10 Steps to Launching Your e-Brand

Part one of a multi-part series on how a great Web site store can sell your pre-print line without a large upfront investment.
Sept 10, 2007

By Josh Ellsworth

For many years, decorators have realized the money-earning potential of offering a preprinted line of apparel. There's nothing more profitable than selling large quantities of the same image. However, in the past, this was a fairly expensive venture. It required creating catalogs, samples and hiring a team of sales reps to go out and sell the line to retail shops, among other costs. It was a risky investment that frequently did not pay off.

But the Internet has changed all that. Today, savvy decorators are catching on to the concept of marketing their preprint line (or "e-brand" as it is coming to be known) on the Web for a small investment and low risk.

Gone is the all the investment in catalogs, direct mail marketing and sales payroll. You can print and fulfill orders as they come in direct from consumers, who find your online store and place their own, self-service order.

WEB WORLD
A Web site offers countless advantages over traditional marketing methods, including 24-hour shopping for customers and a relatively low-cost investment for you. You also have global reach (thus the name "world wide" Web), yet at the same time you can target your marketing efforts to a specific geographic area or demographic group, if you prefer. For instance, if you're selling a preprint line geared toward teens, you could promote the brand via social networking or bookmarking sites such as MySpace, del.iciou.us, Digg.com and Facebook.

According to some estimates, sales of clothing via the Internet have increased by a multiple of five in the past six years. Expect that number to skyrocket as consumers become increasingly comfortable shopping online, purchasing everything from T-shirts to vehicles and even houses.

What does all this Internet activity and buzz — or roar, actually — about e-commerce mean to you? It means that selling preprinted apparel online can be very profitable. This article outlines the 10 key steps to establishing your e-brand. Taken together, they provide an overview of what's required. In future installments, I will delve into each topic further and tell you exactly how to get started. In the meantime, buckle in for the new generation of T-shirt marketing. It's going to be quite a ride.

1. Develop a Business Plan
Any good businessperson knows that the first step in launching a successful initiative is to have a solid, well-conceived business plan. Putting together such a thorough document requires a lot of research. Thankfully, vendors offer template software programs that guide you through the key components of a business plan.

Web sites such as entrepreneur.com offer loads of free information about developing a business plan, so check them out. No matter where you do your research, your goal is to create a plan that helps you land financing for the e-brand but also to serve as a map for your fledgling enterprise and its employees.

2. Register Your Business
Register a domain name for your brand, meaning the URL, where Internet visitors will go to shop your store. For example, the domain name for celebrated online marketer Café Press is cafepress.com. Sites such as Go Daddy can help you search for a domain name's availability and purchase it, or look for similar alternatives if your name of choice is already taken. Domain names are available for about $12 to $15 per year.

3. Find a Host
A host is essentially your "space" on the Internet. It's actually a computer server that literally hosts your Web site information. You could set up your own server, but that can be an expensive and fairly complex proposition, especially if you're new to e-commerce. It's generally better to rely on a vendor for hosting. The cost will depend largely on how much space your site requires, usually ranging from roughly $50 to $150 per year.

When shopping for a host, look for statistics about how often the company's servers are down, or offline. Some of the better-known companies that offer hosting include Go Daddy, Lunar Pages and A Plus.


Part of the process of setting up a preprinted apparel Web site is choosing your production method. In many cases, you'll want to consider a method that allows for efficient and cost-effective production of small orders, such as this example of heat-applied graphics decoration. (Photo courtesy of Imprintables Warehouse, Masontown, Pa.)

4. Select a Shopping Cart
When a consumer visits your Web site, a "shopping cart" is how they go about making a purchase. If you've ever made a purchase online, you've almost certainly experienced a shopping cart. From the way designs look on the screen to the way colors and sizes are presented and selected, a shopping cart is an integral part of your e-brand.

Shopping cart services, such as X-Cart, charge a fee for their software package, while others, such as cubecart.com and zencart.com offer free carts. When selecting a shopping cart, it is important to consider factors essential to general set-up, the shopper's experience and the administrative functionality of your site.

5. Prepare to Accept Payment
In order to accept payment online, you must have a merchant account and credit card processing service (payment gateway) or you can use a gateway service from a secure third-party service provider, such as Google Checkout or Paypal. If you choose to do your own credit card processing, then a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate also is required to ensure secure communication when obtaining customers' credit card information online.

A SSL enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions. Each SSL certificate contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner. SSL certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority that verifies the identity of the certificate owner. SSL certificates start at an approximate annual rate of $50.

6. Design Your Site
You can design a site yourself, using template software or download site-building software and templates from companies such as your site's host. Check out shopify.com, sitekreator.com and bigcartel.com for template Web sites that already include shopping carts (see Step 4). The downside here is that your site will probably look fairly similar to those of the countless other companies using the same templates.

A better option might be to leave it to the experts and hire a Web designer to create a custom-designed site. You can map out the pages and dictate the site's overall look, and the designer can bring it to life. Expect to pay anywhere from $500 to $1,000 for a basic site.

7. Determine Web Content
Determine what info should be included on your site, keeping in mind that the richer the content on your site, the higher visibility you'll have in search engines. You'll obviously want images of the preprints, along with descriptions of them, as well as contact info, an "about us" section and FAQs. You also may want to include related news or relevant trend info. Keyword-rich articles and blogs can really help boost your ratings in the search engines, while galleries of upcoming designs and photos of customers wearing your shirts may engage visitors.

8. Create the Artwork/Plan the Production
If you have a preprint line, you already have artwork in place. If not, you probably have some artwork styles in mind, or you wouldn't be looking to sell preprints. With your art in mind, begin to look at the different options for putting your graphics onto apparel, including traditional screen printing, direct-to-garment inkjet printing, heat-applied graphics printing, embroidery and so on. Decide which techniques you'll use to produce your orders. Other questions to address include whether you'll inventory designs or print items on demand.


Rodney Blackwell has established a very successful preprint line on the Web based on some people's dislike of clowns. In addition to his online store of anti-clown designs (ihateclowns.com), he has a discussion forum with more than 1,500 members.

9. Determine Your Pricing
Take a look at other preprint lines available on the Web, and you'll find prices as varied as the designs themselves. Not surprisingly, the amount you can charge for a preprint depends on numerous factors such as the quality of the design, the competitive landscape for your niche, the budget of the target audience, etc. Don't be afraid to start out a little on the high end, though; it's easy enough to bring down your prices later, if necessary.

10. Market the Site
There are as many ways to market a site as there are ways to decorate a shirt, but your options include search engine optimization, keyword advertising, making friends on social networking sites, and sending out e-blasts and press releases. The point is, you can't just build a site and expect people to automatically start flocking to it. Just as you would publicize a bricks-and-mortar store, you have to get the word out about your e-brand. Once you do that, then the real fun begins — namely, you start earning the real money.

Next month: Part Two of this series provides insight on how to put together a compelling e-brand business plan.

Josh Ellsworth has been in the garment decoration industry for eight years, working for the past six years as an account representative for Imprintables Warehouse, Masontown, Pa. Ellsworth manages his own blog called Heat Press Yourself.

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