# What Should I Do? I've got 21 designs to start out with - that's a lot of inventory



## zymerguyer (Feb 15, 2007)

Okay, my site's going live on April 1st and I'm going to start printing all of my shirts that I've got on the site now. The thing is I want to buy my shirts in dozens so I can get a $2 discount per shirt, but I've got 21 designs to start out with and with my math that'll add up to $3,744 to buy S-M-L-XL a dozen each for all of my shirts. I don't have that kind of scratch, so my question is: Should I scale back my designs and start off with 7 or so, or should I keep them all and order shirts as the orders come in and tell my customers it'll be an extra week? (I don't want to do the latter at all)
What do you guys think?

-Travis


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## marlo45 (Oct 4, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

I was in the same situation as you are. After i read a few threads on popular sizes, I just decided to start out with 12 designs (i have 80+ ideas), 3M, 5L, 3XL of each, because that's all i can afford right now.

I bought all my shirts at Wholesale Blank Shirts - JiffyShirts.com and they are super fast with shipping. Got my clear plastic bags from Boxes, Shipping Boxes, Shipping Supplies, Packaging Materials, Cardboard Boxes - ULINE, and now i'm almost done printing my designs.

Are you screen printing or heat pressing? If heat pressing, you'll be able to print to order (you can get shirts in 3 days or less), if not, i wouldn't advise you to take that route. The setup and cleanup wouldn't make you profitable unless, like you said, you extend the shipping time and let buyers aware. I know that's how T-Shirt Hell does it since they only offer black shirts for fast shipping. Everything else will come in 2 weeks. That is enough time to take orders, group them, print them, then ship out by the end of the second week.


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## prometheus (Oct 19, 2006)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

Are you going to have the shirts printed ahead of time (screened) or are you going to press them as orders come in? Tom me, without a a lot of start-up, I would cut my designs down to the best 7 or so. Have them plastisol printed and then get a mixed set of shirts. When an order comes in, press it, ship it out and use the money to get more shirts and such. 

One thing to remember, even though your site goes live on April 1st, your sales may not. They may even take a while (months) to get going. You probably won't sell every design in every sized shirt. So you don't need all of them printed in every size, color, etc.


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## zymerguyer (Feb 15, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

Yeah, I probably won't sell very much right away. I think my designs are awesome, but I'm not very good with SEO and I'm not even on the google list yet. I'm using American Apparel. I forgot that T-shirt Hell does use that method with various colored shirts. Maybe that won't be such a bad thing to start out adding time to get the order out and just letting the customer know. I screen print everything in house and will have seperate screens for each design, so when I get an order I think I'll be able to maybe order a dozen of the size and color the customer wants, set up the screens and print a dozen instead of just one. 
-Travis


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

Where are you ordering your AA's from?


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## zymerguyer (Feb 15, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

I have a wholesale account set up through AA and I order them right off the site. Their shirts really are amazing!


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

That's what I thought.

I use them, too.

I have a wholesale account through them as well, but I also have an account with TSC Apparel.

They are a distributor for AA, and I think you could get your shirts a lot faster from them. They have a warehouse in Ohio.

My guess is that you may be able to get them cheaper than through AA, also.

Check them out at TSC Apparel

Set up a wholesale account, and see how the shipping and pricing works out for you.


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## zymerguyer (Feb 15, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

Cool, I think I'll do that, Thanks.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

Another thought on the heat transfer route. You can gang designs on transfers if they're small enough. For instance, my prints are about 6"by 6" so I could have 6 designs ganged on 1 large sheet and then cut them apart. Last order I got was 24 sheets at around $60 with shipping. Those were one color but 6 per sheet comes out to 42 cents per design and I could print them as the orders come in, taking into account what Marlo was saying about ordering the shirts as the orders came as well.


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## Titchimp (Nov 30, 2006)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

I would start off with fewer designs, this also allows you to spend more time at the beggining to concentrate on the selling and customer service but also release a few new designs now and then (also gives you a cushion if you go through a dry spell on the old creativity side)


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## BSApparel (Nov 6, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

I screen print my own plastisol transfers in bulk, so I don't have to set up/clean the machine every time an order comes in - I just fire up the heat press.


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## -Q- (Nov 8, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

If it were me, id only come out with a few designs at a time. For lack of better words, you don't wanna put all your "goodies" out there all at once. Put some of your best ones out first, and tell customers to check back in for new, updated designs. It keeps them interested and wondering.

Im not even close to getting my shirts out, but thats one of the many things i've already pondered. good luck


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## sonambulo (Sep 22, 2007)

*Re: What Should I Do?*

like said, stick to about half dozen initially cause it'll tell you if you have a market if those sell. if they dont , you know to revamp your 'ideology/philosophy.' and of course print sizes that pertain to your market


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## OriginX (Feb 21, 2007)

I had this exact same question and I found several answers here. Thanks to all who posted!


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## BSApparel (Nov 6, 2007)

I posted up a few posts that I print my own transfers. Well I did, until I had a few orders and wasn't able to apply them correctly. I spent the next week trying to make transfers that printed well and transfered well with almost no success, and now I'm back to printing individual designs. It's VERY hard to make your own transfers I've learned, so it's definitely not for everyone.

To make it easier on myself, I am only printing on the weekends now, which means that I can print all of the weeks orders of each design at the same time, so I only have to keep about 15 screens in stock. I still print in bulk, because I do all of the week's orders of design A, then all of the orders of design B, etc. This way I don't have to set up/clean up the machine for each individual order that comes in, and I don't need to keep 200+ screens in inventory - I just make screens for the week's orders. If I run out of screens, I reclaim a few after I'm done printing a design, and use them for the next one.

With a high-turnover business one weekend probably isn't enough time to print all of the orders, but it works for me for the time being.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

BSApparel said:


> I posted up a few posts that I print my own transfers. Well I did, until I had a few orders and wasn't able to apply them correctly. I spent the next week trying to make transfers that printed well and transfered well with almost no success, and now I'm back to printing individual designs. It's VERY hard to make your own transfers I've learned, so it's definitely not for everyone.
> 
> To make it easier on myself, I am only printing on the weekends now, which means that I can print all of the weeks orders of each design at the same time, so I only have to keep about 15 screens in stock. I still print in bulk, because I do all of the week's orders of design A, then all of the orders of design B, etc. This way I don't have to set up/clean up the machine for each individual order that comes in, and I don't need to keep 200+ screens in inventory - I just make screens for the week's orders. If I run out of screens, I reclaim a few after I'm done printing a design, and use them for the next one.
> 
> With a high-turnover business one weekend probably isn't enough time to print all of the orders, but it works for me for the time being.


Aaron, what kind of turn around do you tell your customers to expect? Do you have somewhere that orders will ship something like 4-10 days from order placement?
I'll be outsourcing my orders and was wondering about what to add for my site.


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## BSApparel (Nov 6, 2007)

Yeah exactly, my FAQ's say that orders will ship within 7 business days, but usually sooner. That leaves me plenty of time in case I have a busy week - I can stretch a Monday order out until Tuesday of the next week if I really have to.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

Good to know. I'm assuming that your customers don't have a problem with that. Have your customers left any feedback for you? I guess on most commercial websites the typical turn around is 5-7 days.


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## BSApparel (Nov 6, 2007)

Haven't heard anything good or bad, not sure how it affects my sales though. At this point I don't really have another way to do it, but it works well enough for now.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

Well, I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it!


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## jboitcet (Oct 7, 2006)

BSApparel said:


> I posted up a few posts that I print my own transfers. Well I did, until I had a few orders and wasn't able to apply them correctly. I spent the next week trying to make transfers that printed well and transfered well with almost no success, and now I'm back to printing individual designs. It's VERY hard to make your own transfers I've learned, so it's definitely not for everyone.
> 
> To make it easier on myself, I am only printing on the weekends now, which means that I can print all of the weeks orders of each design at the same time, so I only have to keep about 15 screens in stock. I still print in bulk, because I do all of the week's orders of design A, then all of the orders of design B, etc. This way I don't have to set up/clean up the machine for each individual order that comes in, and I don't need to keep 200+ screens in inventory - I just make screens for the week's orders. If I run out of screens, I reclaim a few after I'm done printing a design, and use them for the next one.
> 
> With a high-turnover business one weekend probably isn't enough time to print all of the orders, but it works for me for the time being.


Do you mind giving us an update on how your business is going? Are you still printing on the weekend? Did you get transfers down (lick the art of transfers)? I'm dying to know. It's like a soap opera.


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## pikeman (May 2, 2008)

*Re: What Should I Do?*



Comin'OutSwingin said:


> That's what I thought.
> 
> I use them, too.
> 
> ...


Actually, if you use TSC Apparel not only do they offer free freight on all American Apparel orders over $200 but if you order from their web site you also get case pricing on orders over $200. Their case pricing is comparable to AA's case pricing!


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## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

jboitcet said:


> Do you mind giving us an update on how your business is going? Are you still printing on the weekend? Did you get transfers down (lick the art of transfers)? I'm dying to know. It's like a soap opera.


That's actually my roomate - he's still printing over the weekends, but has adopted my method of using Vinyl over the screens that we make with a Roland GX-24 cutter, which allows screens to be made much faster and cheaper than using emulsion. So the orders have increased but the production time has decreased so for now he's still ok printing on just the weekends.

I print a few days out of the week and also use Vinyl to make most of my screens instead of emulsion - very accurate registration, half the work and cleaning the screen is as simple as washing off the ink and pulling the vinyl. Of course we can't keep screens "exposed" and use them over and over again, but for medium sized operations like ours it works perfectly. We're not endlessly coating/exposing/reclaiming screens, and we don't have to keep 200+ screens in inventory because the time it takes to clear a screen and set it up for a new design is minimal. For high detail work we use emulsion still, but for most of our stuff, especially the stuff I sell on my site, vinyl works great.

Just my .02


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## Basikboy (Aug 28, 2007)

Did you guys copyright all your designs first? I sell almost exactly the same way as everyone else on here but I am just now going through the whole copyright thing even though most of my designs are text based and probably will not qualify for copyright.


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