# making t-shirt website / dreamweaver?



## fresh (May 1, 2006)

i have been planning on starting my own website that sells tees that people can choose what to write on them knd of like t shirt junkie but i would be offering more colors and shirt variations. how should i go about creating my website i am now veru good with coding and many people have suggested dreamweaver is it a good program?


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## TeeShirtSamurai (Feb 8, 2006)

*Re: a few questions*

You have 57 posts, you know better than to ask a question before searching! 

Dreamweaver is an excellent program and is recommended by many people on the forums (including me). I would definitely check it out.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

It sounds like you would need some sort of back-end programming to handle customization of the t-shirts by your customers.

Dreamweaver is a good program for designing, but it sounds like you'll need PHP/mysql or ASP to do something that allows people to customize and upload designs.



> my own website that sells tees that people can choose what to write on them


If you are creating a service like cafepress (design and buy) or spreadshirt, or zazzle, you're going to be up against some big players. Hopefully you have a niche and marketing plan in mind to help you stand out from the big guys.


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## tcrowder (Apr 27, 2006)

Someone posted a link once before that I saw, it was for a pre-made software program just for shirts. Sorry can't remember the thread it was in.

Terry


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## tcrowder (Apr 27, 2006)

Here it is

infogatesoftware.com

Terry


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

Rodney said:


> It sounds like you would need some sort of back-end programming to handle customization of the t-shirts by your customers.
> 
> Dreamweaver is a good program for designing, but it sounds like you'll need PHP/mysql or ASP to do something that allows people to customize and upload designs.
> 
> ...


well they wont be able to upload their own desgins.. strictly text


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

You should outsource everything.


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

Solmu said:


> You should outsource everything.


what do you mean?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

fresh said:


> what do you mean?


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=outsource


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## RAHchills (Aug 28, 2005)

Solmu said:


> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=outsource


lol

Fresh, do you have a particular market in mind?


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

RAHchills said:


> lol
> 
> Fresh, do you have a particular market in mind?


WOULD THE MARKET WOULD BE ANYONE..WHETHER IT BE ADVERTISING FOR THEMSELVES A BAND OR JUST THE FEELING OF HAVING A SHIRT WITH YOUR OWN TEXT.


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## RAHchills (Aug 28, 2005)

fresh said:


> WOULD THE MARKET WOULD BE ANYONE..WHETHER IT BE ADVERTISING FOR THEMSELVES A BAND OR JUST THE FEELING OF HAVING A SHIRT WITH YOUR OWN TEXT.


So what will differentiate you from CafePress, Spreadshirt, or Zazzle? I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do it, I'm just wondering what your angle is in providing a service that already exists and is pretty competitive?


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

RAHchills said:


> So what will differentiate you from CafePress, Spreadshirt, or Zazzle? I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do it, I'm just wondering what your angle is in providing a service that already exists and is pretty competitive?


from what i saw with cafepress you can customize a shirt but you upload your images or whatever. my site will be more like t-shirtjunkie.com you can just type in the text add things like hearts and its all on the site no uploading.also i will offer more types of tees colors and fonts.


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

I smell a chunk of money and a black, black hole.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> from what i saw with cafepress you can customize a shirt but you upload your images or whatever. my site will be more like t-shirtjunkie.com you can just type in the text add things like hearts and its all on the site no uploading.also i will offer more types of tees colors and fonts.


What you described is EXACTLY what Spreadshirt.com does with its spreadshirt designer. Any customer can type text, choose from uploaded vector graphics, a wide variety of garments and colors. Other online companies do the same thing.

Not trying to burst your bubble, but from the range of questions you've asked and the type of business you're looking to create, you may want to check out your competitors first and see if your budget will be able to pull it off.


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

well this whole site is people talking about tees they make and t-shirt businesses they want to start and there are a lot of those on the web but that is not stopping anyone from still going for it..i just wanted to know if one can use dreamweaver for this type of website where people can type in there own text no uploading images.


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## tcrowder (Apr 27, 2006)

You need to go to www.elance.com oranother site such as that and post the project you want. Let the coders figure it out for you. They have sites or programs already made up to show you I bet.


Terry


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

fresh said:


> well this whole site is people talking about tees they make and t-shirt businesses they want to start and there are a lot of those on the web but that is not stopping anyone from still going for it..i just wanted to know if one can use dreamweaver for this type of website where people can type in there own text no uploading images.


Yes, of course you can use Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is just a conduit for coding.

Now, that fact you have to *ask* if you can use Dreamweaver suggests that you're not going to be able to put the site together yourself, so you'll have to hire someone to build it for you, which makes the question of whether to use Dreamweaver or not a little moot.


And there's a big difference between what you are aiming to do and what most here do. Most here sell unique designs (online and offline, but products you can't get anywhere else), or make up orders for events and functions etc. What you're trying to do is *exactly* like several big companies with $500,000 in equipment.

How are you going to compete? Be cheaper? Better customer service?

The problem is, these companies are very good at what they do, and I get the impression you may be a long way from gaining the skills you'd need to compete.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> well this whole site is people talking about tees they make and t-shirt businesses they want to start and there are a lot of those on the web but that is not stopping anyone from still going for it


Nobody wants to stop you from "going for it". This forum is here to help. However, sometimes help comes in the forum of sharing experience with others and asking hard questions to make sure the person fully understands the business model.

CafePress already existed, but Zazzle still started and was able to gain market share. CafePress and Zazzle existed, but spreadshirt started and was able to gain market share. Both those companies gained market share with a VERY large budget and lots of staff.

The questions you've asked have been about which method is the cheapest.

I think with the right niche or regional marketing, it's still possible to succeed. Heck, there are 100's of screen printers on the web doing OK.

Like badalou says often (badalouism #47 I believe it is ), you also have to have a business plan. I wouldn't feel right just giving out answers on all the equipment without asking about the business side of things. I hate to see anybody fail. So my questions aren't to discourage you, but to get you thinking about how you will succeed. 



> i just wanted to know if one can use dreamweaver for this type of website where people can type in there own text no uploading images


To answer your question. No. Dreamweaver only designs the layout (look and feel) of the site. You'll need programming to handle people typing in text on a t-shirt and saving it and sending it to you so you know what to print. It could probably be done with a shopping cart like cubecart.com (free) with a little modification/editing, cubecart can ask for a text input when the customer is adding a product (t-shirt) to the shopping cart. This can tell you what to print on the t-shirt, but it wouldn't be interactive like the customer seeing the text on the t-shirt. That would require more backend programming like from the script linked to earlier in this thread.


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## fresh (May 1, 2006)

thanks rodney i know that it might be tough but i really think i can do seeing how i cant really put a site together i am most likely going to have to hire someone to do it but what i dont understand is how this would go about happening i know i can find one on the web or at school but once they put it together how would i maintain and update it would i need to know about computers ?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

fresh said:


> would i need to know about computers ?


Running a website is generally easier if you know how to operate a computer, yes.


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## RAHchills (Aug 28, 2005)

fresh said:


> thanks rodney i know that it might be tough but i really think i can do seeing how i cant really put a site together i am most likely going to have to hire someone to do it but what i dont understand is how this would go about happening i know i can find one on the web or at school but once they put it together how would i maintain and update it would i need to know about computers ?


you're probably going to need a lot of money to do what it sounds like you're trying to do, which is:

Pay to create an interactive site
Pay to maintain an interactive site
Pay to host an interactive site (you'll definitely need some bandwidth for it)

And we haven't even started to talk about how you're going to make your product. (I'm assuming you'd be outsourceing that as well, but its only an assumption.) Screenprinting one off designs isn't cheap, if you were planning on screenprinting. Plus you'll need a grip of money to market your site against the sizeable competition that has been mentioned.

I'm not saying all this to discourage you, as obviously its possible to do, and you can do whatever you want... because its a free country.  I think you just really need to look at your endeavor in terms of: 

TIME
MONEY
QUALITY 

and pick any two from the list. It seems to me like you're going to have to put a quality site together that is going to cost a lot of money and won't be up anytime soon, to be remotely competitive. 

Which leads to the question, what makes you want to go this route?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> i am most likely going to have to hire someone to do it but what i dont understand is how this would go about happening i know i can find one on the web or at school but once they put it together how would i maintain and update it would i need to know about computers ?


Sometimes a person can design a site to make it easy to update for a person without webdesign skills. Otherwise, you would have to hire someone to design it, hire someone to maintain it every month, etc.


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## Despotte (Jun 2, 2006)

I recently saw a "new" company )not one of the three or four already mentioned and they had just designed a new code that does this type of thing they are trying it out not because they have the money but because they have the time and technical skills (it seemed like the coding was this guys challenge) anyway it looked like he was going to do well enough to at least justify his time in coding the product. Anyway his code may be for sale for others to use cheap. I will see if I can find them again if so I will let you know. (I believe his code integrated with Cafepress so most of the logistical stuff previously mentioned would be taken care of) the idea was the code allowed the customer to design a shirt, pay for it, then upload it to the guys host computer this computer was then automated to send the design to CP create a free shop upload the image order it and send it out to the customer really quite nifty even if still in testing stage)


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## printchic (Apr 3, 2006)

Hi Fresh,

As everyone has mentioned you can design your site "the visual part" they call the "Front End" in programming terms using Dreamweaver.

However if you want to have customers type in information, select graphics, etc. and then "PREVIEW" what they entered/selected you'll have to have some "programming" to work in the background. So simply put you'll need "a backend" system written for you using PHP/MYSQL, Flash, ASP or Java. It all depends on what programming language you wish it done it as to the cost involved. If you have no programming experiences then you'll need to hire someone. As someone suggested there are several sites you can "hire a programmer" to do the job.

Beware when hiring someone as I've seen a lot of horrow stories. I've seen mentioned a program by "Infogate". Please do research on that company on the "freelance" sites as if my memory serves me right several people have complained that they have had bad experience with the sellers of that program.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Despotte said:


> the idea was the code allowed the customer to design a shirt, pay for it, then upload it to the guys host computer this computer was then automated to send the design to CP create a free shop upload the image order it and send it out to the customer really quite nifty even if still in testing stage)


Does CP allow private shops? Or would this be a potential security/privacy hole? (i.e. in theory anyone could find the customer's design and buy it, even though it was meant to be a one-off)


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Does CP allow private shops?


Yes, you can make whole shops private or just sections of a shop private. Not password protected, but there would be no way to find the URL unless you told someone.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Cool, well that answers that then


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## Despotte (Jun 2, 2006)

Rodney said:


> Yes, you can make whole shops private or just sections of a shop private. Not password protected, but there would be no way to find the URL unless you told someone.


From what I understand Even Google and other Spiders (i guess they include a robot.txt file) will not crawl a page that is Marked Hidden on CP


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## dub3325 (Jun 7, 2006)

If you are really interested in learning dreamweaver, and dont have the income and/or time to take a course on it, then I would suggest you check out www.Lynda.com. 

They offer video tutorials of everything front end to back end. If you really wanted to put the time and effort into researching how to do this on your own, I would definitely take a look at it. If you don't want to pay the fee, an alternate route would be to find the torrents, but I will not go into that since it isnt really appropriate for this forum.

I've learned all my backend programming from that site. Dreamweaver is easy to learn, however, it is extremely difficult to master all aspects of it and how you can use it.

Simple HTML will not cut it these days, with css3 around the corner, you will need to know in depth dreamweaver and not just tabling (I know my site below is table built, I'm a hypocrit lol). 

Just an FYI....if you plan on outsourcing the website with a cms...get ready to take out a hefty loan.


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## infogatesoftware (Jun 29, 2006)

printchic said:


> Beware when hiring someone as I've seen a lot of horrow stories. I've seen mentioned a program by "Infogate". Please do research on that company on the "freelance" sites as if my memory serves me right several people have complained that they have had bad experience with the sellers of that program.


My feedback is listed at
http://www.getafreelancer.com/users/feedback_63952.html
In this open world of internet, anyone may write anything about YOU or ME. Just see a demo to believe.

Kumar


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## printchic (Apr 3, 2006)

Your statement is about the same thing Amazingscripts.com said in another post. You both seem to sell the exact same program(s) and seem to have some affiilation per your domain information and what your info says on each site.

As per Rodney the topic about infogatesoftware.com aka (possibly) amazingscripts.com is closed. 

I still say people need to beware of who they buy from and "research, research, research" the company


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

This topic is closed.


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