# Want to set up my own small website to sell apparel and tee shirts.



## ravery10 (Oct 12, 2010)

Hi all,

I just joined today after reading many posts and seeing a lot of knowledgable people on here. I am looking to start up my own website and sell my t-shirts online. I am starting small selling my stuff that I have printed locally (4-6 different designs for now). I would of course like an easy set up site with a cart. I have looked at bludomain.com which seems great but is more geared towards photography, but in terms of layouts, prices and ease its just what i am looking for. I have also looked a little at godaddy.com, but don't know much about them. Anyone know of any other sites I can look at. Ultimately I would like it to be a .com and not my name, site name and then .com. Any advice is very much appreciated.


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## dptk (Aug 14, 2009)

bigcartel.com


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## EgoismBrand (Aug 4, 2010)

storenvy.com storify.com


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## bigluelok (Aug 10, 2007)

yup big cartel you can set up a store for free and then if you need more room for products you can buy a plan.


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## verses (Sep 24, 2009)

bigcartel.com is a pretty good starting point.


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## apparel-printing (Nov 4, 2010)

There are a lot of free and paid hosting plans to setup a new website. It is good to go for a recommendation instead of choosing new experiment (especially on internet). All the best.....


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## FreeVolous (Nov 6, 2007)

verses said:


> bigcartel.com is a pretty good starting point.


but if you want to use a unique domain you have to use another serivice to register that address? Wordpress offers hosting your unique domain for you.


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## PrintforProfit (Nov 8, 2010)

FreeVolous said:


> but if you want to use a unique domain you have to use another serivice to register that address? Wordpress offers hosting your unique domain for you.


I want a web site that clients can customize their own designs. Has anyone seen Inksoft? Inksoft | Online Designer | Inksoft ecommerce technology looks pretty cool. 

I've used big cartel in the past. If you are going to use them you need their diamond option. $20/month isn't too bad.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

i think magento has a designer mod for this


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

Here it is Magento Connect - Online T-Shirt Design Tool - Overview - eCommerce Software for Growth


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## RawDesign (Mar 23, 2010)

I use GoDaddy, so far so good, several templates that you can customize with little work


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## dmfelder (Oct 25, 2008)

Great Apparel offers GarmentDeli. (GarmentDeli.com/demo) which is a fully functioning website that also manages the image manipulation and fulfillment services.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Just came across this one I thought I would share Goodsie


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

I use Yahoo Small Business plan. Includes hosting for my site name and cart which can intergrate with PayPal or your credit card processing entity. Very easy to get up and running as well as to maintain. Lots of cool revenue reporting and tracking features as well as customer list building and e-mail marketing tools.


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## MyNameIsMud (Oct 14, 2010)

In reply to.....



allhamps said:


> I use Yahoo Small Business plan. Includes hosting for my site name and cart which can intergrate with PayPal or your credit card processing entity. Very easy to get up and running as well as to maintain. Lots of cool revenue reporting and tracking features as well as customer list building and e-mail marketing tools.



This seems incredible. What are "other" fees that may be involved that I should be aware of? Such as other services I need to make what they offer, work.

Also, how can you design your website to fit a specific theme? In my case, I would be looking for a MUD related theme, so I wonder what this plan allows us to do, or if they have an abundance of themes/graphics we can use to design our sites if we chose them.

Thanks so much~ 

~~~MUD
[[email protected]@_]


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

I actually have the "starter" plan which is $39.95 per month with a 1.5% transaction fee for monthly total sales. I think there is a $50 set up fee (it was free when I signed up because they had a special). I do not pay any other fees for the additional services that are available. Of course, you can always "upgrade" certain services for a fee. For example, if you need more storage space for your pictures to use in the e-mail marketing campaign, I believe it is an additional $5.00 per month.

They have two different set up options, one for folks who know how to build websites, and one for folks like me, who need templates and know just enough html to be dangerous. It takes a little getting used to, but overall, it is an excellent tool. You can even put your stuff on Yahoo Shopping. Here's the link for more information: Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Create a store and start selling online


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## dmfelder (Oct 25, 2008)

That seems very expensive, actually. The Great Apparel For You option has a one-time set-up fee (but it comes with everything), and the sub-domain (garmentdeli.com/demo) monthy fees are $15 and the top-level domain (myshirts.com) monthly fees are $30. The fees cover hosting, SSL, etc., and the it's a full site with garment images, etc.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

Ok dmfelder, maybe I missed something? How is $39.95 a month for everything (as you stated), including my OWN doman name, not a sub-domain name, plus the ability to host over 400 items for sale and choose my OWN pictures/models, etc, along with free e-mail marketing, and sales tracking reports etc, too expensive? Did I mention list building, intergrated UPS shipping, coupon generation, flash/swf capability?

Even if 39.95 a month is expensive, I would rather have the individuality of my own site and name, and not be a subdomain. Just my $.02 worth


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## dmfelder (Oct 25, 2008)

Sorry. I was simply making a suggestion. The $30 (<$39) solution is a top-level domain solution, and it also comes fully equipped to manage the process of overlaying designs on (included) shirt images. The original post said they were going to sell designs on shirts.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

Got it. I did miss that part. Thanks


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I took a short look at the merchant site and it looks as if they take a percentage of your sales and then you will have to pay credit card fees on top of that.

There are a few cloud carts out there now and you can look at this one, it has newsletter, coupons, affiliate module, quick books integration, most all payment gateways and built in live shipping from most all carriers, the basic is $19.95 per month with no fees and you can get a 15 day free trial to give it a spin.

Ecommerce Solutions | Avactis: Ecommerce PHP Shopping Cart Software


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## Buckingham (Feb 9, 2009)

I looked at the inksoft software. It looks really cool, but it is REALLY expensive! It is a $699 one time investment plus $145 per month! Maybe for a big company that would be good, but too much for me


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## chuber (Jan 29, 2010)

Consider looking into a Wordpress site. It has an e-Commerce module (actually, a few different ones to choose from). Wordpress is simple, relative to other carts. By far the biggest advantage however is that with every word of text you add to your site, you are enhancing your SEO.

I thought it was lame to build on WP at first ... but now I think it is a very clever way to go. Cheap, quick, easy and gets you rankings all day long.


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## designnbuy (Jan 1, 2010)

You should also try to provide customized t shirt design service to your customers.


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## PaulDavid (Aug 27, 2010)

I am fairly new to the forum and was looking at an e-commerce approach. I looked into ink soft and think it is expensive as well, however they do offer graphics for the customer to use when creating their designs. Are their any open source programs that will emulate ink soft? I looked at the links listed above and am still not totally sold on them. Does anyone on the forum use ink soft or are they just to new or expensive? 

Thanks 
WiggyDots


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## kontrolldkhaos (Nov 18, 2010)

I use both bigblackbag.com and bigcartel.com. I use Big Black Bag because I don't need any HTML coding experience, AT ALL, and I won't anytime soon...
I can upload music, my photoshop images, photography, etc. on that website. And as for uploading music, if you do not have a "switch sound file converter", go to CNET (I believe) to upload one for free and to switch MP4's to MP3's needed for the site. 

Big Cartel have discount codes you can upload in 15 seconds, they keep track of your inventory and let you plug in how many sizes of each type of shirt you have, AND they can link back to your original website if you like. 
If you go to my website Kontrolled Khaos, you'll see what I mean. 
You DO NOT have to have big black bag, but I like it MAINLY because of the music and the fact that I can upload my graphic design work onto the site as well and present my musicians of the month!

Hope this helps!


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## kontrolldkhaos (Nov 18, 2010)

Oh yeah, big black bag AND big cartel are CHEAP, CHEAP CHEAP!!
And you have to know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about HTML or coding, to start your site! As far as I'm concerned, I hope I never do. Just trying to focus on the art side of my business.


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## DANWILSON (Sep 12, 2013)

Ji have a web site for my overall business and now want to recreate myself for the tshirt side of my busienss. Want a catchy name. Want to offer several genres. Have considered some kind of branding logo. Need info on how to market it. I want it all. Any advice


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