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Are Startup T-Shirt Businesses Oversaturated?

by Jerry JuaMaking Money

Oct 24, 2020

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When I first saw people selling custom t-shirts, I thought it was a cool idea. Who wouldn’t want a custom t-shirt with a unique design? So, I thought everyone must be doing it and that it may be oversaturated. I did some research into whether it is a viable business model and put together this article to explain what I found.

So, are startup t-shirt businesses oversaturated? Yes, it is oversaturated as there are many t-shirt selling businesses already. However, if you have unique designs, you can still start up the business and be successful. An advantage of starting one is you can create the designs but print them only when a customer buys one. It is called print on demand.

It works similar to dropshipping products, which means there are no drawbacks to creating one. The main things are to come up with a creative or unique design that people will like. There is a lot of room for trial and error. So, if you’d like to start a t-shirt printing business, keep on reading to learn how to get started for next to nothing and how to create designs that sell.

How I can tell it’s oversaturated

Almost every Youtuber and blogger sell t-shirts or ‘merch.’ This is because once they have an audience that loves them, they love to buy t-shirts. I’ve bought countless custom t-shirts with funny or interesting designs. I think it’s awesome rocking a custom t-shirt with a unique message.

Also, every major brand sells t-shirts, such as Nike, Adidas, Air Jordan, and Designer brands such as Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. Every brand sells them.

However, this is good news. Everyone needs t-shirts, and being they are a consumable item. Which means they don’t stay looking good for more than three months. Every time they get washed, they look less and less new.

So, everyone always needs to buy new ones. This means that if you are promoting your t-shirts soon enough, everyone will want to buy one.

How to start a successful t-shirt business in an oversaturated market

The first step is to get registered with a t-shirt printer that does print on demand. But, before that, it is a good idea to create a Google Drive folder and a folder on your computer to store all the information about your t-shirt business in one place. It will make it more efficient down the line.

1. Create a Google drive folder

Create a Google drive folder or similar cloud storage service and have it ready to put all the documents, notes, and files for your t-shirt business. Rather than having them all over your desktop and in your Documents folder, it’s better to have them all in one place.

That will save you a lot of frustration and lost documents. And also make your business run more efficiently.

2. Create a desktop folder

Also, create one folder for all the documents for your t-shirt business on your desktop or a place you can easily access it.

You should keep two copies; that way, you’ll have a backup if something goes wrong. You will want to periodically upload it to Google Drive or similar to have a backup in case your computer dies.

3. a) Create some unique designs

Steps a) and b) of section 3 can be done in different orders. You can do step b) first or step a) first. This is because many of the on-demand t-shirt printing companies listed in this step also have some cool features that let you design t-shirts on their websites.

So, it can be a matter of registering on their website first and then designing your t-shirts. You can also design your t-shirts first on a different website and then upload them to the t-shirt printing website.

However, some of the t-shirt printing companies may have restrictions on what you can print. For example, provocative wording or phrases – are often the best selling. Which makes it essential to look at their terms and conditions for what they will and will not print for you.

Getting a feel for what kind of design will sell involves looking around at the best sellers on websites like Amazon.com, Ebay.com, and large online marketplaces like Alibaba.com.

Most people will pay around $50 for a custom t-shirt that has something that resonates with them. Often, puns and t-shirts like ‘i’m with stupid ->” type do well.

Be aware not to create anything that could have any copyright issues because that can come back to haunt you down the line. Check what the copyright laws are roughly in your country to see what you can and can’t do. Most designs are fine as long as you aren’t using a specific brand or slogan. Such as ‘Nike, just do it.’

Once you know what kinds of designs do well, you can begin listing them for sale online.

b). Register an account on a print on demand t-shirt company

There are many good t-shirt printing companies that will print your custom designs on demand. According to Letstalkaboutmoney.com they are:

They do a full rundown of the pros and cons of each. But, this is a fairly easy process. Simply sign up like you would with an email account or through your Facebook account. Then follow the registration process.

5. Start getting the message out about your t-shirts (marketing)

Once you’ve got the designs all sorted, you can begin marketing your t-shirts. The easiest way to do this is by recommending it to your existing audience, such as on your Youtube channel, Blog, or Instagram.

My opinion is that Instagram is hyper-competitive and is the hardest platform to start an audience on. If you don’t already have an audience then start building one. It will not only help you with your t-shirt business but also selling other products. There are many good courses on how to do so.

On top of that, you can use traditional marketing methods such as sending out mailers with your designs, putting up flyers and selling them to friends. It used to be the case that you could sell your t-shirts to clothing stores. But, since e-commerce has become so prevalent, it’s generally a better idea to reach out to e-commerce websites.

Once they get to know you, you can ask them if they would list your designs on their store. You want to choose ones that have a lot of traffic coming through them. However, this isn’t always easy to gauge.

A good place to look is at the number of reviews left on their products. If they have some reviews, ideally a lot, then they are making sales, and their website is getting lots of visitors.

Another easier option is to list them on online marketplaces.

The website you are now on is an online marketplace. They have a free account that lets you sell up to three items at any given time during the month. The best thing about Sheepbuy is there are no selling commissions or any hidden fees. If you feel you want to sell more monthly plans, start at $2.99 a month for up to 25 items. If you are interested in listing your items with us, click here to create an account.

Conclusion

So, the t-shirt business is oversaturated. Meaning, everyone is doing it. But, there is still a huge market for t-shirts because they are a consumable item. Everybody wants a unique design, meaning there will always be a demand for one.

You can start a successful t-shirt selling business at little to no cost because there are many print on demand websites. Once you’ve come up with some designs, then it’s a matter of marketing them to start making sales and adjusting your designs to fit what the market wants.