're all Amazon customers.

All that blather aside, you are you, and need to do what makes sense for you. My suggestions to you are:

• Reduce the complexity/cost of the screen printing.
• No free returns (especially if dealing with women's styles!!!!!!!!)
• Open an Etsy shop (fees are much lower than Amazon, but you'll need to fulfill your own orders).

Click to expand...

Noted. Thanks, especially 2nd point.
I've tried Etsy (for other items) but it seems to take a lot of search engine optimization (very costly) on their platform IMO.
At least with my website, I can bank on Instagram since I've been building up an audience there.


One other thing: my size breakdown for women's t-shirts (e.g: Anvil 880) is:

M: 18
L : 22
XL : 22
2XL : 13

Is this good based on your experience? Less 2XL maybe?
Reason being most people in the US seems quite large size (no offense lol)

Nikar said:

Hi NoXid, thanks for all your replies to my prev posts as well. They are very insightful.

No, the fulfillment house is another company, not Amazon.
I send all the t-shirts there for storing and they ship out and handle everything for me.
Reason being, my target market/audience is all in the US and I'm not in the US, that's why.

Click to expand...

Oh, yes, I sort of remember a previous post about selling in the USA from outside of it.

Nikar said:

I'm going for a strong branding approach here, that's why on the sleeve, there's a certain design as well that will be kind of like a "signature" style for all my t-shirts, and another location is the inner-neck label. I'll see if I can reduce a couple of colors for the front but I doubt that's going to cut the cost down too much. Or is it?

5 colors vs 1 color = maybe only 15% difference in cost? I need to check with my printer.

Click to expand...

I do my own screen printing. Trust me, each color and location adds a lot of work. Other than the blank shirt, what you are paying for is a screen for each color in each location. A small print, like a neck label, is really no less work and bother to print than a full chest design (unless they are doing the neck with one of those rubber cup stamping machines).

Nikar said:

Actually, I was looking at a couple of t-shirt sites and ecommerce companies like Zappos (365-day free returns). I was trying to emulate that, because maybe it will encourage way more people to buy. E.g: more returns, but also more people buying due to that

But after reading these, I think of doing the opposite. Thanks.
Yes, I'm selling women's tshirts for women.

Click to expand...

As I said, you are not Amazon ... but Zappos is. Amazon bought them

In the USA, at least, one complication with women's shirts is that size names mean absolutely N O T H I N G. A men's large in any brand will have the same chest measurement, though the sleeves, waist, neck etc may be cut differently between brands and styles. But a women's large could differ by 10 inches from brand to brand or style to style. And women get upset at you because your size Large fit them like a child's shirt! In my listings, I build the chest measure into the size selector, and include the women's dress size number (shown as #16, or whatever) ... though even that standard is wildly abused by brands who sell a "feel good" sizing experience where they label an item an #8, but it is actually closer to a #12. Thus even further confusing women about what size they should expect to fit them.

Nikar said:

What about those customers email you saying the size is too small despite you stating clearly the size measurements? Do you entertain those?

Click to expand...

Sure, they can send the shirt back to me, postage is at their expense, because it was their mistake. After I receive it, I will send them another shirt at my expense.

Nikar said:

Nope, not selling via Amazon. My strategy is to go for a branded look to specifically target the target audience (very niche market), so if I sell on Amazon, it will be like customers are buying from Amazon (the brand) and not from me. They'll remember Amazon instead of me.
Plus, I understand we have no control over the customers, meaning, we can't contact them or anything, they're all Amazon customers.

Click to expand...

Yes, Amazon is very much about Amazon.

Nikar said:

Noted. Thanks, especially 2nd point.
I've tried Etsy (for other items) but it seems to take a lot of search engine optimization (very costly) on their platform IMO.
At least with my website, I can bank on Instagram since I've been building up an audience there.


One other thing: my size breakdown for women's t-shirts (e.g: Anvil 880) is:

M: 18
L : 22
XL : 22
2XL : 13

Is this good based on your experience? Less 2XL maybe?
Reason being most people in the US seems quite large size (no offense lol)

Click to expand...

I believe that is the same shirt Merch By Amazon was using, I know it was Anvil. I ordered a few samples of my designs, and the things are ridiculously tiny, and do not measure out to match their supposed specifications. I didn't measure mine until after I washed them ... but, uhm, your customers ARE going to wash their shirts
MBA is currently switching to a different brand of shirt, and everyone selling via MBA is very happy about that

As to how many of each size to order, I really can't say. It depends a lot on the demographics of your target market. I offer a slim option and a relaxed option for women's garments, and sell a fair number of Small slims and 1X relaxed ... so obviously plenty of people at the extremes ... but your niche may drastically differ.

Toss it out there and see what happens. It's all research for the next round.

Enjoy

Nikar said:

Thanks! One more thing. Do you know what is that new t-shirt MBA is using, since they're ditching Anvil? If it's so good, maybe I can get it too!

Click to expand...

I believe the main reason for the change was the complaints about the Anvil being cut small. The new shirt is a Port & Company shirt, I'm not sure which style / part number. Port & Company is an in-house brand of a wholesale blank distributor: SanMar. Hanes makes it for them.

I assume it is this one:
https://www.sanmar.com/p/5626_Coral

Unless you have a SanMar account, you won't be able to see pricing, but you can poke around on their site all you like. Most screen printers will have heard of or used P&C.

I've yet to see one myself. But I've got a new MBA sample on it's way and it will be on the new shirt.

Note, regardless of sizing issues, I'm not a fan of Anvil. So it's not like it would take much to be "better." MBA offers two shirt choices. Anvil was the low end choice, now it will be P&C. Their high end option is Bella+Canvas.

Myself, I offer a lot of style choices, and source those from different brands according to who has what and how well I like it. I use Next Level Apparel for slim styles; Hanes and Bella for relaxed styles; and International Trading Company for hoodies. Overall, I am most impressed with NLA for having a very good price/quality ratio.

Being outside the USA, it is no doubt a bit more bother and expense to obtain samples, but well worth checking out some options before committing to inventory.

Appreciate the insight, but you say you use Hanes and Bella for relaxed styles? Based on what I researched and seen in the size chart, I thought Bella suffers from the same issue as NLA, in that the womens tshirts are too small?

Also, I look at the size chart for P&C. It seems the womens' sizes are even smaller than Anvil by a large margin.....unless the complaints against Anvil are the men's sizes and not womens....

I've a sample of the Anvil 880 and they're bigger than the NLA one I've.
Here's the size chart for 880:



Probably the largest women's cut you can find anywhere

Okay, my latest MBA samples arrived a day early.

Measured as it arrived, not yet washed.

Women's Port & Company
Size Large

Actual Measure:
Chest - 20 3/4
Length - 27 1/2

Specification:
Chest - 20 3/4
Length - 27 1/4

I'll measure again after washing.


EDIT: Measure after washing:
Chest - 20 1/2
Length - 27

Much better end result than was had with the Anvil, at least in terms of sizing.