[Rodney]

there were successful t-shirt designs available for purchase and printing. is this true? i mean, tried and true designs that people can buy, put on their own shirts, and sell?

Places like www.proworldinc.com sell stock t-shirt design transfers in a wide variety of categories with popular themes/saying/pictures. They can be easily adhered to a t-shirt with a heat press.

People do this all the time. You just have to have a unique way of marketing it, since a lot of people are doing the same thing.

 

[Rodney]

also, i know some folks mentioned that sales go up for xmas. is that for specifically xmas shirts or just in general?

sales in general go up around the holidays.

how can you tell which ones are "top selling"? what's the standard? and are these graphics and/or slogans so popular that people will look specifically for them?

Sometimes the site selling the transfers might label them as "popular". Sometimes you just know from "seeing" the t-shirts out alot in the "real world"

Many t-shirt designs are searched for by a specific name (or a specific description). But since there are so many people selling some of those designs, I don't know if "search engine marketing" would be a good place to do your major marketing if you plan on selling the popular transfers. You could give it a shot, but I wouldn't make it your whole marketing plan.

For your own unique designs, search engine marketing should definitely be part of your plans