T-shirts are adorable pieces of clothing items that a lot of us love to wear because they are easy to wear, and can fit into most occasions. T-shirts are also clothing items that are not limited in category or gender. A large group of people wear T-shirts: Men, women, children, students, health workers, military men, politicians, law enforcement agents all wear T-shirts for one reason or the other.
So, if you are considering going into T-Shirt designing business, you do not need to worry about whether you would get customers to patronize you or not because as long as you use the right marketing skills, you would always get people to patronize your T-shirt designing business.
While some people prefer to wear plain T-shirts without any inscription on it, a lot of people love to wear T-shirts that have inscriptions on them which may be popular inspirational quotes, religious quotes or funny messages. A popular trend in the T-shirt making industry is making T-shirts with trending Instgram or Twitter hash tags or with popular celebrity sayings on social network.
For instance, the recent unfortunate incident which occurred in Nigeria in which over 200 girls were captured from their school by a group of terrorists created a buzz in the whole world. A lot of people came out to lend their voices and show support by carrying placards or wearing T-shirts with the inscription #BringBackOurGirls. There have been many of such trends in the past with smart T-shirt designers making plenty of money by designing T-shirts with these inscriptions on them and selling them.
Making and selling your T-shirt designs from home is not a difficult process if you follow the following instructions listed below-:
What You Need to Start a T-Shirt Designing Business from Home
To start your T-Shirt business, you should gather the necessary tools and resources that you need to start your T-shirt business. Some of the things you will need include-:
- A business plan-: Who says you do not need a business plan to start your home-based T-shirt business? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a professionally written business plan. It can just be something written by you to help you map out your business strategy and future plans for your business. Most likely, you would want to expand your business eventually. Writing a business plan would help you to outline how you intend to achieve this.
- Obtain a business license-: Well, some countries would require that you obtain a license before you are permitted to start any business, whether home-based or not; so it is advisable for you to find out country-specific requirements for starting your T-shirt business.
- Sketch unique designs-: Originality is important in this business. You don’t want to keep churning out old or copied designs. You should try to sketch new T-shirt designs that would be unique and attractive to your clients.
- Gather necessary equipment-: You would need some equipment to start your T-shirt business such as printing materials which you can either buy or sub-contract the printing aspect to someone else if you cannot afford the necessary equipment yet.
- Marketing materials-: You would also need marketing materials to promote your business like hand bills, business cards and free T-shirts.
How to Start your Home-Based T-Shirt Business
1. Decide on a niche-: There are different niches that you can opt for in the T-shirt designing business. You can decide to design Uniforms and P.E wears for students, design women’s T-shirts or men’s T-shirts, Design shirts for religious groups or sports teams. There are a lot of niches in T-shirt designing. Just do your research and you will see be able choose a niche.
2. Buy Equipment-: The next step to take is purchasing of necessary equipment needed to carry on your business. Like i mentioned earlier, if you cannot afford the equipment, it’s okay. You can always get someone else to do the printing for you.
3. Purchase plain T-Shirts in bulk-: Next, you should look for a manufacturer or wholesaler of T-shirts who would sell bulk T-shirts to you at a cheap rate. If you know how to sew your own T-shirts, then you are in luck. All you need is someone to supply you with quality materials that you would use in sewing your T-shirts.
4. Make Labels-: Next you should make your own labels that you would put on your T-shirts when you design them. The labels should look good and have your chosen business name on them as well as the size of the T-shirt.
5. Decide on a sales strategy-: How do you want to sell your T-shirts? Where will you sell them? How will you market them and increase awareness? These are things that you have to determine at this point.
6. Make samples-: You are ready to launch your T-shirt designing business at this point. Make samples that you could display on your website or sales page or samples that you would give out to other people as a means of promoting your designs.
7. Determine how you will receive payments for your goods as well as shipping methods that would be used to transfer the shirts to buyers.
How to Sell your Home-Made T-Shirt Designs Online
- E-commerce websites-: Websites like Etsy and EBay are good places to market your T-shirt designs. All you have to do is to create accounts and promote your goods on such websites. Remember that you would be charged commission for using their services by these websites, so ensure that you include these costs in your pricing.
- Customer design options-: Another method that would help you sell your T-shirts faster is to make it possible for your clients to sketch their own designs online. This could be done using templates that would be provided on your sales page or website.
- Create a business website to promote your business. Your business website can even be an e-commerce website where people can select and pay for stuffs online.
- Negotiate with shipping companies-: Since you will be working from home, you will have to rely a lot on shipping companies to help transport items to the buyers. If shipping costs are too high, people might be discouraged. That is why you have to find a way to talk to shipping companies, so that they can give you discounts or offer you lower shipping prices.
- Personal selling-: You can also engage in personal selling and market your business to people around you like your friends or family members.
- Freebies-: Another selling strategy that works is giving out freebies to friends and family or people that make contact with lots of people daily. For instance, a music band or celebrities may be able to attract more business sales.
- Affiliate programs-: Lastly, you can introduce an affiliate program whereby people can persuade other people to buy your T-shirts and earn commission for it.
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