# hip hop drop shippers



## saucyfitted (Feb 18, 2010)

dose any one know of any hip hop drop shippers if not..

i would like to partner up with some one.. i will design and sell the shirt and all you have to do is print it for me.. we can go 50/50 on profits.. 
i can get lots of traffic , i am just in need for printing partner


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

saucyfitted said:


> dose any one know of any hip hop drop shippers


There are tons of them, do a google or yahoo search for "hip hip clothing."

But even with a drop shipper, you would need to get the shirts printed yourself. Perhaps you are thinking of a fulfillment service, where you upload your products to a site and they print and ship upon order. If that's the case, check out the "t-shirt fulfillment services" section of the forums, there are plenty to choose from.



saucyfitted said:


> i would like to partner up with some one.. i will design and sell the shirt and all you have to do is print it for me.. we can go 50/50 on profits..
> i can get lots of traffic , i am just in need for printing partner


This may be a tough sell. Printers are in the business of selling their print services, not print for free in hopes that you sell enough to cover the costs and generate profit for them. It's possible that a smaller or newer company may be willing to make a deal, but it's unlikely that an established and reputable printshop will do this.

If you have enough startup funds, just pay to get some shirts printed. Otherwise, you may be better off with a fulfillment service.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

hi saucyfitted,
i'm new to this forum, but have been selling my own t-shirts online for several years, even before sites like cafepress.com came around. 

about a year ago i found a screen printer that i've partnered with to print my shirts on demand and drop ship them out to my customers as they're ordered on my website. which is great because all i have to do then is the marketing, the website maintenance, and monitor the bank transactions. 

i don't mean digital printing, DTG, direct to garment, or anything else. i mean real, professional, traditional screen printing that is the industry standard for retail shirts. 

anyway, i think i can help you out, if i've understood correctly what you're looking for. the screen printer that i've partnered with wants me to send him more business, so i'm building a website for it. problem is, it's against forum guidelines to post this url. 

but i think the new site is exactly what you're looking for - a service that will screen print shirts on demand and drop-ship them to your customers. is that right? 

i guess the only way to get the link to you is through Private Message? send me a PM and i'll send you one back. 

thanks!
blair


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

yodude711 said:


> about a year ago i found a screen printer that i've partnered with to print my shirts on demand and drop ship them out to my customers as they're ordered on my website. which is great because all i have to do then is the marketing, the website maintenance, and monitor the bank transactions.
> 
> i don't mean digital printing, DTG, direct to garment, or anything else. i mean real, professional, traditional screen printing that is the industry standard for retail shirts.


On demand screenprinting and drop shipping? That's a gold mine of a service if it's profitable. I imagine you can find plenty of business to send their way if you hang around the forums enough.



yodude711 said:


> anyway, i think i can help you out, if i've understood correctly what you're looking for. the screen printer that i've partnered with wants me to send him more business, so i'm building a website for it. problem is, it's against forum guidelines to post this url.
> 
> but i think the new site is exactly what you're looking for - a service that will screen print shirts on demand and drop-ship them to your customers.


You can put the URL in your signature or post it in the review section. I'd imagine this is a service that will interest members of the forum. Where is it located?


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

hey! glad you think it's a cool idea. i'm just getting started with it, trying to get the word out. you can now see the links in my signature below. 

the No-Minimum site is up and running, ready to take orders. 

the On-Demand site is still in development, but you can leave your name and email address on the site and we'll let you know when the service is up and running (hopefully within a month). 

sweetness!


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

sorry, forgot to mention, the shirts are printed in and shipped from South Carolina.


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

yodude711 said:


> hey! glad you think it's a cool idea. i'm just getting started with it, trying to get the word out. you can now see the links in my signature below.
> 
> the No-Minimum site is up and running, ready to take orders.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I think it's a cool idea. You make some exciting claims on your site, but you should definitely back it up with some photos of finished product you have done. To really close the sale, showing the results you're capable of would be ideal.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

That's a good idea. I'll make it happen. 

In the meantime, I do have the customer feedback section there from past clients. 

Thanks for the input. I really appreciate it!


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

kimura-mma said:


> I'd imagine this is a service that will interest members of the forum.


$48+ for a single screen printed shirt?


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

splathead said:


> $48+ for a single screen printed shirt?


Sorry, my comment was prior to him adding his signature, so I hadn't seen the site and didn't know the prices at the time.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

splathead said:


> $48+ for a single screen printed shirt?


For the non-wholesale-member pricing on NoMinimum, it's a $35 flat setup fee, $11 for a basic 100% cotton shirt, and $2 for a single 1-color imprint, making $48 for one shirt. 

If you ordered 2 of those shirts, the price goes down to $30.50/shirt. If you ordered 5 of them, the price goes to $20/shirt. 

I just went to CustomInk.com to compare their pricing for their lowest quantity of shirts they will screen print - same type of shirt, same 1-color front imprint, and you'd pay $21.75/shirt for 6 shirts. In other words, the NoMinimum pricing beats CustomInk. 

If you tried to order less than 6 shirts on CustomInk, they make you order DIGITALLY printed shirts for $19.75 each. So if you just want one shirt, you can pay $48 for a professionally screen printed shirt, or $19.75 for a digitally printed shirt. Just depends on what you're looking for. 

If you are a Wholesale Buyer's Club Member on NoMinimum, the maximum bulk discount rate is automatically applied to any size order, so you can get a single shirt for $33.47, and 5 shirts for $11.87/shirt. It's hard to beat that when nobody else will do it. You can check out the wholesale pricing before becoming a member by clicking on "Wholesale Club" in the navbar, and then towards the middle of that page you'll see where to access the Wholesale Demo Shopping Cart. 

Please keep in mind that the NoMinimum site is for people that want to order a shirt design one or two times. I think it's a great service for people that only need to order a few shirts, when no other screen printer would even entertain the idea, am I wrong? 

The OnDemand site will be for people that want to order a particular design over and over again, as you would if you were selling them online. Therefore, the OnDemand site pricing will have a one-time setup fee, and no setup fee for re-orders. The ongoing unit pricing will be in line with, or better than DTG digital printing, depending on how many colors used in your artwork. 

Premium service/convenience = premium pricing.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

yodude711 said:


> For the non-wholesale-member pricing on NoMinimum, it's a $35 flat setup fee, $11 for a basic 100% cotton shirt, and $2 for a single 1-color imprint, making $48 for one shirt.


Listen, more power to you if you can get this kind of pricing. 

Unlike what Tim thought before he had a chance to see your site, I don't see readers here being your market. I also don't see budget shoppers looking for 'no minimums' being your market, not at a starting price point of $48. They'll go to DTG instead; despite its real or perceived inferiority. Or they will ask their local screen printer to match your price:



> If you ordered 2 of those shirts, the price goes down to $30.50/shirt. If you ordered 5 of them, the price goes to $20/shirt.


And if I were a screen printer and a customer came to me to beat your prices I would simply reply: Look, for $60 I can give you 10 screen printed shirts instead of his 2. And for $100, 21 to his 5. How's that for no minimums, Mr. customer?

Even your $48 single item cost is more expensive than the total cost of some shops who have minimums as low as 6. 

My point here is your no-minimum pricing is as high, or higher, than the pricing of shops who have minimums.



> If you are a Wholesale Buyer's Club Member on NoMinimum, the maximum bulk discount rate is automatically applied to any size order, so you can get a single shirt for $33.47, and 5 shirts for $11.87/shirt.


These are lowballed prices because they don't take into account recurring membership fees. If I ordered a single shirt once a month, I am still paying an average of $48 per shirt.



> It's hard to beat that when nobody else will do it.


The market for screening at this price point is larger than you think.

Is there a customer base for your business model? Probably. Your marketing challenge is to determine just who your customer is, and how you are going to get their attention. After you have captured those who mistakenly believe that 'no minimum' means it's the best deal going, how are you going to capture the other 99% of your potential market?


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

Yeah, I see your points, Joe.

I had mentioned earlier that this is a gold mine of a service if profitable. I mentioned that because I was questioning how it could be done at a cost that would allow for a customer to resell at retail and still be competitively priced. After reviewing the price structure, I don't believe that it's realistically possible, especially for startups, which is who I was referring to regarding interest around here.

I still think POD screenprinting is a cool idea, just a bit too expensive and therefore not as beneficial to startup brands as I initially thought.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

Hey Joe,
Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it. 

Regarding the NoMinimum site, the target market is definitely a small one, agreed. The pricing is such that it is as good a price as one can find when just ordering a few shirts. 

Obviously ordering a single shirt at $48 might not make sense for a lot of people, but for some it will make sense. 

Sort of like ordering a Junior size frosty at Wendy's. It might only be $.20 more to get a regular size, but I don't want a regular size - it's more frosty than I care to eat. I want a Junior size, it's just right and it's cheaper. Why pay $.20 more for something I don't want, even if it's a great bargain? My wife pokes me about this every time. 

And to Tim, I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Please know that the pricing on NoMinimum is NOT for people that want to sell t-shirts online. Obviously if you had to pay $48 every time you ordered a single shirt, you couldn't make a profit. Of course!  

The OnDemand site will be for people who want to sell their t-shirts. With a one-time setup fee, you would only pay the unit price for every re-order. While the pricing is still being worked out, here is a preliminary set of prices we are considering, just for discussion's sake: 

$25-30 one-time setup per screen. This essentially "buys" the screen for the use in printing your shirt over and over and over again however many times you want with no more setup/screen fees, whether you order 1 or 10 or 20 at a time. This also ensures that you have some "skin" in the game, and we're not just making up these screens for a shirt that the owner of which will never put any time or effort into the marketing and selling of (and therefore the production of). 

The unit costs will of course vary by shirt type, # of colors, etc. But to compare apples to apples with the above scenarios, a regular 100% cotton shirt (of any color or size) with a single 1-color imprint, would cost around $9. That same regular 100% cotton shirt with two 4-color imprints would be around $17. (Trying to make the pricing make sense, I appreciate any input you have for me about it at this point.)

There are no fulfillment or packaging fees on top of this, just the bare shipping cost, which of course most people pass on to their customer so as not to affect your profit. 

The only other costs for you are the membership fees, which would be somewhere around $17/month. This is simply the price of convenience, and a small amount of money paid every month to make sure you're still in the game and we're not holding screens for you, never to print another shirt for you again. We're considering offering the first month of every membership for $1.95 so people can try out the service for cheap. 

So if you're starting up a t-shirt company, you have 2 options: 

1) You can do it the old fashioned way, the way I did it when I first started out: You pay however much money to invest in an inventory of shirts, making sure you have all the various sizes you'll need, in all the colors you want to sell, hoping that you'll order enough size Mediums as opposed to size Larges so you can be sure to have the right size on hand when a customer comes knocking, hoping that you'll eventually be able to sell all of the shirts you're having printed so you dont' have a box of shirts sitting in your closet for 10 years (I still have shirts from 2002 that will never sell, this is another thing my wife pokes me about)  You spend your weekends doing inventory re-counts so that you can make sure nobody orders a size you don't have in stock. You tie up all your cash/capital in inventory. If you sell the shirt for $20, you might make a profit of $14-15/shirt. But how many shirts will you sell? Will you lose money on the venture because of the sunk inventory costs? 

2) You can get the shirts printed on demand: You might pay more in "setup" or "screen" fees than some printers charge, but how much will it cost you compared to the cost of the previous scenario? With printing on demand, you don't have to invest in an inventoy. You don't have to worry about having the right sizes on hand all the time because you essentially have a "virtual inventory" that never runs out. "Oh, Mr. Customer, you want a 4XL? Yes, we carry that size. Oh, you want a Youth Medium too? Yes, we carry that size as well." You don't have to worry about having inventory left over that might never sell. You don't have to tie up as much capital in purchasing the inventory. Cash is king, don't tie it up in inventory. You don't have to manage any inventory, no need to spend hours doing inventory re-counts (I've been there!). You don't have to do the fulfillment yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. If you sell the shirt for $20, you make a profit of $11/shirt. Of course you need to sell at least 3 shirts to recoup the screen fees you paid ($30), and you need to sell at least 2 shirts a month (really only 1.54 shirts) to recoup the $17/month membership fee. 

Personally, for my own tshirt business, no matter what anybody tries to tell me about how I could be making a higher profit margin if I did it the first way, I will now forever prefer the second way, the on-demand way of running my tshirt business. It just makes a whole lot more sense to me. Maybe I'm lazy, but I hate doing manual labor over and over again like order fulfillment. I hate doing inventory management. All I want to do is keep up my website, do marketing (the most important part), and monitor bank transactions. I might be losing a few dollars per shirt, but that is money well spent in my opinion. 

Again, please, I welcome your input and feedback for all of this. What do you think of the OnDemand pricing? Does it make sense for someone that wants to sell shirts online? I know it does for me, but what about you? Would you prefer option 1 or option 2 for starting a tshirt company? Do you think other people will want this service? 

Thanks in advance for your reply.


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## thatcampguy (Jan 24, 2010)

I agree. This would be a great service. The only problem is the pricing is whacked. $4 for the shirt? The print price is in line with what I have gotten. But the set up and shirt price make this almost impossible to work. Let's take your base price of $48 for a one color shirt, I would need to mark it up to $96 to have a run at making a profitable business venture here. I don't know many people willing to pay $96 for a one color screened shirt. If you know, more power to you


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

yodude711 said:


> The unit costs will of course vary by shirt type, # of colors, etc. But to compare apples to apples with the above scenarios, a regular 100% cotton shirt (of any color or size) with a single 1-color imprint, would cost around $9. That same regular 100% cotton shirt with two 4-color imprints would be around $17. (Trying to make the pricing make sense, I appreciate any input you have for me about it at this point.)


This is where some disconnect starts for me. Granted, I am probably not your target, but I'll continue for devil's advocate sake.

A basic tee with a single 1-color imprint for $9 is too high. There are too many competitive sites retailing basic printed tees for $6-15. So a $9 production cost would drive my retail to $18-20. For that price, I would want a ring spun tee and waterbased/discharge inks. Personally, I believe that to be standard for a $20 t-shirt in today's retail marketplace.

Also, at $9 for a basic printed tee, this eliminates any chance at selling wholesale. Because I would have to wholesale for $18 and then the retail price is driven up to $36. No retailer is going to take that on. Again, it's probably not your market to sell to anyone intending to wholesale, but I still think it's an important part of discussion to understand that using your service eliminates wholesale as a potential revenue stream.



yodude711 said:


> The only other costs for you are the membership fees, which would be somewhere around $17/month. This is simply the price of convenience


I admit there is definitely a level of convenience in the service you are offering. But it seems that you are already charging premium prices for the shirt and printing, so people are already paying for that convenience. And there is a $17/month charge too? Margins are slim as it is without the extra cost to cover.



yodude711 said:


> "Oh, Mr. Customer, you want a 4XL? Yes, we carry that size. Oh, you want a Youth Medium too? Yes, we carry that size as well."


Now this just opened up a whole new can of worms.

Let's say I pay for screens and the design is 14" wide, which fits all mens size shirts. Now I accept an order for that design on a youth medium. But the artwork is too big for that size shirt. Are you charging me for new screens? If so, I'm back to one-off pricing. I'd need to sell more of that design in youth sizes to make back the screen fee again.

And let's say I pay for screens and the design is intended for white t-shirts. Now I accept an order for that design on a black t-shirt. But there is no underbase screen for that design. Are you charging me a full setup fee? Or a pro-rated fee? Either way, my costs just went up again and I need to sell more of this design on black t-shirts to recoup the cost.

So there are certain rules that need to apply, otherwise new fees can be incurred along the way. It's not just an easy "we carry everything" because it's on-demand.



yodude711 said:


> Personally, for my own tshirt business


Are you willing to share a link to your own site? You can PM if you prefer. Maybe it would help understanding the whole picture to see an example of a company's products, quality and price using the on-demand screenprinting service.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

> i don't mean digital printing, DTG, direct to garment, or anything else. i mean real, professional, traditional screen printing that is the industry standard for retail shirts.


Ive read some of your post and what makes you think Screen is 1. the professionals choice and 2. not sold on mainstream markets?. Many Hot Topic Shirts Are digital and I know this cause they own a brother 782 per a sales reps on words.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

WholesalePrint said:


> Ive read some of your post and what makes you think Screen is 1. the professionals choice and 2. not sold on mainstream markets?. Many Hot Topic Shirts Are digital and I know this cause they own a brother 782 per a sales reps on words.


Just because Hot Topic does something doesn't make it mainstream. 

Also, their use of the 782 is not widespread if they are using it for tees. Thanks to my daughter, I'm in that place too d*mn much, and I have never seen a DTG tee for sale. All screen printed. And that would make sense since they have hundreds (?) of stores, so screen print would be the most economical way of decorating 1,000's of the same design.

Blair is correct in his statement. Screen printing is the most professional, mainstream way to decorate and is the industry standard.

Now, if in fact Hot Topic is using DTG on some of their online tees, it brings up another obstacle to Blair's 'dtg is not as good as screen print' argument. And that is a lot of his competition may not even be describing their decoration method when they are advertising custom shirts for $20. Which is why I think many buyers are oblivious to the DTG vs. screen print comparison.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

I've seen DTG shirts in Hot Topic as I have a son who is in love lol with the whole ICP thing ~sigh~ lol.
Non the less I agree for large amounts YES screen print but this may not make the professionals choice as we have been printing shirts that blow past general screenprinted shirts art wise. Now I have see some crazy screenprinted shirts that are off the meters but ratio wise the screnprinted art are generally mediocre


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Man, I'm just realizing, did we hijack this thread or what?


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

lol you aint lying. I give it 3 minutes before The Rod Squad shows up. lol


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

I was thinking the same thing this morning. Didn't stop me from continuing though. I guess since the OP never came back, and the topic was interesting, I figured it was ok. Mods can always split this into two threads if needed.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

thatcampguy said:


> I agree. This would be a great service. The only problem is the pricing is whacked. $4 for the shirt? The print price is in line with what I have gotten. But the set up and shirt price make this almost impossible to work. Let's take your base price of $48 for a one color shirt, I would need to mark it up to $96 to have a run at making a profitable business venture here. I don't know many people willing to pay $96 for a one color screened shirt. If you know, more power to you


Sorry if there has been some confusion. I tried to lay it out in my previous post. I must not have explained very well. 

There are TWO different sites with TWO different pricing structures, each geared towards different buyers. 

The NoMinimum site is for people who just want to order custom printed shirts in low quantities. This is where you will pay (as a non-wholesale-member) a flat $35 setup fee per order, $11 for a 100% cotton shirt, and $2 for a single 1-color imprint. Bulk discounts are applied when minimums are met. The maximum bulk discount is automatically applied to ANY quantity order if you are a wholesale club member. 

The OnDemand site is for people who want to get the same custom shirt printed over and over again, on-demand, and drop-shipped to their customers. In other words, THIS is the site you want if you want to sell custom screen printed shirts online because the pricing is such that it makes sense to do so - one-time setup fees, lower unit costs. 



kimura-mma said:


> A basic tee with a single 1-color imprint for $9 is too high.... So a $9 production cost would drive my retail to $18-20.


I hear what you're saying, however, I disagree. When comparing to DTG providers like MySoti or Cafepress, MySoti tee price is something like $15. Granted that's for full color, and it's not really apples to apples comparison, but when comparing options for POD shirts, that's what there is to compare. 

If you sell a shirt on your website for $20 and it cost you $9, you just made $11 for doing nothing. I'm not sure I understand the problem. Perhaps your overhead? What's the overhead on a website that you build yourself? $4.95/month for hosting? 

Maybe I'm in a unique situation for POD pricing to work with my tshirt retailing sites, but I'd bet there are others out there in my situation, looking for the exact business process I have. 

I could imagine plenty of organizations that would benefit from POD screenprinting even at this price. Org's that don't have t-shirt selling as their main business, but rather just something on the side that adds a little money to their operations, and serves a promotional use as well. For example, churches, schools, charities, and any other type of non-retail business. I think this would be a great way for them to sell shirts because they don't want to mess with inventory, etc. 




kimura-mma said:


> For that price, I would want a ring spun tee and waterbased/discharge inks. Personally, I believe that to be standard for a $20 t-shirt in today's retail marketplace.


I think as someone who knows the different types of shirt printing processes available, you might be more inclined to believe that a $20 price tag necessitates ring-spun tees with discharge inks. But does the average person know this? Do they care? 

Plus, if you run a site that sells one-of-a-kind MMA shirts (not sure if you do, just using as an example) that a customer couldn't buy anywhere else, they would have no choice but to buy your $20 basic tee and be happy about it. Perhaps we've made another interesting point about this whole thing - on-demand printing in general may be better suited for highly niche-oriented shirts as opposed to your average "funny tee" that has a much broader mass market appeal. 

I run two websites that sell t-shirts online, both of which are very niche oriented - jesusisarebel.com and trikeshirts.com . 




kimura-mma said:


> There are too many competitive sites retailing basic printed tees for $6-15.


Regarding other sites retailing basic tees for $6-15, it depends on what type of product they sell. If it's a site like SnorgTees or something (very broad market), they probably lower their prices down to those lows to get rid of inventory that isn't moving well. If they printed on demand, they wouldn't have inventory sitting around, and wouldn't need to go so low to keep their cashflow in check. 

I think even snorgtees could benefit from POD screen printing. Cash is king, and when you have inventory, you don't have always have a lot of cash to go around. 




kimura-mma said:


> Also, at $9 for a basic printed tee, this eliminates any chance at selling wholesale. Because I would have to wholesale for $18 and then the retail price is driven up to $36. No retailer is going to take that on. Again, it's probably not your market to sell to anyone intending to wholesale, but I still think it's an important part of discussion to understand that using your service eliminates wholesale as a potential revenue stream.


Regarding selling at wholesale, I don't think POD screen printing prices have anything to do with one's ability to sell at wholesale. What if you use POD screenprinting for your direct-to-consumer sales on your website, and regular bulk screenprinting for your wholesale orders? Who says you have to use the POD for both? 



kimura-mma said:


> I admit there is definitely a level of convenience in the service you are offering. But it seems that you are already charging premium prices for the shirt and printing, so people are already paying for that convenience. And there is a $17/month charge too? Margins are slim as it is without the extra cost to cover.


Perhaps you are correct, maybe $17/month is too much. What do you think is a fair price? The purpose of the charge is to make sure people are still "in the game" so they don't order a bunch of screens to be printed, and then never make any effort to follow through with selling those designs. 

An alternative pricing structure could be: 
1) $30/screen one-time, $4.95/month membership fee. 
2) Flat $35 setup fee one-time, $17/month membership fee. 

You can see the difference in the level of "vested interest" or stake the tshirt seller has in the venture depending on which pricing model you use. 

What do you think would be fair, reasonable, and still accomplish the purpose of the membership fee? 



kimura-mma said:


> Now this just opened up a whole new can of worms.
> 
> Let's say I pay for screens and the design is 14" wide, which fits all mens size shirts. Now I accept an order for that design on a youth medium. But the artwork is too big for that size shirt. Are you charging me for new screens? If so, I'm back to one-off pricing. I'd need to sell more of that design in youth sizes to make back the screen fee again.
> 
> And let's say I pay for screens and the design is intended for white t-shirts. Now I accept an order for that design on a black t-shirt. But there is no underbase screen for that design. Are you charging me a full setup fee? Or a pro-rated fee? Either way, my costs just went up again and I need to sell more of this design on black t-shirts to recoup the cost.


Obviously, artwork modifications = new screens = new setup fee. It's entirely up to you as the t-shirt seller. Maybe you want a 14" print, then you better not plan to print on Youth sizes.  So don't sell youth sizes. Or if you want to sell all sizes, don't make a 14" print. Or make one version for smaller shirts and one for larger shirts. 

Same thing with the shirt colors. For example, on my jesusisarebel.com site, I used to sell the same design on different colored shirts, the colors of which warranted changing the ink color used for that color of shirt. This threw a wrench in the works, and it ended up being more trouble than it's worth. So I stopped doing that. I also learned in many of the marketing books I've read that when you offer the customer too many options, it makes them less likely to buy. So I eliminated some of the options. 

Again, it's all up to you the seller on what color shirts you sell. But I see your point, if someone didn't know about doing underbase printing, then there could be a problem. Or the other option is if the need ever arises for an underbase, why not simply do 2 pulls on the same color/screen, so you get 2 layers of ink. This is how I've had shirts printed in the past as well and they have come out fine. 



splathead said:


> Blair is correct in his statement. Screen printing is the most professional, mainstream way to decorate and is the industry standard.


Thanks for backing me up on that one! 



splathead said:


> Now, if in fact Hot Topic is using DTG on some of their online tees, it brings up another obstacle to Blair's 'dtg is not as good as screen print' argument. And that is a lot of his competition may not even be describing their decoration method when they are advertising custom shirts for $20. Which is why I think many buyers are oblivious to the DTG vs. screen print comparison.


You are definitely correct that this is an obstacle for me. It's extremely frustrating when I see sites like 1800clothes.com that call it "Digital Screen Printing" or BrokenArrowWear.com that use wording to confuse people about what type of printing they're going to get with less than 6 pieces ordered. But then again, does the average person care to know the difference? Do they care at all? Perhaps not. 

Anyway, I hope I've addressed all the points on the table. Thank you all again for your insight and feedback.


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## kimura-mma (Jul 26, 2008)

yodude711 said:


> I hear what you're saying, however, I disagree.


Perhaps it's ok in comparison to other POD services, I honestly have never used them. They don't fit my business model. So I'm just looking at it from an overall business perspective.



yodude711 said:


> If you sell a shirt on your website for $20 and it cost you $9, you just made $11 for doing nothing. I'm not sure I understand the problem. Perhaps your overhead? What's the overhead on a website that you build yourself? $4.95/month for hosting?


Doing nothing? C'mon Blair, you're overgeneralizing. There is design time in creating graphics and a website, perhaps even paying a designer for those who cannot design themselves. There is time and money in advertising and marketing. There is time and money in setting up a business and trademarking, copyrighting, etc. It's not like someone can just pay you $9 and magically get $20 back. There is work that goes into running a business, whether it's a full time primary source of income, or even a part time secondary source of income. Either way, low costs and high profit margins are essential to any successful business model. And e-commerce web hosting is usually more expensive than $4.95, unless I'm doing something wrong.



yodude711 said:


> Maybe I'm in a unique situation for POD pricing to work with my tshirt retailing sites, but I'd bet there are others out there in my situation, looking for the exact business process I have.
> 
> I could imagine plenty of organizations that would benefit from POD screenprinting even at this price. Org's that don't have t-shirt selling as their main business, but rather just something on the side that adds a little money to their operations, and serves a promotional use as well. For example, churches, schools, charities, and any other type of non-retail business. I think this would be a great way for them to sell shirts because they don't want to mess with inventory, etc.


I agree 100%. I believe there is a market for this service, just not as universally beneficial to startup indy brands as I originally believed earlier in the thread. Non retail business are probably your best market.



yodude711 said:


> I think as someone who knows the different types of shirt printing processes available, you might be more inclined to believe that a $20 price tag necessitates ring-spun tees with discharge inks. But does the average person know this? Do they care?


I believe, with first hand experience, that people do understand quality. Especially when it comes to clothing. Does everyone understand specifics of fabrics, inks and printing? No. But if I was selling an inferior product at the same price as a superior product, I would suffer to get the repeat business needed to grow a brand.



yodude711 said:


> Plus, if you run a site that sells one-of-a-kind MMA shirts (not sure if you do, just using as an example) that a customer couldn't buy anywhere else, they would have no choice but to buy your $20 basic tee and be happy about it.


More overgeneralizing, if you ask me. Customers always have choices... they can simply not buy it if the quality doesn't match the price. Do you know how many marketing dollars it takes to create a product that customers want so badly that they have no choice to buy it regardless of how inferior and overpriced it is?

Also, since we're using the MMA analogy, the niche is dominated by a pretty high quality, creative and innovative company. So trying to compete with that by using basic tees and plastisol inks would be futile at best.



yodude711 said:


> Perhaps we've made another interesting point about this whole thing - on-demand printing in general may be better suited for highly niche-oriented shirts as opposed to your average "funny tee" that has a much broader mass market appeal.


Not sure I agree without knowing some examples of what niches you are thinking of. But appealing to a high niche usually equates to needing to be different (or better) than a basic tee with basic screenprint. So if your prices are high for basic, what would it cost to get ring spun and discharge?



yodude711 said:


> Regarding selling at wholesale, I don't think POD screen printing prices have anything to do with one's ability to sell at wholesale. What if you use POD screenprinting for your direct-to-consumer sales on your website, and regular bulk screenprinting for your wholesale orders? Who says you have to use the POD for both?


Yep, good point.



yodude711 said:


> I used to sell the same design on different colored shirts, the colors of which warranted changing the ink color used for that color of shirt. This threw a wrench in the works, and it ended up being more trouble than it's worth. So I stopped doing that.


EXACTLY!! So if you even made some costly mistakes, imagine how others are going to feel if they pay you for your professional services and then find out there are potential wrenches in the works. It's going to cost a lot to educate people about all of the facets of this service so they don't make any of these mistakes.

Maybe this is the future and you are ahead of your time. I don't dismiss that as a possibility. It just may be a challenge for now.


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## mmatextiles (Feb 21, 2010)

yodude711 said:


> Hey Joe,
> Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.
> 
> Regarding the NoMinimum site, the target market is definitely a small one, agreed. The pricing is such that it is as good a price as one can find when just ordering a few shirts.
> ...


I think this guy is exactly right. I could not have said it better.


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## thatcampguy (Jan 24, 2010)

I would have to agree with the low risk portion of this project. I like the idea of being able to have low risk, low inventory to start up a business. Also, there is a bit of rethink that has to go on here. Because you don't have you capital tied up in inventory or equipment, you need to think of a lower profit margin. Probably somewhere around 10 to 20%. 

But, you would need to add in your design costs, and sales cost to come up with an appropriate margin. It would not be the double that most of us have in our head.


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## yodude711 (Feb 20, 2010)

kimura-mma said:


> Doing nothing? C'mon Blair, you're overgeneralizing. There is design time in creating graphics and a website, perhaps even paying a designer for those who cannot design themselves. There is time and money in advertising and marketing. There is time and money in setting up a business and trademarking, copyrighting, etc. It's not like someone can just pay you $9 and magically get $20 back. There is work that goes into running a business, whether it's a full time primary source of income, or even a part time secondary source of income. Either way, low costs and high profit margins are essential to any successful business model. And e-commerce web hosting is usually more expensive than $4.95, unless I'm doing something wrong.


Sorry for overgeneralizing. I do it to make a point. The point being that while, yes you have customer acquisition costs, there are no direct costs of sale in time or money to make the sale happen directly. In other words, it didn't require my physical presence or direct labor to complete the sale, nor did I have to pay a salesman to complete the sale. 

I agree with what you've said, but for my own situation, since I design the shirts myself and do the website myself (which anyone can do these days with wordpress or weebly for free), I guess I don't have as many expenses to consider as perhaps some other people do. 

Regarding trademarking, copyrighting, etc., I tried doing the trademarking thing when I first started, but I never followed through because my business is so small, who would want to rip me off? I figured if I ever grew the business big enough to warrant it, perhaps a trademark registration would be in order. I don't know, maybe I'm not thinking right about that. I just figure why spend money on something that you don't really need just because that's what you're supposed to do in business? 

Regarding e-commerce hosting, you can get web hosting at hostgator or godaddy for as little as $4.24/month. Then sign up for a free google checkout or paypal account (I much prefer google checkout), and then go to fatfreecart.com to get a really slick shopping cart for free. Or of course you can just use the built in shopping carts provided by paypal or google checkout. Google checkout actually has a really nice built in shopping cart. Or if you want to get really fancy and add functionality like discount codes, promotional codes, IPN's, etc etc, you can sign up for a seller account at e-junkie. $5 flat fee per month will let you sell 10 products. $8/month and you get 20 products. I use e-junkie in tandem with google checkout. It's the best option for me. 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...




kimura-mma said:


> I believe, with first hand experience, that people do understand quality. Especially when it comes to clothing. Does everyone understand specifics of fabrics, inks and printing? No. But if I was selling an inferior product at the same price as a superior product, I would suffer to get the repeat business needed to grow a brand.


I see what you're saying. I guess it's up to the customer to decide which shirt he really wants. If he likes the design on the plastisol printed product better than the one on the fancy new discharged shirt, then that's up to him I guess. 



kimura-mma said:


> Not sure I agree without knowing some examples of what niches you are thinking of. But appealing to a high niche usually equates to needing to be different (or better) than a basic tee with basic screenprint.


I disagree that being highly niched necessitates different or better quality. For example, the shirts I sell on trikeshirts.com are basic shirts with a basic screenprint, but there is no other place out there that sells those shirts. I don't think the quality has anything to do with the niche factor. I think the "content" of the shirt has more to do with the niche factor. 

But again, I don't want to overgeneralize here. I think we're saying the same thing, but coming from two different perspectives and two different types of niche markets. Yours may be very demanding in "style", which may necessitate different or better quality printing as you use on 8thdegreeblack, whereas my market may not care as much. 



kimura-mma said:


> So if you even made some costly mistakes, imagine how others are going to feel if they pay you for your professional services and then find out there are potential wrenches in the works. It's going to cost a lot to educate people about all of the facets of this service so they don't make any of these mistakes.


You may be correct about people making costly mistakes, but (at the risk of sounding uncaring of my clients) that is not my cost, it is theirs, and it is a part of their learning process just as it was a part of mine, and a simple cost of doing business in my opinion. However, I don't think it would cost that much to educate people about it as long as the website clearly explained all of it with documentation, FAQ pages, artwork template files, etc, all of which are easy to provide with no ongoing cost for me because I write it and publish it once and people can read it whenever they want. 




kimura-mma said:


> Maybe this is the future and you are ahead of your time. I don't dismiss that as a possibility. It just may be a challenge for now.


You may be right about that. The only way for me to find out is just to go ahead and do it. Make it available to the buying public and see what happens. The market is the only one with the right to say whether or not a product or service is good or not.


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