60 Second Ideas: 60 Second Ideas - Gimme a 'T'

Today's Show Links:

http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20050505-tam.html?refresh=on

http://www.thetshirtzone.impax-media.com/

http://sacramentogirliemen.com/

Note: For more information on Selling T-Shirts Online, see our Special Report:
"The Good, Bad and Ugly About Selling T-Shirts Online
How to Make “Real Money” with Your Own T-Shirt Business or Micro Fashion Label."

Text Version

A recent Wall Street Journal Article focused on Dan Mowry, who launched a family entertainment newsletter with the intent of turning it into a successful online business. As an afterthought, he designed a T-Shirt with his company's logo of a circus ringmaster holding a megaphone. Today, Dan's newsletters are not doing so good, but the t-shirts?......well, they are pulling in a tidy $3000 per month. Not bad for someone who did not think he was in the T-Shirt Business.

The article goes on to report that Mowry is among a growing number of small entrepreneurs are profiting from an improbable, but lucrative web-business model, selling t-shirts.

The point of the article is that all over the web, small and home business owners are finding that t-shirts are more likely to make money than their original business idea that brought them to the Internet in the first place. Over 1500 websites now sell T-shirts online up from just 500 2 years ago.

Easy to make and deliver, T-shirts often cost $15 or less online with an average of around $19.

Apparently It's not hard to make money on T-shirts. Mr. Mowry, the accidental T-shirt merchant, often gets his shirts from CafePress.com, a San Leandro, Calif., company that prints designs on shirts and other products and even ships them directly to a Web site's customers. CafePress charges a vendor like Mowry a base price of $8.99 for a T-shirt with a customized logo printed on it. That leaves him $10 per shirt. Sometimes he uses a local apparel printer, which charges him only $5 for a basic T-shirt with printing, leaving a profit margin as high as $14 a shirt. Not to shabby.

Not surprisingly, Mowry sold off his newsletter business and is focusing on T-Shirts altogether with a website called thetshirtzone.com

The thought here is obvious, I think most existing small and home businesses that could design a cool t-shirt or two to add an additional profit center to their business and perhaps build brand ID for their existing business as well.

This article brought to mind, Sarah Lefton, a 30 something very funny young woman from San Francisco. Sarah owns jewishfashionconspiracy.com, a humorous t-shirt and apparel business in and of itself, but when Govenator Arnold Swartznager called some California legislators "girlie men", Sarah immediately designed a simple t-shirt with "Sacramento Girlie Men" printed on it and slapped up a quick website. Sarah sold hundreds of "Sacramento Girlie Men" t-shirts and got a ton of publicity from one simple press release because of the topical humor behind the shirt.

If you are design or creatively challenged in that way as I am and you have teenagers at home or close by, give them a shot of designing a cool t-shirt or two for you. What they come up with might just the cool, hip t-shirt that makes you some extra cash. Here's an example of teen creative energy...a 15 year old girl from Connecticut, doodling in school one day, thought her designs would look cute on t-shirts. Taking the idea to Dad, they formed a company called Dogpilot (dogpilot.net) They now sell loads of t-shirts, jersey's and other styles with 18 different drawings. Her father handles the business end, while the teen is responsible for the styles and doodles. Now there is an idea all it;s own......partner with your teen and tap into the booming teen market. Who knows better what teens want, than other teens?

Links:
http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20050505-tam.html?refresh=on

http://www.thetshirtzone.impax-media.com/

http://cafepress.com

http://sacramentogirliemen.com/