Need tips in starting a custom designed t-shirts store

Hi, I am a newbie in online retailing and I am from Singapore. I have recently decided to start my own custom designed t-shirt website. My idea is to design trendy and modern t-shirt that will suit the society trend and then print it on t-shirt to sell.

But, I am not sure whether there is a market for this idea or not since I have to manage the SCM cost in printing and also the cost of shipping the product locally or maybe internationally. All the t-shirts will be printed when orders come so to reduce my inventory cost. I have planned some budget for this website, but I wanted to use all of them on different online marketing channels.

May I ask is this a good idea to go? Will customer consider design over price or price over design? And, any way that I can do custom drop shipping design t-shirt?

Thanks.

I don't know the Singapore market, but here in the US there are many specialty/boutique shirt sites offering shirts at various price points. My opinion is that you'll come out better, at least starting out, finding things people are already talking about and making shirts related to those concepts. Snorg Tees and other shirt companies in the US do this, often taking movie lines, Internet memes etc. and designing shirts around them (while being careful to stay on the right side of trademark issues.) They also have "in house" designs, but the ones that they tend to advertise -- and probably the bulk of their volume -- comes from the ideas they pick up around the 'net and from other media.

Many print-on-demand services exist for shirts, but you may find that the margins you make on orders, particularly if you dropship as well, are so thin to be barely worth the effort (unless you are doing truly massive volume.) Price shop aggressively.

Thank you so much for the reply. Appreciate your advices.

We are thinking of focusing on long term branding and try to build up the reputation first and then only move to mass print the designs.

May I ask for a list of manufacturers who did custom print design? I only know fyves.com by now. Thanks for the help.

Fyves is hard to beat actually; they do good quality work and the price on small quantities is much better than going through a per-unit provider like Zazzle, CafePress etc.

I forgot to mention Link hidden: Login to view as a wholesale supplier. Don't know how upscale your market is, but they have very good lowbrow humour/meme shirts. I've worked with them for about a year now and have been pretty happy with how the products move (it's only a sideline attention getter thing for me, but they still move.)



Frank

Hello Jumper18,

Welcome to SaleHoo! I see you've met Frank :)

Here are a few other suppliers that might be suitable for your line of business -

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And if you want to venture selling other custom print products, here are a couple of suppliers that might be able to supply you with such products -

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Cheers!

Does anyone know of a wholesaler of t-shirts? I am currently buying from a "supposed" wholesaler, but really a middle man because he gets his t-shirt from someone else. I want to pay his prices.

Hello Ashwothbiz1,

Try these -

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Hope you find what you are looking for.

Cheers and welcome to SaleHoo!

Richellemonfort,

Thanks for sharing the links. A few of them may be helpful. What I am really looking for is a wholesaler that sales blank t-shirts. If I could find the wholesale companies my "supposed" wholesaler buys from, that would be great. It would help me tremendously if I didn't have to use a middle man. If you or any one that have been with SaleHoo a while and know the ropes, I would appreciate it. I'm a newbie!

Hello Ashworthbiz1,

From the list above the following wholesalers sell blank t-shirts -

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Although I cannot guarantee that these suppliers are your wholesaler's suppliers.

Hope this helps!

Hello,

A newbie here trying to get things going. I'm interested in custom t-shirts with mental health statements. The idea behind it is to bring awareness to mental health and encourage people to express their feeling. I have limited budget . Are there manufacturers I can work with to drop ship my custom design ( private label products)? I'm looking for high quality t-shirts with reputable manufacturers.

Thanks!
Raina