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The return of Teextile (2.0)

Ivy — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:06:22 +0000

Teextile has finally returned after a two-week break, with promises of change. When they first started up in early 2009, they were a pretty run-of-the-mill contest site: five new designs per week, submitted by independent designers and voted upon by users. However, they got trounced with a lot of issues, such as their infamously terrible processing times, and their switch to Alstyle to keep prices low, which drove some customers away.

I gotta give it to them — they actually listened to the droves of complaints and reformed. I can’t say whether their shipping times have improved any, obviously, since this is the first day of the relaunch, but I have high hopes. I expect that the hiatus time has allowed them to catch up on backed-up orders. According to the FAQ, now we’ll only have to wait 5-10 days for shirts to be shipped!

The shop system has also been changed, which I assume was done to keep unfulfilled orders from building up. Instead of five new designs every week, Teextile will sell four shirts continuously. At least one new shirt will appear every week to replace the lowest-selling design(s); no design will be available for more than a month. This system will allow for product photos, which I’m pretty excited about.

Printed designs will fall into one of three categories: classic, curated, or normal contest winner. Classic shirts are old reprinted designs, and curated designs are those that bypass the voting process. It comes as no surprise that a wotto shirt was picked as the first curated design. I’m always a big fan of “curated” or “editor’s choice” picks, as it means that the design was selected by a trained eye, and therefore more likely to be good.

Of course, it should be noted that prices have increased by about $3. All shirts are $14 regardless of the date (although they will vary depending on the type of design; it can be assumed that more complicated/larger designs will cost more), and shipping is $3 instead of $2. Personally, I’m more than happy to pay the extra $2 for an American Apparel shirt, which Teextile has indeed switched back to!

Overall, I’m really pleased with the changes Teextile has made thus far. Talk about a new year turnabout! If you’re interested in following the company’s progress, allow me to direct you to their blog, which was set up as a replacement for their forum. Hopefully this trend continues, and things manage to pick up in the year ahead.

Other great deals to checkout:

Word 2 Tha’ Herd at Teextile: the elephant lover’s tee

Ivy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:29:37 +0000

Today’s shirt at Teextile is all too cool. If you like elephants and all-over prints, then this tee is most definitely for you. The jury’s still out on whether or not this print extends to the back of the shirt (judging from previous examples, it probably won’t), but it’s still a neat tee either way. Using pink for the stand-out elephant was a great color choice by artist biotwist; it excellently complements the tee’s whimsical, child-like feel, and looks good against the silver background. Another noteworthy highlight of this design is the sheer number of uniquely drawn elephants. That must have taken an incredibly long time, and as a fellow artist, biotwist, I salute you. I especially like the elephant with sunglasses — can you spot him?

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say this tee is a must-buy for me, since I can’t see myself pulling off something this showy, not to mention I’m still iffy on purchasing from Teextile while they’re still printing on Alstyle blanks, which they switched to as a financial necessity. The women’s shirts are pretty terrible, in my opinion. Additionally, Teextile is known for egregious shipping delays, so be prepared to wait at least a month to receive your tee. They took a week off to “catch up” on their printing, but since I haven’t ordered from them since then, I’m not sure if that’s actually resolved anything or not.

You can get this shirt for $12 plus shipping today only; tomorrow it’ll go back up to $15. And after this week, it’ll be gone forever, so be sure to get on it quickly if you plan to buy!

Buy It: $12 at Teextile.com

Other great deals to checkout:

First One Gets A Free Tee At Teextile

coty — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:26:42 +0000

Teextile just launched their first shirt, Good Old Times by Fat Mouse. The site launched about 20 days ago to the public and recently announced the first 5 shirts that will be available on the site. Well, those 5 shirts are now available for purchase with each being sold only for a 24 hour time period. And, this week only, the first person that buys the daily tee will receive it for free!

So, you might be asking, what is Teextile? It’s basically another t-shirt competition site. Basically, they are following a mixed Threadless/TeeFury/Shirt.Woot model. Like Threadless, they allow people to submit their designs and then the community gets to vote for their favorite. However, unlike Threadless, they will not have a constant stock of the same tees – all tees will only be sold for a 24 hour time period much like TeeFury and Shirt.Woot.

There’s no huge upfront prize at Teextile, instead, designers get paid based on the number of tees sold. They receive $4 per shirt for the first 500 sold. $2 per shirt for every 500-1000 sold, and then a buck for ever tee sold past 1000. The tees are sold at $15 a piece.

I have to admit that I like the layout of the site and the overall design of the site. Of course, the success of Teextile depends heavily on its community. How well will the t-shirt loving community embrace Teextile? Will designers flock over to submit their designs? They have all the bells and whistles in place to make it interactive community based site. You’ve got the forum where members can go crazy and post whatever they want and they’ve implemented comments on the design pages.

I do find it interesting, though, that they allow visitors to view a weeks worth of tees, despite only being able to purchase a givens days tees. This might work against them since people will make a decision early on in the week whether or not they will buy the rest of the weeks tees. It takes away the element of surprise and might cause less people to buy on impulse.

What are your thoughts on Teextile?