E-Branding Part V: Producing and Pricing Online Preprints

Learn how to pick the right artwork, production process and prices for your e-commerce T-shirt Web site.
Nov 2, 2007

By Josh Ellsworth

If you’re planning on selling preprints online, you most likely have some ideas either for killer artwork, clever graphics or something special that will grab customers’ attention. After all, unless you have compelling preprint images that people want to buy, even the best-looking, most functional Web site on the Internet won’t be able to sell them.

However, as simple as all that may sound, there are numerous issues to consider. For instance, how much artwork should you create? How will you decorate the T-shirts? How many, if any, should you decorate in advance? Is one process better than another when it comes to producing preprints for e-commerce? And finally, how much should you charge for printed shirts?

Creating Artwork
Ideally, you should have enough artwork so that you can upload new designs at least once a month. That way, your Web site stays fresh, and customers will visit on a regular basis rather than buying a T-shirt on their first visit and then, after a second visit, never returning because they feel like they’ve already seen all you have to offer. Some successful online T-shirt sites go so far as to add new designs on a weekly or daily basis. That may not be possible for your business, but do strive to keep the site as fresh as possible.

Rodney Blackwell, a Sacramento, Calif.-based Web developer who has several online T-shirt sites, including t-shirtforums.com, usually has nearly two-dozen designs for sale at any given time. “There’s no set schedule for releasing new designs,” he says. “But if you want to give customers a reason to come back, you should bring out fresh designs every now and then.”

Vincent Strangio, a Murrysville, Pa.-based photographer who sells dog preprints online via vincentstrangiostore.com, says he tries to add about 50 designs annually to his already huge online library of 500 images. “I add new ones weekly up until about October when I just get too busy with Christmas orders to do it,” Strangio says. “I generally don’t take down old designs because I don’t inventory; I print on demand. It doesn’t cost me anything to keep it up even for the occasional sale.”

Choosing a Process
Three of the most popular processes for applying artwork to T-shirts are heat graphics, screen printing and direct-to-garment printing. Embroidery is a fourth option, although it’s not as popular when it comes to decorating T-shirts.

The quantities you plan to sell may play the most critical role in determining which process you choose. Larger quantities lend themselves well to screen printing, which provides increasing cost efficiency as volume increases. On the other hand, lower quantities lend themselves well to heat-applied graphics and direct-to-garment printing, where it’s far more cost-effective to do a few dozen, or even just one or two items.

Further, the type of artwork you have also plays a factor in which process you should pick. For instance, if you have full-color, photographic-quality images of outdoor scenery, you’d no doubt avoid using embroidery, instead opting for a process that could do the job faster and more cost-effectively.

Heat-Applied Graphics
This is really an umbrella term referring to a number of processes that use a heat press to seal artwork to the T-shirt, including screen printed transfers; digital and sublimation transfers produced on inkjet printers, color laser printers and copiers; and vinyl, film and other roll materials that are cut. For the most part, heat-applied decoration is a fairly low-cost investment with a short learning curve.

You do need a heat press. Beyond that, you may choose to invest in a cutter or a printer/cutter, but you don’t have to make that capital investment as you can also purchase pre-cut materials. Heat-applied graphics allow you to produce on demand, meaning you don’t have to tie up costly inventory. It’s also the most versatile of all the processes in terms of what you can decorate. Just about anything you can fit into a heat press can be decorated, including all types of apparel (cotton, polyester, blends, nylon) and hardgoods, such as tiles, wood, mouse pads, mugs, etc.

Direct-to-Garment Printing
This process, which has gained in popularity in the past few years, lets you produce full-color images that look similar to screen printing. It can be cost-effective for smaller quantities. Like heat-applied graphics, you don’t have to invest in inventory; rather, you can print on demand as customers order items. A direct-to-garment printer requires a higher capital investment than heat applied graphics.

This process also takes longer to print dark shirts vs. light shirts (whereas you can heat apply graphics darks and lights in the same amount of time). Also, direct-to-garment is currently best for printing on garments that are 100% cotton or high-cotton content. If you want to inkjet print polyester fabric and/or hardgoods, you have to apply a pretreatment — consequently taking more time. Finally, whatever you want to print has to be able to go through the printer, so direct-to-garment inkjet printers can’t  handle irregularly shaped items such as mugs or note pads, any of which you can do with heat-applied graphics.
Screen printing

Given the popularity of this decorating process, customers are extremely comfortable with its look, feel and durability. However, while it’s great for larger quantities, screen printing makes much less sense for smaller orders. Further, there’s a considerable learning curve if you’ve never screen printed — although you could always outsource it, of course. It also will require a significantly greater amount of space than heat applied graphics or direct-to-garment printing.

Blackwell started selling T-shirts in 1996 and opted to use screen printing, a process he has stuck with ever since. “I carry inventory of already printed T-shirts, which allows me to process and ship orders much faster,” he says. “For a one-man operation with a large volume of orders, printing on demand doesn’t seem to be an effective option.”

Strangio’s online business offers hundreds of preprint designs based on photos he has taken of about 80 dog breeds. He decorates T-shirts, sweatshirts, pillows, mouse pads and other items using a T-Jet direct-to-garment printer. “I can bang out orders quickly,” he says. “I just select the file and send it over to the printer. I can have 40 T-shirts printed, shrink-wrapped and packaged with postage by noon.”

Embroidery
This process has a high perceived value but it’s not as commonly used on T-shirts; it’s seen much more frequently used for caps, plackets and other types of corporate apparel. As with screen printing and direct-to-garment, embroidery requires a fairly substantial capital investment if don’t already own a machine. The alternative is to outsource the process.

Inventory Issues
Launching an online business selling preprints can be a bit intimidating when it comes to inventory considerations. For instance, you may have several dozen preprint designs that you want to offer customers, but how many should you print? And in which colors? And in which sizes? Really, until you start selling, you have little or no way of knowing which ones will perform best and which ones may be duds. Even then, you’ll have to analyze sales over a given time period to figure out which sizes and colors sell best for each design.

Heat-applied graphics and direct-to-garment printing are great options if you want to offer a big library of designs without committing to quantities. By printing on demand, you don’t have to worry about tying up inventory; you can just wait until the customer actually places his order to apply the design. Another advantage is that you can easily switch out poorly performing designs. If a particular preprint isn’t selling well, you don’t have to worry about getting rid of the inventory with that image on it; instead, you can simply stop offering the design.

Printing on demand does present challenges, however. Customers — particularly those placing orders in the fast-paced online world — expect to get their goods quickly. If you print on demand, you need the production capacity to get orders done fast. Also, it’s a good idea to have a relationship with a contractor who can handle large orders, just in case you get unusually high demand in a short time period and find that you can’t finish the job yourself in time.

Packaging & Shipping
When you send an order, you’ll probably want to put it in a clear polybag, which are offered by a range of suppliers. From there, put the bag into something sturdy, like a cardboard envelope. Many savvy decorators brand their packaging by using logoed tissue paper, printed bows or custom stickers, all of which help with brand recognition and give the package a polished, professional look. You also may want to drop a flier or business card into the bag.

“I take the shirt, press it to cure the design, fold it, and shrink wrap it. It looks very professional and only costs about 5 cents a shirt,” Strangio says. “Then I put the shrink-wrapped goods into a Tyvek tearproof, waterproof envelope that I buy from the U.S Postal Service. If you mail priority, they’ll provide it for free. About half of my goods are shipped priority and half are shipped first class. Priority delivers in two to three days, which is faster than UPS and less expensive.”

Visit stamps.com and endicia.com for information about printing your own labels, which also can add a professional touch to your mail-outs. You can even buy and print postage from your computer, and get delivery confirmation.

Setting Prices
Whether they’re selling in a physical store or online, one of the most common questions all decorators have is, “How much should I charge?” Perhaps the reason they keep asking is that there’s really no simple answer. Naturally, you need to consider the cost of producing the item, and make sure you’re charging enough to earn a healthy profit.

Besides that, though, you need to look at what other, comparable preprints are selling for online, and get a sense of what your target audience will pay. Are you selling highbrow designs to an affluent customer base, or basic designs that are easy to find cheaply on the Web? In any case, you’re better off erring on the side of pricing a bit too high rather than too low. It’s easy enough to lower prices if you need to do so, but customers will balk if you try raising them.

“Make a master list of all your costs. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, the T-shirt cost $2.50 and I’m going to charge $10.’ You’ve got the shirt, ink, Web site administration, the machine you are decorating with, etc.,” Strangio says. “You can spend an hour or two printing $25 shirts and making $10 net a shirt. Or you can lower your price, and spend four hours printing shirts and make $3 a shirt. I can be printing all day and make the same amount of money in that time as I do printing two hours a day and making $10 a shirt.”

Blackwell determined his prices by looking at production costs, and by seeing what similar T-shirts sold for. “Some people double their cost of goods to get their wholesale price, and then double that wholesale price to get their retail price,” he says. “You need to consider how much it costs to print the T-shirts, and to package and finish them. Also, make sure your pricing is competitive. If it costs too much, you may wind up pricing yourself out of the market.”

Strangio add, “Stick to your prices once you’ve set them. Also, don’t compare your prices to ebay, which has a flea market mentality.”
Regardless of what you charge, you should always get paid in advance for your preprints sold online. That may not be the case with decorated apparel sold wholesale via a bricks-and-mortar location, but for online sales, prepayment is the only way to go. Thankfully, the Internet has been around long enough now that most customers will be perfectly happy to pay in advance using a credit card or PayPal, or even mailing you a money order. If the customer sends a check, wait until it clears before fulfilling the order.

Blackwell accepts checks, but the vast majority of customers pay via credit card or PayPal, he says. “I collect payment from the customer at the time the order is placed, just like on Amazon.com,” he says. “Nothing ships without being paid for first.”

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, imprintableswarehouse.com. Ellsworth manages his own blog at joshellsworth.com, entitled Heat Press Yourself. His Web site offers weekly articles, tutorials and videos that explore that art of T-shirt decoration with a heat press.

Click here to view the entire e-Branding series.

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