To Buy or Not to Buy...What makes you buy?...

Re: Influences and You!

VooDoo27 said:

If you had to pick A, B, or C...
What influences you most when purchasing a Tee??

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Definitely the design. Although more and more I've found myself tempted to buy branded t-shirts (e.g. a Johnny Cupcakes heavily branded shirt) as sort of an industry pride thing. I haven't crossed that threshold yet though.

VooDoo27 said:

B. The originality of it, being one of only a handful of people that have that particular shirt.

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This sort of happens at a level above influencing the purchase. It's a simple binary switch.

A limited edition won't particularly entice me to buy, but I simply won't buy anything mass produced. That's one of the reasons I'm liking Threadless less and less. Every time I see someone walking down the street wearing a Threadless tee I cringe - purely because familiarity breeds contempt (I'm not saying it's rational, it's just an instinctive reaction I can't help).

So production quantity is a purchasing test that a brand simply passes/fails. Passing it doesn't make it any more likely that I'll purchase (except in that it is technically possible), failing it guarantees that I won't.

As a point of reference, Threadless are on the cusp.

VooDoo27 said:

In regards to everyones responses...

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If you're trying to do market research, bear in mind that most of us have a pretty warped purchasing perspective.

VooDoo27 said:

'Message Tees' are a dime a dozen..so do you lean more towards crazy/insult/funny sayings or positive messages?

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When I went for message shirts I went for something humorous that expressed something about myself (e.g. geek humour), preferably with an inside joke.

I've never been a fan of insult tees, and personally I hate (most of) those positive life affirmation t-shirts (Life is Good and so on). I consider both obnoxious.

VooDoo27 said:

As for the type of design...are you into a more full coverage of the front or back...or a design in a smaller scale centered on the T??

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Either. Not a fan of back prints unless they closely tie into the front print.

VooDoo27 said:

Drop your thoughts...!!

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I hardly ever buy t-shirts anymore. When I do, it's often because it's a really nice illustration that I couldn't have pulled off myself. In other words, I buy t-shirts I wish I was selling.

If I admire, envy or respect a designer, I'm more likely to buy their stuff. Again, that's the industry pride thing.

When I was buying t-shirts regularly humour was a primary factor, but they also had to be well designed. I particularly liked amusing and well designed shirts from webcomics.

One of my favourite shirts is still a limited edition Cat & Girl shirt. That was a combination of esoteric humour, being a reference to something I like (the webcomic) an injoke (also the webcomic), a well designed illustration, a simple bold screenprint, and on a shirt colour I like that is severely underutilised (brown).