Temptation from our sponsors...
Temptation from our sponsors...
How did you first get into tshirts?
I created a little homepage back in 1996 that talked about why I hated clowns. I was just messing around on the web at that time, and was just starting to grasp the potential of what was possible.
Anyway, somehow, people started seeing the website and I started getting emails from people all over the world who were sharing their stories about how they hated clowns too. I added a survey to the website and said I’d give away a free t-shirt at the end of the survey. People started asking me if they could “buy” a t-shirt, and at that point I hadn’t even thought of that as a possibility.
So I jumped on the opportunity, researched how to get it done, and long story short…here I am
Share some of your current favourite stores/designs?
That’s probably a long list Here’s a few that I like or have recently purchased.
Ghost Cameras by Gary Gao at Oddica
In A Comic at Threadlesss
Reach for the Stars at Threadless
Mr. Pickles Sandwich Shop at Mr Pickles (they make tasty sandwiches)
Basic T-Shirt (brown) from Bamboo Clothes (this shirt is crazy soft).
Ideal for Anonymity at LintyFresh
How many different site’s do you run now?
Way too many to mention and more on the way
Tell us about the different parts of your tshirt empire? Â Â Â
I’m not sure if it’s exactly an “empire”. More like a small ranch. Here’s the main three stables
There’s T-ShirtCountdown.com, which is mainly a site for t-shirt buyers to vote for and buy t-shirt designs.
There’s T-ShirtLinks.com which is basically like a dmoz.org for T-Shirts. A categorized directory of t-shirt shops and t-shirt resources.
There’s also T-ShirtForums.com, which is a friendly discussion forum for people interested in all aspects of the t-shirt industry. It’s been growing pretty fast, and the amount of shared knowledge and expertise there is great!
Is it just you working alone on your sites?
I do have some help every now and then, but it’s usually just me doing the daily maintenance of the sites.
How many paying contributors have used tshirt links directory?
Without doing a specific count, I would say “several” Many people do just fine with a free listing at T-ShirtLinks, however, there are companies that are looking for more exposure for their sites, so they decide to purchased the upgraded listings.
I’ve noticed you have a Cafepress directory but nothing for the other big DIY apparel companies. Why is this?
When I started T-ShirtLinks, the only DIY apparel company was CafePress and at the time, they didn’t have any marketplace offering or even a directory of their shopkeeper’s stores, so I thought it would be neat to create one.
I’ll probably be adding more categories for the other companies as they grow and establish themselves as long term players (and as time permits). There’s definitely a need now for dedicated sections for at least spreadshirt, zazzle (now that they have actual “storefronts” for the artists there), and maybe a couple of others. I’ll probably be adding sections for them in the next couple of weeks.
Approx how many unique visitors does the site get a day? Â Â
T-ShirtLinks currently gets 800-1000 unique visitors per day and T-ShirtCountdown gets roughly 2000-3000 unique visitors per day.
Tshirt countdown is heavily geared towards showcasing the lower end, Cafepress, risque type designs. Do you think this is the most interesting area of the market or just the biggest advertising opportunity for sites like yours? Â
I wouldn’t say T-ShirtCountdown is geared towards any specific “end” of t-shirts. There are categories for all different types of t-shirts and shops.
It does seem that the top voted designs seem to be in the humor/political categories, however, there are t-shirts listed from a wide variety of online t-shirt merchants from wickedcoolstuff, spreadshirt, PaperPlain, even the Red Cross.
I’d love to see more variety in the shirts that are voted to the top.
I don’t think I would consider the designs that are featured on the site to be “lower end”. I think it would be a mistake to lump all CafePress shops into a “lower end” category.
It would be a shame to overlook the talent and creativity that is shown by many of the individuals that have CafePress stores just because they use a particular service to get their shirts printed.
I was at a CafePress user conference just this weekend, and I can say first hand that there are definitely some talented artists that use cafepress as their fulfillment company of choice.
I’m not into t-shirt prejudice Not all CafePress designs are bad and not all Threadless designs are good. I prefer to judge each t-shirt on its own merit. Can’t we all just get along?
Have you coined an interesting name for your profession tpreneuer, tshirt mogul etc etc? How do you describe your job when you meet people? Â Â Â
I usually tell people that I’m a stay at home dad that makes t-shirts and websites
Where do you think the industry is heading? Any emerging trends? Â Â Â
I’m seeing a lot of creativity in 1-2 color based designs lately.
When I’m out “in the real world” t-shirt spotting, I’m still seeing a lot of non standard design placements, flowery or crest type graphic t-shirts as well as a plethora of slogan t-shirts, so I think those markets still have legs.
Who do you think is the best online diy tshirt company (Cafepress, Spreadshirt, Zazzle etc)? Â Â Â
I think they all have different merits and fit difference markets.
Overall, I would say that CafePress seems to have the most “mature” product. Part of this comes from just having years of trial and error, but they do have pretty easy tools for creating stores and getting up and running. Now that they’ve released the CafePress Developer’s Network and the APIs, I think we’ll start to see more creative things done with the CafePress interface, like this third party created tool: Click-Shirt.com
CafePress also does some heavy marketing of its marketplace, which definitely is an added benefit for the sellers listed there. Free sales driven to your store is a nice perk.
That being said, I think SpreadShirt fits an overlapping, but different market than CafePress. If you’re selling slogan t-shirts or 1-2 color graphic t-shirts, SpreadShirt can be a great tool for getting your designs up for sale. When you look at some of the top SpreadShirt stores that are highly customized, it’s hard to even tell that they are “powered by” SpreadShirt.
Spreadshirt also offers different “power tools” for its store owners like the ability to have zero branding on the stores and custom invoices. I’ve always loved flock printed t-shirts, so SpreadShirt’s ability to print on a wide variety of colors and have speciality printing methods like flock/foil/glow-in-the-dark are pretty nice benefits.
I remember when I first found the Spreadshirt.de German site and I was all stoked about trying to sell flock printed shirts. I had this guy I know in Austria help me navigate the site only to learn I couldn’t ordered any tees for myself. I was super excited when SpreadShirt came to the US
Zazzle has expanded its services to include printing on dark shirts, customized storefronts for sellers, direct garment printing, etc, which makes them a viable option to try.
I’m excited to see how some of the up and coming players enter the market and to see which niches they cater to. InnerTee and Stagr seem like interesting spins on the custom t-shirt business.
Do you think we’ve reached tshirt saturation point online? Â Â Â
Not even close. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been selling t-shirts online since 1996 and I’ve seen a lot of t-shirt sites/trends come and go.
In the past few years, I’ve seen sort of a “rebirth of cool” in the T-Shirt industry. It’s almost like a renaissance.
Older players are expanding their offerings, newer players are taking more risks and coming up with creative new design ideas.
With last year’s Wall Street Journal article, I think it has encouraged more and more creative types and entrepreneurial types to throw their shirt in the ring. Add to that some new printing methods and fresh minds jumping into the mix, I think the next few years in the t-shirt world are going to be pretty exciting.
