Back in mid June I ordered 4 two-side dark t-shirts. The shirts took 6 days to produce and 11 days to arrive at a cost of nearly $29 per shirt (with no markup).

After one washing, the ink from one of the shirts started to come off. After contacting PF I was sent a return label to return the shirt. From the time I shipped the shirt back to the day the new one shipped another 7 days had passed. That was 5 days ago and still no shirts.

So so far this entire process has cost me 29 days and counting just to get one shirt right. (Not to mention a second order that also had to be returned due to the graphic being cut off).

I now see that a competitor is offering greatly reduced shipping costs (50 cents cheaper than PF) with guaranteed shipping time of 1-5 days and a 48 hour turnaround time. In addition the the cost of the 2 sided shirts is significantly less. The same 4 dark shirts with shipping would cost $82.60 as opposed to the $114.95 they cost me through PF.

I cannot justify charging over $30 for a t-shirt of sub-par quality. Sure PF will fix it but the time it takes is not worth the hassle.

David

Sometimes I wonder if the prices are holding sales back.

I'd say the pre-commission price of a dark shirt would have to be 18.99 to allow a $4 commission and still maintain an OK price of 22.99.

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Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

I think the asking price of a t-shirt depends on how strong your designs are and what types of designs are on the shirt (images vs text).

Look at Retropolis Transit Authority he sales dark shirts at $26.99 and I'm sure he makes great sales with his designs.

Myself, I haven't done any type of SEO or advertising as of yet and I was surprise that I sold a shirt for $31. Who knows how much I could be making if I were to start all this SEO/ad work on my site.

I'm not surprised that it sold for $31 just that I haven't advertised yet.

I mark up my shirts $10 because I feel this is what I want to make on a sale. This is what I feel my designs are worth for me. Over time my designs will improve.

Muchada, you have great designs. What I would do is set a mark up you are comfortable with and just keep improving your designs Like I'm doing.

Do the SEO, and be patient, and the buyers will come.

Remember, there are tshirts out there that sale for $60 and up. OK, those may be from top fashion designers, but no one over said we can't become successful at this tshirt business.

All I say is that we all just need to keep improving our designs, do the SEO, and be patient.

Great things take time to build.

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Jt_moreno
"You may clip my wings, but I can still fly in my dreams"

www.BlackCorvusStudio.com <==Vector Clipart

www.Printfection.com/BlackCorvusStudio <==TShirt Store

www.VectorVolt.com <== Free Vector Resources

I don't doubt that there are people with money to spend on a shirt that really tickles their fancy.

Ultimately, I don't think the consumer cares much about how much the designer values his designs. I think the consumer wants a cool t-shirt and doesn't want to spend a ton of money.

Personally (and sadly), I think marketing might counts for much more than a good design. Look at brand name shirts that pretty much have nothing more than a logo (perhaps a 'checkmark' or word). They sell boatloads at not cheap prices.

Really, I'm just wondering what it takes to turn browsers into buyers. Is it the designs? I prefer one chest graphic on my t-shirts, but there's a trend of clever graphic designs spreading out all over the shirt (very artsy, like Threadless).

I don't know what the PF breakdown is but I think there must be some room to move the baseline prices down a bit. There is so much competition and some sites are selling nice tees for $6 - $10.

I am not an advocate of competing on price alone. I just think we've got to get our edges where we can.

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Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

People are willing to pay a premium for a brand like the nike swoosh, which is not much design and a lot of marketing. Thats why you must get your name/brand out there. Turning browsers into shoppers is the million dollar question (if it were that easy we all be rich). I think the important thing is to keep building your brand and not worry about the shoppers. I believe they will come and buy eventually.

I have my vector site that gets about 600 hits a month (site is still young). Most of those hits are browsers downloading my free stuff. Some do buy. My belief is that the more items I offer the more sales I will recieve. I know of a similar site that has on average 80 hits everytime i visit, with 3 members logged in everytime. I believe the one's that are logged in are buying something. Only reason to log in is to buy something. Now imaging how much the site is making with 3 logged in spending say $20/per person/per hour in just 24 hours. Believe me this site has customers logged in all the time. They're making money.

The problem with POD site's prices is that PF is printing 1 tshirt at a time for your shop of that design for 1 customer, which translates to more expense. As for a site like threadless they print in bulk of a winning design, so it is cheaper, hence the $15 tshirt.

Well, with everything there is its pluses and minuses. You just can't win everygame, but you can win the championship. [img]images/icons/icon10.gif[/img]

By the way Muchada, since you make your own graphics have you ever thought of making a vector clipart site where you sale your clipart like I do?

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Jt_moreno
"You may clip my wings, but I can still fly in my dreams"

www.BlackCorvusStudio.com <==Vector Clipart

www.Printfection.com/BlackCorvusStudio <==TShirt Store

www.VectorVolt.com <== Free Vector Resources

No, because I want to make t-shirts. Yeah, it'd be perhaps another income stream, but it would take time and energy, and it's not of interest to me.

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Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

I disagree with the brand-building.

It is unlikely that any of us will ever build our small collections of shrts into brands with as much awareness as, say, Nike or Disney. We can't afford to.

What we (or at least I) are selling is unique art on t-shirts. We're not selling clothing, or fashion, we're selling artwork to wear. The people who buy are looking for shirts that few, if any other people wear, and are willing to pay a premium for that. [I've wondered if I could sell a one-off shirt, an image that I would withdraw from production forever, for a $50 mark-up.]

If you look at the biggest sellers of POD work, you see they are artists first. Some in pictures, some in typography, but they are making images you won't find everywhere, or be able to duplicate yourself. [Since our customers can make shirts too, why would they pay any mark-up for a shirt that had words in Comic Sans, when they can duplicate that in about 2 minutes.]

Marketing is important ... but you have to have a product that people want to buy.

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Cartesian Bear Industries
Witty science fiction, tech, and GT t-shirts

Cartesian Bear's Steampunk Emporium
under construction

nDid anybody notice that the t-shirt prices (for mens Dark Tees)
dropped by about $5.00 a couple of days ago then shot back up to regular price either today or yesterday?

Whats the deal?

lance

I asked about this and it was an experiment. I don't think they were down long enough to generate meaningful results.

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Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

The experiment was a sucess with me.

I think the lower prices (especially in todays economy) should be the norm and would benefit all in the long run.

http://www.printfection.com/alienpollution
http://www.printfection.com/warpedplanet

lance