An aspiring designer is always keen to grab the opportunity to start any business associated with the clothing industry. So, even if they get the idea of printing t-shirts, they think they’ll be able to manage everything efficiently.
But when they ‘actually’ start working on it, they face a number of obstacles and get stuck. Despite these obstacles being small, they can show up anytime in the course of the entire process from designing to printing. And when you are a newbie with little knowledge of t-shirt print business particulars, obstacles are inevitable. Though every designer works in their own way and every print shop has its own set of rules, there are several steps that may help you successfully kickstart a t-shirt printing business. Here are the steps:
1. Think of a T-Shirt Business Plan A robust business plan is the first and foremost step towards success in any business. Talking of the t-shirt printing industry, there is a wide range of audience on the basis of choice of quality, design and style. After deciding what to sell, a company needs to decide whether to open their online store or partner with a large online retail company like Amazon, Etsy, etc. Below are the steps you can follow. a. Identify the Market Niche Segmentation of customers can be on the basis of either customers’ needs or age. To find out the market niche, ensure to ask yourself the following questions.
There are several more ways to identify a niche. A basic step is keyword research. Google Keyword Planner can help you with that. Just put some keywords related to your intended niche and targeted country, and note which phrases and words appear as suggestions. Narrow down the suggestions further by monthly search volume, competition level or suggested bids. Go for those keywords with a minimum search volume of 1k per month. As there would probably be no room for any keyword less than this. With competition, you get ideas about your competitors and with suggested bids, you can get the idea of a high level of commercial intent. After industry and market research, write down your plan. While creating a custom printed t-shirt, ponder over a few points like:
b. Consider Financial Aspects Before establishing a business, having an idea of the overall cost is important. Being an entrepreneur thinking for the long run, your financial strategy should include:
Obtaining printing quotes from various t-shirt printing firms to compare prices can help. They can help decide on the best deal to offer without compromising quality. And these aspects combinedly will help decide prices of your t-shirts. One more thing you need to evaluate is how far you can go if things don’t go as planned. c. Strictly Avoid These Mistakes For a robust business plan, undergoing each step of the planning process is indispensable. Small entrepreneurs or startups think at times that there is no need for a business plan. But that doesn’t work. Here are the few mistakes that you must not make.
2. Choose the Right Ecommerce Solution for Your Store The second step is deciding on the ecommerce platform for your store. Hosted platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have a low startup cost and are ideal for low-budget startups. But they don’t let you choose an individual choice of your design and cannot add customized elements. On the contrary, with self-hosted platforms, you can choose your own design, make custom edits, add products and set prices at your convenience. The only drawback is that they aren’t ideal for low-budget startups and one can choose them only if they have higher (capital reserve/spending ability). 3. Integrate an Online Product Designer Tool Investing in an advanced online product design tool is highly recommended. To start with, you can just integrate a Online T-shirt Design Tool to fulfill basic customers’ requirements. This way, you can help customers design t-shirts that stand out. Once your business takes off, you can add new functionalities to your web-to-print store and enhance it further. Similarly, you can even expand features of your t shirt maker software to help people avail of ready-made quotes, clipart, texts, designs, and more. 4. Select the T-Shirt Printing Method Post deciding designs, decide on the method of t-shirt printing. There are 3 common ways of printing t-shirts – Screen Printing, Heat Transfer Printing, DTG Printing. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. While screen printing and heat transfer printing are more suitable for bulk printing, DTG printing is not. In the same way, there are a number of differences between the three. So, research well and match those features with your objective. Go for a method only after ensuring it is a perfect fit. 5. Choose the Right T-Shirt Supplier/Vendor Choosing the right t-shirt supplier is also crucial. Look for a manufacturer who can provide you with good quality blank t-shirts for printing at nominal prices. Make sure that your relationship with your vendor is good throughout as every single imperfect t-shirt will directly hamper your business. Keep in mind the other points like: The design should fit in the center of the t-shirt. The type of ink you choose out of high intensity ink, gel ink and foil ink based on your fabric type and customers’ requirements 6. Set Up the Printing Infrastructure Set up a printing infrastructure where printing can take place without any glitches. Printing studio with well-maintained printers accompanied by a coating and a finishing unit is recommendable. Also, ensure to have printers that can print on a variety of fabrics as customers can for customized caps, bags, jerseys, etc. The following are the steps involved in the printing process. Proper choice of color schemes Saving a copy for yourself and for print Printing the t-shirts 7. Set up Logistics Infrastructure Once a customer places an order, it is a must to deliver it on time. Ensuring a smooth delivery involves three steps. Take care of your orders independently with your team support. Sell products through a drop-shipper who can take care of your orders Tie up with a logistics company who can take care of warehouse and order fulfillments. 8. Launch and Market Your Store All set? Here comes the final step – store launch. Invite your customers to put their creativity to use and draw designs with a t shirt printing software you offer. Make sure to keep the designer tool user-friendly and interactive to reduce cart abandonment rates. If you are keen to start an online t-shirt printing store, you need not be tech-savvy or a highly skilled programmer. All you need is the love for art and knowledge and sense of the latest fashion trends. So now that you have successfully launched the store, next comes its marketing. Start spreading information about your upcoming business through flyers, pamphlets, and business cards. Approach nearby schools, organizations, and businesses in person as word-of-mouth promotion is one of the best promotional methods. Be active on social media, click snaps of products, post them on Instagram, Facebook, etc. Interact with people and use the tactic of giveaway contests for your fans. If your budget allows, you can further use paid marketing, sponsor events, and go for other marketing tactics for maximum outreach. Conduct timely online polls and keep posting to keep people engaged. Final Takeaway T-shirt printing business is indeed a great idea for fashion lovers. However, only if you come up with a strong business plan and proper steps right from choosing the right ecommerce platform, t-shirt maker software, to marketing your store; your business can ‘actually’ succeed. Original Source: https://customerthink.com/a-guide-on-starting-an-online-t-shirt-printing-business-in-2020/
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If you run an online print business or offer product decoration services on a Magento based e-store, you must be aware that Magento will end its official support and new security updates for Magento 1.X from June 2020. And it is June already!
As a result, online print stores with a Magento Product Designer embedded still using Magento 1.X are likely to become more prone to performance-related issues and vulnerabilities after starting from this month. Therefore, rather than using the old version, Magento 1.X users should switch to Magento 2.0 to keep business uninterrupted and glitch-free. Advantages of migration to Magento 2.0 There are several advantages of migration to Magento 2.0 as:
A Guide on Migration to Magento 2 for Printers and Product Decoration Service Providers Migration to Magento 2.X can help you increase the count of your online shoppers by up to 200%. If you want to switch to Magento 2.X, below are the seven best practices to follow for the successful switch. 1. Enhanced Front-End Architecture Magento 2 offers a number of built-in features for online businesses. The three major ones are as follows. Responsiveness Magento 2 makes your online printing storefront responsive that can fit any screen – be it of a mobile, laptop, or desktop. Advanced Admin Interface The admin can personalize the backend as per their requirements, manage and retrieve the important information in real-time. This version has also got enhanced import capabilities. Checkout Process The buyers’ journey becomes faster by 38% and also smoother. This helps in reducing the cart abandonment rate that is often a common problem in ecommerce. 2. Improved Technology Stacks Magento 2 offers updated versions of tech stacks to Magento 2.X developers that help them deliver quality work promptly. And it lets online printers avail of flexibility and customization unlike in Magento 1.X. 3. A Systematic Base for Optimized Codes and Modules Unlike Magento 1.X, Magento 2.X doesn’t support and manage non-optimized codes as they don’t contribute to the improvement of the user experience and don’t optimize storefront speed. Therefore, this latest version works best with support for optimized codes only and increases efficiency. 4. Progressive Module Development The open-source eCommerce platform lets Magento 2.X developers use the default code and override it as required to develop modules. This specific functionality is one of the major reasons behind adaptation to this latest version The sophisticated module development is highly beneficial for online businesses who want to get started quickly as it saves their time and effort. Additionally, it is also possible to compress images directly on the server-side using the built-in tools on Magento 2. The open-source eCommerce platform lets Magento 2.X developers use the default code and override it as required to develop modules. This specific functionality is one of the major reasons behind adaptation to this latest version 5. Smooth Extension Integration As your customers grow in number, the add-ons you need to manage them will also increase in number. That is why your storefront should be easily integrable with advanced APIs and off-the-shelf extensions to improve efficiency. But extensions must be updated periodically to avoid multiple crashes on your store. Magento 2.X makes third-party integrations seamless and glitch-free. 6. Enhanced Technical Capabilities Ensure to enable your Magento 2.X developers to test the code before they finalize it for the migration process. This will help them find out if any part of your online store needs fixes in how it’s working. The testing framework it offers includes performance tests, static tests, unit tests, integration tests, and more. 7. Easy Varnish Caching In Magento 2, a varnish cache behaves like a web accelerator that speeds up your online printing store and optimizes your performance. Moreover, it also uses browser caching to make sure all storefront assets are stored properly. What Magento 2.X Constitutes? 1. Data Migration It includes moving data including customer details, store configurations, product information, sales, and CRM data, and basic SEO set up like meta-description, titles, or redirects. 2. Extension and Code Customization Magento 1.X extensions and code customizations aren’t transferable to the latest version. However, you can fully or partially re-create custom inbuilt functionality on your online printing store to run them better. 3. Design Migration Despite Magento 1.X themes not being directly transferable to 2.X, creating a new theme or recreating an old theme from scratch is easily possible. 4. Advanced SEO Migration You can recreate advanced SEO settings including custom URLs, meta titles and descriptions, cross-links, formats, markup tags, redirects, etc. on Magento 2. To Wrap Up Migrating from Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X is the need of the hour as the latest version will help make your online store more productive and interactive. There are several solution provider companies that can guide you on transitioning/switching seamlessly from Magento 1 to Magento 2. Original Source: https://bestcmsplugins.com/guide-on-magento-2-x-migration-for-product-designers-and-printers/ The annual estimate of greeting card retail sales is above $7.5 billion! It proves that
people still prefer greeting cards over GIFs in this high-end digital age. As it gives a personal touch to the feelings you convey! While buying greeting cards and gifts offline is still existent, online card shopping has also emerged popular of late. To compete with the leading brands like Archies, Hallmark and other big fishes in this industry is tough. But it is possible though! So, are you ready to launch your new online card retail business? Or to expand your offline card retail store into an online one? Below are some good ways to sell greeting cards online. How to Sell Greeting Cards Online (Highly Recommended Ways) Print-On-Demand Sites Print-On-Demand is highly trending nowadays. The reason is, customers can not only purchase products but also customize them. They can select different images to keep on their products. The companies then print these products with images on them. You can upload images on greeting cards and other products and sell them on such print-on-demand companies. Being a designer, you can set a base price and add the commission you want to earn. Generally, it is around 10%. Zazzle, Red Bubble, and Cafe Press are some good print-on-demand companies you can tie up with. Trading your cards through these sites have various advantages viz: No big investment in products as the company takes care of printing and requirement fulfillments. No shipping charges as the company pays for shipping. No need to deal with enquiries or complaints from customers. The company handles them all. However, you can allow your customers to contact you for their design requests if you want to. Hassle-free payments. The company handles all payments and pays you via PayPal or check depending on your location. Continuous selling of your designs for years making it your source of passive income. Sell Handmade Cards Online If you are good at innovative artwork and craftwork, you can go for selling handmade cards online. However, the cost of making such cards is higher. It’s because you have to be ready with all crafting materials with you. You may require cards, rubber stamps, stickers, ribbons,, ruler, die cutting machines, etc. Moreover, you will have to handle shipping charges also. Nevertheless, handmade cards are in great demand. Therefore, higher card-making costs will bring you higher profits. Most of these sites either charge you monthly or ask for a commission on your earning from sales. If you are selling handmade cards offline, you can upload them on various sites to sell them. This way, you don’t only get to sell your cards but also promote them. Some popular sites where you let you sell your handmade cards are: Amazon Etsy Shopify iCraft Artfire Supermarket Folksy (UK based) Dawanda, and more. Launch Your Own Website If you are financially sound and can invest huge amounts, your own card retail website is a good idea to go for. You have to take care of everything from taking card orders to dispatching them. But hold on! First, your site is not the ‘lonewolf’ of the online card retail industry. Many major players like Hallmark, Etsy, Zazzle, etc. are already a tough competition. So, your site must be visible enough for people to view, notice and visit. For this to happen, you must learn SEO skills. Or hire someone who would do that for your site. So that your site shows up in top search results. Second, you need to choose a feature-rich Card Design Software that lets your customers customize cards. Freelance Sites ‘Freelance sites’ is yet another good way of earning income through online sale of cards. This option has its own advantages some of which are: Unlike other options, you don’t need to create cards and wait for others to buy them. On the contrary, you just need to work on specific design requirements of customers. This puts you at a relatively lower risk of low sales and profits. You don’t have to take care of uploading card designs timely, managing orders or shipping order. Just take orders as they come and fulfill them. Also, you can earn a pretty good amount by catering to multiple customers monthly or yearly. If your designs go down well with clients, your popularity escalates. And you can get more and more orders. Again a bonanza for you! Card Design Ideas Though not directly related to selling cards, this way that fits here somehow. If you are good at innovation, sell it to card companies. Some card companies pay you for their submission. But before submitting your idea to a site, analyze the style of cards they sell thoroughly. If they like your poetry, quotes, sayings, design and theme ideas; you can earn anywhere between $25 to $300. To tie up with such companies, you first need to sign a statement. And confirm that your idea is original and you won’t use it anywhere else. Some good companies that pay you for ideas are: Oatmeal Cards Blue Mountain Cards SNAFU Designs Smart Alex Warner Press Comstock Market Place, and more. In a Nutshell Thus, you see that the greeting card business will never go out of fashion. So, you can always go for it. Just start selling cards online besides selling them offline. And boost your card retail business! |
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Mr. Pratik Shah is the Creative Head of Brush Your Ideas, a Web-to-Print technology solution offering consisting of magento product designer extension and readymade Web-to-Print Storefront. He is a tech enthusiast and an avid blogger and writes about ecommerce and web-to-print industry. Archives
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