[MrBackSlap]

First post from the NooB over here.

Just got some questions maybe you guys can help me out here. Im a student trying to make some cash to support myself through these ruff times. I havent had any luck with finding a job so im thinking this could be a pretty good ways to make a little money by making t-shirts.

I wanna get a few AAA shirts about 100 pieces and test it out. I haven't had any luck finding a good cheap screen printer in New York alot of them seem to be overpriced, maybe some of you guys got any advice on where to go?

Also Im not looking to ge rich selling t-shirts but I wanted to know if atleast in a month could I make $2000 in net profits selling T-shirts or close to that?

Planning on selling through Ebay and through certain forums where im usually in.

And last I got a few good ideas on atleast 10 designs and really dont know what kind of picture format I have to use to hand over to whom ever is gonna do the screen printing?

So all my questions are.....

Whats the usual size and format of the image given to the person screen printing your shirts?

Can you make some decent money starting small in a month? Atleast $1500 to $2000 in profits.

And do you know any good cheap screen printers in New York?

Any Advice?


Sorry if the question doesnt belong here.
Any Advice that you dont wanna make public just please send me a message.

Thanx and great forum Im overloaded on everything there is to read.

peace

 

[lben]

To answer a small part of your question, don't bother with eBay. You won't be able to compete with the people who get stuff from China or sell at or below cost, especially if you want to make that much money selling shirts. And if you want a screen printer to print up your shirts for you, you will have to pay up front whatever the printer is charging, and they usually prefer to purchase the shirts themselves that way they know what kind of material they are familiar with and how their inks react with the material.

There is no such thing as a "good cheap printer". There are good printers and then there are cheap printers who make garbage. As the old addage goes, you get what you pay for. There is a lot involved in screen printing. You have to remember that the screen printers are trying to make a living too. The only way to knock out the middleman would be to buy the screen printing equipment and do it yourself.

 

[MrBackSlap]

Thanx I guess there is no such thing as a good cheap screen printer but I was looking for somebody who knows that I wanna sell shirts too and make a profit lol. Spoke with a shop in midtown NY who where charging soo much I just walked out, not to mention they where rude as hell and couldnt even take a sec to awnser my questions.

Cant afford to do mass made in china shirts yet lol.

But I still plan on giving Ebay a shot I got some really good ideas and some solid designs. True there are soo many people selling t-shirts on Ebay but there is a market for everything and a diffrent taste for everyone too.

Believe me I have paid over $100 for a T-shirt just for the novilty and design about it. And it wasnt a made in china shirt, sometimes less is more in some cases lol.

 

[lben]

I've tried selling things on eBay before and sold nothing, absolutely nothing. There are just too many people selling stuff and unless you are willing to sell for no profit or below cost you won't sell anything either. The only thing you will do is pad their pockets with more money for listings.

The screen printers know you want to sell shirts, but you have to remember that they are doing the work, and it is very time intensive work, and they are trying to make a living at it too. Each color has to be separated, a screen has to be made, and it has to be printed separately and dried in between each color. I think screen printing goes up to maybe 6 colors, but I could be wrong on that. I don't do screen printing, I do sublimation. There is usually a set up fee for each screen or maybe they charge the set up fees for a group of screens or design. Dunno, but I do know that it isn't cheap.

Your best bet would be to do the work yourself.

 

[MrBackSlap]

Damn that sucks but ill give it a shot if it doesn't work out on Ebay ill find other ways, Im just gonna have to get my hustle skills up. Been reading alot on the forum and everyone gives really great advice. One thing I learned im going to have to brush up on my photoshop skills again. hopefully if I do the color separations myself I can get the cost down also, but I really dont know since I dont know what kind of formats or sizes screen printers take on the images. I wanna give them something clean and perfect not just walk in with a jpeg picture and say put this on a shirt.

I wish I could do it myself but I just want to make about 100 shirts with my designs and see what happens.
Doesnt make much sence to buy all that equipment for a few shirts. But thanx for the advice Loretta.

Can anyone answer my questions?
Thanx

 

[InsaneIndeed]

IF you live in New York City, i would take advantage of that. GO out to times square and sell all over. Eat the big apple to its core.

But i mean 2k a month for a brand new clothing company is quite a bit.

Also going to school would take away from your selling time, but don't drop out of school (and this is coming from a high school student)

also if you haven't already, get a business license, but if you are under 18 this will be tough

But good luck

 

[iMan]

I can relate to u, I just graduated college in May . . .turned 22 a few weeks ago and I know where you are coming from. Oh, not to mention I am in New York as well. Remember the only things that sell on eBay are things that people are searching for. That sounds like a dumb statement but think about it . . .your line doesn't exist so no1 is searching for it. Unless you are making something like political shirts, or celebrity shirts, no one will be searching for it.

As far as your profit goals go. I'll be the first to say don't let anyone knock your goals but 2k profit in the first month on a student's budget is not realistic. if your shirts cost $8, you will probably be selling them for about $16 or so. So you will need to sell 250 shirts to have gross profits of 2k. 250 shirts is a lot but its actually a crazy UNDER estimate because it doesn't factor in eBay fees, Paypal fees, marketing / promotions and any other random cost associated with launching your line soooo, I duno bro. You are going to need several thousand dollars up from to be able to proit that much, so fast.

 

[InsaneIndeed]

I can relate to u, I just graduated college in May . . .turned 22 a few weeks ago and I know where you are coming from. Oh, not to mention I am in New York as well. Remember the only things that sell on eBay are things that people are searching for. That sounds like a dumb statement but think about it . . .your line doesn't exist so no1 is searching for it. Unless you are making something like political shirts, or celebrity shirts, no one will be searching for it.

As far as your profit goals go. I'll be the first to say don't let anyone knock your goals but 2k profit in the first month on a student's budget is not realistic. if your shirts cost $8, you will probably be selling them for about $16 or so. So you will need to sell 250 shirts to have gross profits of 2k. 250 shirts is a lot but its actually a crazy UNDER estimate because it doesn't factor in eBay fees, Paypal fees, marketing / promotions and any other random cost associated with launching your line soooo, I duno bro. You are going to need several thousand dollars up from to be able to proit that much, so fast.

paypal fees are 2.9%+%.30

so if he charges 16 dollars for em, he could charge a dollar of "tax" and still make a few cents

 

[iMan]

Ok, so on 250 @ $16 each that works out to be $191 in paypal fees. Then ebay fees for a $16 item will be $0.35 + 8.75% so that is another $437.50. Profits are down to $1,371.50. You can say eBay is free advertising but . . .I think you will have to spend at least a little money on advertising.


I dont know, I have been buying and selling on ebay since my freshan year in HS. I think you would make more money selling to local small businesses that you would on eBay.

 

[Dynamic Apparel]

I am also a student working on starting up a t shirt brand. At this point I am not really expecting to make a lot of money, but I am selling shirts, and my numbers keep climbing One thing that I have learned is that getting things printed and marketing has ended up being more expensive than I was originally expecting so my best advice is to continue researching and write up a business plan. Having a solid direction is extremely helpful and putting together a business plan can really help with organization and setting realistic goals

 

[selzler]

Hi guys I'm one of the people that sell at or below cost on ebay. The reason for it is advertising my website. When people buy I send the item and a full size piece of paper with my website on it. My website is were the money use to be but that is very slow. I would try some thing. We have and it works go talk to a shopping mall and see if you can setup on weekends to sell your shirts. We have two mall that will let you do that here and charge $75 for Fri, Sat,Sun and it works great. Plus you can pickup custom orders.

 

[badalou]

I am going to pop your bubble.. realistically you are not going to make $2000 a month because if that is profit then you need to make at least $5,000 in sales. You don't make 100 shirts and expect to sell them. That may be 100 shirts that will sit in a box in your home. I know I have 2 boxes with that many in them and I have been doing them awhile. Now.. do you have a design? Then make some samples of the designs. Show them to stores, friends. You need to start slow. Get a job then put some money away for equipment. Take control of your business from the start. I have a saying you need to set the table before you eat. Don't get me wrong fern. I want you to succeed. What makes you think the screen printers are over priced? What do you want to pay. If you had equipment then you could work with plastisol transfers and make your shirts as you sell them instead of spending money on inventory. Just me... Lou

 

[BlackAndOrange]

I too am going to re-pop your bubble. 2,000 bucks profit is A LOT of money considering that you:
1) are pre-printing [and pre-buying] your inventory.
2) are brand new to this
3) dont even have a printer/supplier lined up yet.

I do not agree with the folks that are trying to steer you clear of ebay. I lived off of ebay for over 4 years now and $2,000 profit in a month is not far fetched at all. My numbers were roughly similar to the numbers given above [$8 cost, $16-$18 sale price] and I could sell 50 shirts a week without breaking a sweat. My lowest selling week was Week #1 and in that first week, I sold 37 shirts. Every week from then on was anywhere from 55-115 shirts. Speaking about my own experience, the best thing that I did was to constantly add new designs. I dont suggest starting with 10 designs and then letting them sit for 6 months and wonder why they arent selling. You wont get repeat business if everytime someone looks at your shirts, they see the same thing over and over.
Another tip, know when to call it quits on a particular design. If a design isn't selling, dont be afraid to take it out of the mix and replace it with something else.


Most of all, I want to stress how much you should think about doing the print work yourself. You lower your cost while simultaneously becoming a double threat [you make your own shirts as well as take orders for custom jobs]. Contracting the work out to another printer may be fine if you only want to sell 1 or 2 designs in your spare time, but if you want to make $2,000 a month and become a legitimate t-shirt vendor [on ebay], you're going to have a near impossible time doing that unless you're doing the work yourself.

 

[Colorfast]

$2000 is a lofty goal when starting out. If you have no or limited funds but believe your designs will sell then go to Cafe Press or another similar company. I have tried Ebay a few times and all the fee's eat into profits.

If you have enough funds purchase a heta press and have plstisol transfers made for you. This allows you to purchase shirts as needed in the right size and colors.

Good luck but I would not count on $2K to start with.

 

[tshirtsep]

Can you make some decent money starting small in a month? Atleast $1500 to $2000 in profits.

And do you know any good cheap screen printers in New York?

...Thanx I guess there is no such thing as a good cheap screen printer but I was looking for somebody who knows that I wanna sell shirts too and make a profit lol.

Yes, you can earn $2,000... or you can earn $10,000... or you can earn $0... or you can lose money if noone buys your shirts you paid to have printed.

I'm starting a screenprinting / design business in NY right now so I might be more affordable than established shops but since it is a business, I have to make a profit for my services so it probably won't be "cheap" enough for a jobless college student... sorry...

 

[Mar]

Congrats on the start-up. Interesting to see how your venture unfolds.

Btw, do you do internationally?

 

[studog79]

For those in college give me an email, I have a proposal for you that I've been thinking about for quite a while.

 

[Ceejay]

Hi Fern, I can understand your situation, and my suggestion would be to have a DTG printer do a couple of your designs, and then get feedback from that. At least that way you will know which designs work or not with a lot less outlay. You can also have shorter turnaround times and use service as a selling tool.
I hope this helps.

 

[iMan]

For those in college give me an email, I have a proposal for you that I've been thinking about for quite a while.

you can just send us a personal message on here

 

[MrBackSlap]

Whoa alot of bubble bursting lol , but I see where you guys are coming from and thanx for the heads up.

Im still trying to learn as much as I can on the process of making your T-shirt become a reality. After reading your posts I might start out even smaller just to test the waters. 50 pieces with 2 designs 25 a piece with each design and give myself 2 weeks to sell 50 shirts. I figure if I cant sell that in 2 weeks I might aswell give up.

Maybe $2000 in profits is a little far fetched but im looking to make atleast $1000 a month in profits atleast.

I got some good ideas on who to sell too and how to sell im not making Ebay my only option but its a option aswell.

If I am successful I might look into getting my own equipment in the future to cut out the middle man.

Still dont know everything I need to know but im sure the more I read the forum the more I learn. Hopefully you'll see more of me asking more questions.