# how long did it take for you guys to break even with your sales?



## blankCLOTHING (Feb 20, 2008)

Hey, I just have a few questions about starting up my clothing line....

First of all I am very new to this, I am good with design so I decieded to try and sell a few of them on my shirts. I am also not too bad in the buisness department as well, haha. I deal with diffrent online sales a lot. 

I am trying to establish my brand as a street fashion label, selling to mostly 18-25 year olds. I am starting out very small right now since I am at a small budget. 

I have an order of 12 right now of the same design. Once I get those in, I will be getting diffrent colors and designs done. I will probably end up with 3-4 designs and a total of 60-80 shirts. 

To the more experienced members on here, how long did it take for you guys to break even with your sales? 

Also, how long did it take to get a sale on your website or to open a website? Who designed your website or how did you design it? 

I already have 2 online sales and a few offline. I am looking to get a website, I already have a domain, but I have no idea how to design a legitimate looking page. 

I probably have more questions, but I can't think at the moment, haha. Any thoughts or comments at where im at is appreciated. Well hope you can help me out, thanks!


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## pukingdeserthobo (Jun 3, 2008)

> To the more experienced members on here, how long did it take for you guys to break even with your sales?


 i have been up for 6 months and not even close to breaking even.



> Also, how long did it take to get a sale on your website or to open a website? Who designed your website or how did you design it?


took about a month  (online )
i use bigcartel


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## TeesForChange (Jan 17, 2007)

I broke even within the first month and sold out of my initial run of shirts within the month. It took me about a month to design my website (did it myself at first), but then after a few months when I started to add more products, I realized that I needed a real shopping cart system and hired someone to design my website. Once that happened, sales took off even more! It pays to invest in having a professional looking website and photos. Good luck!


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> how long did it take for you guys to break even with your sales?


Within a few months I think. Less than a year for sure.

It will totally vary though based on your marketing and advertising efforts.



> Also, how long did it take to get a sale on your website or to open a website?


About a day or so.

You can get sales before your site launches or you can not get a sale in 3+ years. Again, it goes back to how well you market and advertise your t-shirts.



> Who designed your website or how did you design it?


If you'd like specific web designer recommendations, please feel free to post in our Referrals and Recommendations area.



> Any thoughts or comments at where im at is appreciated. Well hope you can help me out, thanks!


This is a good place to start: start related topics at T-Shirt Forums


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## blankCLOTHING (Feb 20, 2008)

Thanks for all the replies guys, its good to see all the diffrent answers and that you guys did good in your first few months. 

Would you guys recomend opening a bigcartel site? I would use my own domain, instead of the .bigcartel one.


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## zainejaz (Oct 17, 2010)

Got in 1 year!!!!


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## zainejaz (Oct 17, 2010)

it's always better to open with your own name1 however, I would like suggest keywords related name!


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## lincolnapparel (Nov 21, 2009)

It took me about 8 months to break even (largely due to local selling efforts that began at that time).

It took me about 2 months to get my first sale on my website. I designed and coded my website myself. It took me about a week to get the whole thing up and running initially, and I've gradually added features to it since I launched it a little over a year ago.


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## Redangie (Oct 22, 2010)

blankCLOTHING said:


> Hey, I just have a few questions about starting up my clothing line....
> 
> First of all I am very new to this, I am good with design so I decieded to try and sell a few of them on my shirts. I am also not too bad in the buisness department as well, haha. I deal with diffrent lingerie online sales a lot.
> 
> ...



Designs and coder- freelancer.com, post a job or something, dont design it your self let someone else do it who has more eperience. 

1. Do you have merchant account? Or will you just accept paypal?
2.You want to make an e-commerce website so need a shoppingcart platform. I use Oscommerce.

3. You breaking even depends on how much time you put into your business to tweak your site and how well you market.

I spent about 2k lingerie when i first started and I was able to pull in 5K+ from that, marketing on facebook etc and testing stuff on my website like buttons etc. Google has a whole range of tools like their google website optimizer and google analytics. 

Really need to concentrate on these things to go into profit and absolutely make a killing because honestly, theres a lot of noobs out their that are too lazy. This market is wide open


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## blankCLOTHING (Feb 20, 2008)

Redangie said:


> Designs and coder- freelancer.com, post a job or something, dont design it your self let someone else do it who has more eperience.
> 
> 1. Do you have merchant account? Or will you just accept paypal?
> 2.You want to make an e-commerce website so need a shoppingcart platform. I use Oscommerce.
> ...


I will be accepting paypal and other options through bigcartel.com. That is the plan for now, it is a shoping cart platform. It is very simple to use, they just charge a monthly fee. 

I have a few ways to market my site, once it's up. So I'll see how it goes once I start it all up. 

I will look more into those tools once I am a little more settled. Once I get my site, ill be posting it for any suggestions. Thanks for your help!


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## ktbbrand (Jun 11, 2010)

5 months...in person sales > online sales.


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