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How to Start a T-shirt Business: 6 Exact Steps to Follow
Step 1: Identify Your Market
The first step to start a t-shirt is to identify your market. This pertains to the group of people you’d specifically want to buy your t-shirt. It’s important to define a market as it can help you narrow down the niche you want to focus on.
Moreover, determining a market and niche can help you prepare for marketing efforts. If you’re looking to start ad campaigns, it will be easier to set them up with a target audience.
At the same time, you can create a cost-effective marketing strategy by knowing who to reach out to. In comparison, starting a business without a target market means you’ll be catering to an unknown group. Thus, marketing efforts tend to be fruitless and costly.
Finally, your chosen market consists of people passionate about their common interests. If you indulge them and show them your genuine interests, it’s likely they’ll patronize you, too.
Step 2: Determine Your Upfront Costs
Once you’ve identified your market, your next step is to determine the upfront costs to start your business. These include your fixed costs and inventory.
Fixed costs are those you’ll need to pay on a regular basis. For example, you’ll need to rent space and ensure that there are utilities to run your business. If you’re looking to create an eCommerce website, you’ll need to pay for these as well.
Of course, you’ll need to market your t-shirts so people actually buy these. For that, you might also need to pay for the ad campaigns and SEO strategies for your eCommerce websites.
Paying fixed costs ensures that your business is running and that it has a great potential for growth. However, you’ll also need to cover inventory costs as these are the real money-makers.
To know how much you’ll spend on production, you’ll need to choose one or several printing options. Your choices include direct-to-garment, heat transfer, and screen printing. To differentiate the three:
Direct-To-GarmentHeat TransferScreen PrintingIdeal for complex designs has unlimited color choicesexcellent detailsNot recommended for bulk printingGood for print-in-demandsheat press upfront costs is higherQuality not as good as other optionsIdeal volume runsMight not be suitable for colorful and complex designs
It also helps to learn about inventory costs by participating in organizations like the Printed United Alliance and PPAI. These organizations can provide training and mentoring, which not only covers planning for costs but also distribution and marketing.
Step 3: Design T-shirts for Your Target Audience
Finally, you’re closer to launching your t-shirt business. It’s time to channel your creativity and design t-shirts for your target audience. This step requires getting updated with the trend in your chosen niche. Basically, you’ll need to be “in”.
Besides that, your target audience might have a different reception to your first designs. You might need to try several designs until you come up with something that resonates with your target market.
Step 4: Consider a Print On Demand Service
Besides printing T-shirts with your equipment, another way to sell your designs is through a print-on-demand service, like Printful. This service allows you to sell your designs through your chosen platform, like an eCommerce website.
When a customer orders from your store, the print-on-demand service will print the order and ship it out. Since this service only prints orders as these come, you usually won’t have to pay for anything upfront.
Step 5: Set Up Your Online Store on Shopify
After completing your designs and getting a print-on-demand service, your next best step is to set up an online store. There are many eCommerce platforms you can find on the internet. But to cut the list short, make sure to check out Shopify.
Shopify is a subscription-based software that lets entrepreneurs, like yourself, create an eCommerce store. It’s one of the biggest platforms today and offers exciting features to start your online business. These include:
Creating and designing your online store
Adding photos and descriptions of your products
Setting up prices, payment methods, and shipping options
Boosting sales through ad campaigns, discount offers, and gift cards
Connecting your online store to your social media accounts
Step 6: Market Your Business
After setting up your online store on Shopify, the next step is to market your business. There are several ways to do this, depending on the following you already have. For example, you can sell your t-shirts through Facebook groups of your target market.
Another option is to introduce your online store to friends and family. With a small budget, you can also run social media ad campaigns.
And if you know any influencers with a thousand or more followers, send them your best t-shirt design. Hopefully, their next social media post shows them wearing your t-shirt, or, better, recommends your store to their followers.