When a strategy and outstanding designs are in place, selling a t-shirt online is very much profitable.
Questioning the probability of a profit is a safe game, but for the ones who want to scale a business to ultimate success, you need to find an unconventional way. This decade has seen a growing fandom of fictional stories and a lot of businesses profiting from the merchandising.
This decade is more accepting of ideas and is open to experimentation and expression. At this point of time, selling t-shirt is a great idea but what you need to work on is the design you choose. Let’s explore this more.
Is Selling T-shirts Online Profitable?
It really depends on YOU. You just need to be in the right place at the right time. By this we mean, you must make designs relevant to your customers at that time and change them when trends change. The t-shirt business demands a lot of current trend designs, quotes and something that people can express themselves through.
There are other factors too such as if the weather is really cold, chances are t-shirts won’t get sold as much because they are not meant for the season. Also, your pricing will affect sales tremendously as people will want to get the best deal out of it.
Process Of Selling T-Shirts Online Profitably:
- Research
- Decide on a niche
- Decide the place of selling
- Design your t shirt
- Source your products
- Print designs on t shirt
- Marketing Plan
- Customer Support and Returns
Step 1: Research
You have already begun this step since you are reading this blog post. Before you venture into something, it is very important to know everything possible about the product niche, product market, audience, competitors, success and failure stories and so on. This will also help you understand what kind of designs will work for your target audience. You will be able to track and analyse the changing trends.
Step 2: Decide on a Niche
It is an extremely competitive ecommerce world and to stand out, you must find your niche. Once your research is done, you must have an idea of the kind of designs you would want to create. Think of some designs that will become unique about your t-shirt store. The niche can be explored by looking for inspiration in and around yourself. It can be anything like lifestyle, philosophy, art and so on. You can have a look at some templates and customize around it. Nevertheless, your designs should be original and have copyright ownership.
Step 3: Decide the Place of Selling
This is an important step because you will be investing money and time in the place you choose to sell your t-shirts. Check what other online stores have been selling and what has been working for them. You can look at online marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart which are already established and have your brand portal set up there. This will be an easy way to start out and manage marketing effectively. However, starting your own ecommerce store would be a great idea because that brings all the profits to you and you have more freedom with your designs and marketing strategies. You can do this easily with Shopify or Woocommerce.
To learn about all possible online sales channels for your products, read this post.
Step 4: Design your T Shirt
Everything about your t-shirt selling business’ profitability relies heavily on your designs. It is best to prepare original designs and make them good. Funny, sarcastic, relevant, revolutionary kind of designs work best for youngsters. If you are making designs based on popular culture, be sure to stay within the laws of copyright.
To learn about the design sources for your ecommerce store, you may read this blog post we wrote some time back.
Step 5: Source Your Products
You can source almost all your functions, even designs from freelancers. As for the t-shirts, you can tie up with a dropshipping company which will give you t-shirts printed with your designs as and when required. You don’t have to store an inventory. This will help you make good profits as you don’t have ready stock to manage, bear the cost of products not getting sold and also, you don’t have to spend a huge amount upfront to get started.
Read more: What is Dropshipping
Step 6: Print the Design
For the t-shirts, it would be a good option to consider a Print on Demand (POD) service. You collaborate with a POD company that will print your designs whenever there is an order placed on your ecommerce website. It’s a plus if the company also dropships your product. Another advantage with a POD company is that they have different printing options so you can choose according to the different printing techniques and quantity. There are more printing options for other product ranges too.
Step 7: Marketing Plan
This might be the last step but it is an everlasting function that you have to keep refining throughout your business life. An online t-shirt store’s marketing will work best online. You need to be very specific of what your target audience will be. Here are a few tactics you can apply to grow your brand:
- Approach Instagram Influencers
- Facebook and Google Ads
- Active Digital Presence
- Blogging and Guest Blogging
- Offers/Discounts
- Contests and Campaigns
You really need to explore what marketing tactic is working and what more can you do to increase brand presence. To learn more about it, you can read this post- How to Market Your Dropshipping Business
Step 8: Customer Support and Returns
How to Use Printrove for POD and Dropshipping
Printrove is an online dropshipping company that has a variety of products which brings its clients from across the country. Here are some services Printrove offers that will be helpful to you:
- White label dropshipping
- Print on Demand
- Integration with Shopify and Woocommerce stores
- A Wide Range of Products
- Custom Branding Services
You can read more- How to Use Printrove To Build A Successful Online Dropshipping Business
Concluding…
Yes, selling t-shirts online can be profitable if your strategy is well thought out and structured. You just need to have a plan and original designs that would be liked by the audience. T-shirts will never go out of style, so that’s a tension off the head. Good luck selling! Check out the website and get going!