[Comin'OutSwingin]

Hello everybody!

As some of you know, I am in the midst of working on my site. It is quite an undertaking. Just trying to think of everything and getting it all planned out is definitely a task.

I will have different styles of t-shirts(short sleeve, long sleeve, tanks, sleeveless, etc) and also embroidered caps for sell on the site. I want to add sweatshirts to the list, but I am not sure if I should put them on the site just yet. My problem is that by the time my site will be ready(hopefully, early March), it will almost be Spring and I probably won't sell that many sweatshirts during the Spring and Summer.

I was thinking of maybe showing it as "Coming Fall 2006!" or something to that effect, or just leaving it off altogether. I figured that I probably won't sell that many sweatshirts to justify getting them wholesale and having them embellished. It would be money that could be spent on something else(marketing!), instead of inventory that would mainly sit, until the cooler months.

I know some of you have sweatshirts available on your site. How well do they sell in the Spring and Summer and how did you approach putting them on your site when you first got the site up and running?

Any advice on the subject is greatly appreciated.

 

[Rodney]

People seem to buy hooded sweatshirts year round. Of course more are probably sold in the winter months, but you have to remember that it's not winter everywhere in the world at the same time (the internet is international ) and even the climate in some US cities varies greatly to where it's more cool during the nights year round.

If it's a matter of actually spending that money on sweatshirts are taking those dollars and spending it on marketing until winter months, I'd say go for the marketing. Hopefully, you'll get enough return to add the sweatshirts and more when the cooler months roll around.

If it's a matter of whether you think they will sell, I think they will if your other designs are selling. If you are just starting out, you may want to start out with a limited garment inventory if budgeting is a concern.

 

[Comin'OutSwingin]

Good points. Thanks, Rodney. I'll have to think this over.

I would love to hear what other people think, also.

 

[Twinge]

I agree with Rodney pretty much. In fact I'd suggest taking off either tank tops or sleeveless as well.

 

[jdr8271]

Starting off with so many styles will put you in a deep hole to start out with, which could be hard to recover from. The MOST important part about this business is advertising. You will never sell a single shirt if nobody can find you. If I was starting off with the budget that you seem to be, I would invest to start off with in short sleeve t-shirts, and womens babydoll style t-shirts. Those are the two most popular styles from my experience. Hoodies would be the third product I would add after I had been successfull with the first two.

Instead of investing in tons of printed clothing, I think it would be better to use the money for advertising.

 

[Comin'OutSwingin]

Starting off with so many styles will put you in a deep hole to start out with, which could be hard to recover from. The MOST important part about this business is advertising. You will never sell a single shirt if nobody can find you. If I was starting off with the budget that you seem to be, I would invest to start off with in short sleeve t-shirts, and womens babydoll style t-shirts. Those are the two most popular styles from my experience. Hoodies would be the third product I would add after I had been successfull with the first two.

Instead of investing in tons of printed clothing, I think it would be better to use the money for advertising.

I understand what you are saying about the marketing. My wife has a degree in marketing and is the "Director of Marketing" for our company. So we will invest heavily in the marketing.

I'm not really worried about getting put in a deep hole. It would probably be better if I explained my situation better:

I have started an urban wear clothing line. I have been selling t-shirts, sleeveles tee's and caps for this line for about 6 months. I plan to slowly grow it to include hoodies, jeans, shorts and other things.

My main mode of selling has been just by people seeing other people in my shirts. It started with just family and friends. Their friends would ask them where they got the shirt, and would want one. I've sold lots of shirts like this. Even meeting friends of friends to sell them shirts. Sometimes my friends or family would bring me money from someone that wanted a shirt and take the shirt back to them.

I was recently contacted by the owner of a chain of local urban wear stores. He wants to put my shirts in his stores, and wants the short sleeve, sleeveless, caps(the things that I have already proven would sell). I have plenty of these items in inventory and it's not really a money problem getting plenty more made up.

My main concern was if I should add the hoodies to the website. The owner of the stores does not want the hoodies at this point, but I still would like to add it to my product line. I just didn't want to have it available on the website and it not sell too well, when I could have put that money into marketing, because I know how important marketing is.

I probably won't even have any of the hoodies ready until about March. I just found the perfect supplier for them a couple of weeks ago(thanks to a very helpful person on the forums!) and I haven't decided on colors, or how I will even have them embellished. Whether they will be screen printed, embroidered, or have some flocking. Or some combination of those.

Hopefully this adds a little more perspective.

I never really thought about some of the points Rodney was making about the cool nights year round in some places, though. So I've really got some thinking to do. Like you said jdr8271, I'll never sell anything if people can't find me. But at the same time I would like to increase my product line from what I'm currently selling.

I have people that buy my shirts and hats and like the message that I'm sending with my products, that would love to have other kinds of products to wear(such as hoodies) that they can sport with this same message and design. So the dilemma I guess really is: "how fast do I grow?" How do I balance growth and marketing?