# I've Been Checking Out Redbubble...



## MassoudFan

Hi Everyone, I've been checking out RedBubble the last couple of days. I'm completely new to the t-shirt business, so please take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Anyhow, here's what I've found:
RedBubble is completely free.
They do make T-shirts, including colored tees (the brand they use is American Apparel). They also make prints, posters and greeting cards.
You have your own site on Redbubble.
You can easily set up your own free website that is linked to RedBubble's site.
The website that RedBubble let's you set up can also be linked to any website that you have set up yourself independently of RedBubble.
Anyone visiting your website can contact you by Redbubble's mail service; you can also have your email address posted on your site. One person's site that I visited was openly saying that he was not interested in selling anything through RedBubble and was asking people to contact him at his email address. 
The company sells to 71 countries world-wide.
The look of the site is attractive.
There are a lot of good artists on this site.
----------------------------------------------------
I personally don't think that I'll be selling any t-shirts at RedBubble - the bottom line for me is that I want to go with screen printing. But if you don't care about that, or if you're like me and would like to try selling some prints or posters (and get FREE advertising in 71 countries for your t-shirts!), you might want to think about at least taking a look...
That's my (uninformed) 2 cents worth...


----------



## ricoche

I wouldn't recommend Red Bubble at all. Their service is just plain bad in my opinion.

I ordered a shirt from them two weeks ago and it's still "Awaiting Manufacturing". Can you believe it? The order is probably buried under papers somewhere or lost in the shuffle I'm afraid.

They claim they have problems with their machines. Now they are waaaay behind on their print jobs. That is ok because things happen, but they didn't even contact existing customers or indicate that processing time would be long during checkout. ( ie before you make payment. ) Only after I paid my money did they inform me of the wait. ( Note the wait has no end in sight either so you are always checking back to see if the "Awaiting Manufacturing" notice has been removed.)

I also noticed that they don't respond to the support emails I've sent and instead I only get auto or canned responses.

Finally, I've been reading these forums quite a bit and it seems many of the major and successful companies have some sort of rep responding to posts. I have yet to see anyone from Red Bubble respond or write any posts on this rather prominent forum.

Thus at this point I cannot recommend Red Bubble at all from the experience I've had. Perhaps others have or will have better experiences with them. For now I can't imagine making T-shirt customers wait this long for their order to even be started.


----------



## Rodney

> Finally, I've been reading these forums quite a bit and it seems many of the major and successful companies have some sort of rep responding to posts. I have yet to see anyone from Red Bubble respond or write any posts on this rather prominent forum.


Just to be clear, there's no requirement for any company to read or respond to posts here in the forums. Some companies will, and some companies won't.

I don't think that just because they aren't registered here and responding to posts should be taken as any type of indicator as to their quality of their business (to be fair, there aren't many posts about redbubble in the forums, so there's not much to respond to)


----------



## breakaway

I respectfully disagree with Rodney, this is the best t shirt forum in the world, and if they truly cared about their business they would respond.


----------



## Rodney

breakaway said:


> I respectfully disagree with Rodney, this is the best t shirt forum in the world, and if they truly cared about their business they would respond.


I won't disagree with the best t-shirt forum in the world part  (but I'm a bit biased), but it's just a fact that not every t-shirt business in the world has heard about t-shirtforums (yet ).

And even if they know about the forums, unless they think to do a search for their company name, they may not realize that there is a discussion about them happening here. 

I just didn't want it to seem like they were intentionally "snubbing" users because they aren't responding here. There's a multitude of reasons why that may not have happened yet.


----------



## rejoice

I've had no problems as a RedBubble seller and buyer... I even had a buyer come back and post a 'thankyou' for the design that they received... and I myself am happy with the finished products bought.

As with any company there are going to be slight hitches here and there... all my emails are answered and they do a great job marketing your products too... most of my selling designs are #1, 2, and 3 in Google (showing that a great deal of SEO work has been implemented to aid artists).

If there is still a problem with the order, email me and I will help you sort it out asap. If there really has been an overlooked order it could be as easy as getting it printed and shipped.


----------



## ricoche

*@Rodney*

Thanks for the reply. I understand your point.

I am obviously new here at the forums and with T-shirt ordering in general. I frequent other forums such as Webhostingtalk which is pretty much one of the main forums to get info on hosting or servers. So anyone doing business in that area most definitely would know about the forum.

I thought the same with T-shirtforums which is why I made the comments. I very quickly discovered that T-shirtforums appeared to be one of the best places to watch the T-shirt market and thus I figured any sensible business would have their eye on it here. However, I know many businesses simply do not have the time or feel it is a good marketing strategy to participate and that I fully understand. The same goes with other forums I'm sure.

Thus I understand if a company such as Reb Bubble wishes not to participate, respond, etc. It may actually be smart for them with their business model. I also understand that postings may not get into the search engines and they may not be looking. So I et the picture, however, I am pretty sure they must have their eye on the forum. I did get an email very shortly after my post here from them which I thought was uncanny and cool too.

*@rejoice*

Thanks for the reply and offer of help. As I mentioned in another post, my T-shirt has been shipped. They responded in a very nice fashion albight after I complained and I feel things are getting much better. I am however still very worried about the length of time it takes to progress through orders. I am planning to buy another one once I get my first prototype to try and get a ballpark idea on how long the wait will be on average. I do have an established client base ready to buy all sorts of T-shirts with a logo that I have and will definitely need to give them a heads up with regards to processing time. They have already been waiting a long time for the prototype so that they can start buying. Thanks very much!


----------



## MassoudFan

Hi Everyone, I've been on RedBubble for several weeks now... and from what I've seen up to this point, I'm happy with them. First of all, this spot appears to be primarily set up for photographers and artists, with T-shirts following somewhere after them somewhere down the line. I don't know how big the t-shirt market is there.
A couple of things:
Getting a site set up is completely free, no charge of any kind.
I now have a website of my own, connected to their site, again, completely free.
They sell and ship to 71 countries around the world.
They have attractive sites.
Time to go to work; I'll send more info in the near future.


----------

