Online Store - Selling T-shirts
How would you also like to have a business where you can have fun? Making people happy with your t-shirt designs is a blast! How about working part-time from anywhere in the world? Once you get your store set up, you can.
Getting setup
There are some important things you should do in the beginning, like getting a business entity set up and choosing a business name, but we won’t talk about that here because the subject is covered in detail plenty of places on the web and all you have to do is Google it.
Pick a niche
What topic, or subject will your t-shirts cover? What will you focus on? The more specific you are, the better. For example, maybe you want t-shirts for golf pros or coffee lovers. Maybe you are, at heart, a Game of Thrones fan and you want to sell shirts about the show. Pick something you love, because you will be working on your store every day. Don’t pick something you will get tired of in a week.
Your niche will be one of the first things you pick, because it will most likely decide your business name, logo, t-shirt designs, colors, and just about everything else. Choose wisely, but I will say most people know what niche they want right away!
Where will I sell T shirt?
This is a point where you must make some more tough choices. You could choose one of the larger platforms, like Shopify or WordPress, design a store, set up payments, set up your print-on-demand plugins (Printful), and start Selling T-Shirts. Or, you can do what I did and use Teespring.
Teespring is great because you don’t have set up a website — all you do is enter a bit of information, add your designs, and start selling. And if you want to expand, you can even sell other items like coffee mugs and iPhone cases with your designs on them.
Choosing T-shirt design
The great thing about this important step is that you don’t have to be a designer and do it yourself. It’s an easy thing to commission them on 99Designs or Fiverr.com. Make rough drawings and choose a color palette and let the designers do the rest.
I picked a person who advertised t-shirt designs on Fiverr, because when your order is delivered, you should have the design proof and t-shirt mockups. These are the actual files with your design that will go on the t-shirts and sample pictures of what the t-shirts will look like when shipped. You will put these designs in your Teespring store software.
Social media setup
We will go into more detail about social media later, but there are a few things you need to know to launch your store. You need to set up your social media accounts on your chosen platforms, so you have the usernames available to input in your store.
How do you know which social platforms are the best? You should have accounts on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest as they are very visual and great for t-shirts. There may be others you also use like Twitter, but it’s up to you.
Now may also be a good time to start getting comfortable with your platforms of choice because you will be working with them every day. The best places to start if you don’t know anything are tutorials on Teespring and a good old Google search.
This time would be good to set up the branding elements for your social media accounts like covers and profile photos. If you don’t know how to create them, Fiverr is a cheap place to get them done.
Image
Adding T-shirts to your store
After your store is set up, you will want to add t-shirt designs. The process is quite easy.
You’ve already commissioned the designs, so all you have to do is load the image files into the Teespring application software. This process ensures the t-shirts are printed properly. Teespring will generate mockups for you in any color you want — and all you need to do is create descriptions.
Product descriptions are one of the most important things you need to get right to guarantee you get sales. Here some tips to make the most out of your descriptions:
Be specific, be creative, don't forget your audience, stories are best.
Keywords — The use of descriptive keywords will make it easier for people to find you on the search engines, like Google. Phrases like “Khaki men's casual crew neck t-shirt by Andamen
Andamen t-shirt” are closer to what people will search for on Google — even more so than the word “t-shirt.”
Once you load the descriptions in your store application and the rest of the set-up is complete, you are ready to launch your store. This is where the fun begins!
How to make your first sale
After you push the button to launch your store, you can’t let it sit idle and expect it will get sales. You’ve got to get the word out, and the best first place to start is your personal network. Do you have some Facebook or Twitter friends? Can you send out an email to people you know and ask for their opinion on your t-shirts?
Social media marketing is the basic
You will find out social media marketing will generate most of your customers. Be careful about which platforms you chose and do a thorough job on each. It’s better to have three platforms on which you do an amazing job interacting with your customers than to have many and do a poor job on all.
Instagram
The only downside to Instagram is that you can’t put outbound clickable links in your posts, so you must be creative by finding ways for people to interact with you. You can use Linktree and a link in your profile, which is better than nothing. Remember that Instagram is a visual platform, so professional photos and short videos are your bread and butter.
Pinterest
On Pinterest, 2 million people pin products every day. It is a huge platform for pinnable and visual content. This platform will drive a huge amount of traffic for you. Here are some best practices:
Facebook
Facebook the biggest player, but the amount of organic traffic and views to your posts is limited. Facebook will be powerful for you because you can boost posts and run targeted ads. Again, image posts work the best.
Twitter
Twitter is a great platform, even though the life of your tweets is very short. You must find out the times when your audience is on Twitter and time them accordingly. Again, use images wherever possible.
Learn something new about your store and business every day. Try new things. Always be on the lookout for new designs and cool products.
When you do, share your success with others and show them how to start a t-shirt business.
Above all, have fun. Before long, you will make money, so don’t worry.
