# Should I wait?



## pr0ject_s14 (Oct 31, 2006)

Hi, Im new to the t-shirt business and im not to sure if I am marketing my shirt's the right way. I am creating a website for my custom t-shirts, but most of the t-shirt line that will be on the website will not be for sale because there is no income to make the shirts as of yet. My plan was to sell a couple of shirts of one design and have a website out that will have all the other line of shirts that will be coming out in the near future, when the company has enough income. My question is will this way of marketing hurt my business or should I just wait till I have enough income to bring out the whole line of shirts at once?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I think it's OK to start with a handful of designs and grow from there. Many successful companies have started this way (including threadless).

That way you aren't getting yourself into debt for unsold inventory and you can gauge the interest in your upcoming line by customer responses.


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## Tshirtcrib (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodney, I tend to disagree I truely believe that when you have a customer come to your website and he or she only see's three or four designs they seem to get discouraged. However when a site has ample designs, there is more to choose from and the more likely it is for someone to buy one or more designs. I wouldn't go crazy and try to get an inventory like tshirts.com but at the same time, a good selection is what makes customers believe that the website is legitimate and a higher liklihood for someone to buy a design or twelve. Although I would not wait until you have a hundred designs, i would wait until you have atleast a dozen.


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Tshirtcrib said:


> I wouldn't go crazy and try to get an inventory like tshirts.com but at the same time, a good selection is what makes customers believe that the website is legitimate and a higher liklihood for someone to buy a design or twelve.


Do you have any actual evidence of this or is this just your perception? Because from what I've seen, there are PLENTY of shops out there with only a few designs that are doing just fine.

There is really a lot more that goes into making a shop look "legitimate" than just the number of designs available.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

It depends on the designs really. If you have just a few good designs, I think it's much better than a load of cr*p. Plus, search engine listing will take a while so it doesn't hurt to have your site up and slowly add more designs later.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Rodney, I tend to disagree I truely believe that when you have a customer come to your website and he or she only see's three or four designs they seem to get discouraged. However when a site has ample designs, there is more to choose from and the more likely it is for someone to buy one or more designs. I wouldn't go crazy and try to get an inventory like tshirts.com but at the same time, a good selection is what makes customers believe that the website is legitimate and a higher liklihood for someone to buy a design or twelve. Although I would not wait until you have a hundred designs, i would wait until you have atleast a dozen.


That's understanable, ideally, it would be nice if all t-shirt sites had a large range of designs when they start, however, realistically, not everyone can start with a dozen designs.

I don't think it's *necessary* to wait until you have a dozen. I'm positive that you can still be successful if you launch your t-shirt site with less. 

I'm positive it's at least possible to start small and grow because it's been done before by major players (like threadless/cafepress/tshirthell/etc).

I'm by no means a major player, but I started with selling just one t-shirt design and was able to grow that into a full range. It might not work for everyone or every design, but it's at least _possible_ 

I also think it can be kind of neat as a customer to watch a company grow. On the marketing side, it can be a good way to keep customers coming back to your website if you are constantly adding new designs and asking customer feedback on the next design to be printed (see: threadless)


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## Blacksheep 78 (Oct 27, 2006)

pr0ject_s14 said:


> I am creating a website for my custom t-shirts, *but most of the t-shirt line that will be on the website will not be for sale* because there is no income to make the shirts as of yet.


Not sure if im not reading that right, or if it hasn’t been touched on yet.

There are many valid points as to why or why not start out with a few designs. But the way that quote reads to me is that your going to put up all of your designs on the site but only offer one or two of them.

If I am correct in my assumption, I personally would not go that route. I find it frustrating when there are designs posted and I cant purchase them. They are also susceptible of being plagiarized, as is any design. But if your going to show it to the world, you might as well be making money off of it before someone else starts to saturate the market with your design.

With that said, you could always have the designs accompanied with some text saying it's "currently out of stock" or something along those lines. This could possibly keep people coming back who would otherwise be frustrated or think that you don’t have a "legitimate business", as long as you make enough money to order some of those other tee's. People would get tired of checking after a few times.

All of this is neither here nor there… only my perception, hopefully you can get something from it.  

-Tim


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

You might also look into other printing methods (heat transfer, vinyl, plastisol transfers) that will give you a little more flexibility to print-on-demand to some extent. It is, of course, far easier to offer a bunch of designs just starting out if you can print on demand.


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## Tshirtcrib (Jul 21, 2006)

PErsonally if I see just two or three designs, and none of them catch my eye I will never go back to that site. However if there is a range of t-shirts there is a higher liklihood that I will find something that I like, or something that I am more likly to buy. There is a higher liklihood to build loyal customers and easier to advertise a site to a large amount of customers with various interests as opposed to a very small customer base. That being said I understand that there have been various websites that have only started out with two or three designs and have become successful, however it is much harder to do so.


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## Tshirtcrib (Jul 21, 2006)

I also believe Twinge is on the right track with the possibilty of custom designed shirts on order.


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