How Can College Students Sell T-Shirts online and Make Money in 2012

Lately my classmates planned to order some customized T-Shirts for the entire batch and the thought of T-Shirts and the Money Making Business linked in my mind. Today’s generation is fond of maintaining itself, following the latest trends of fashion. The Custom made t-shirts are fun to wear, helping you to personalize your dressing according to your moods. At the same time they look extremely stylish and trendy too. Thinking from a professional perspective, it is one of the great sources to promote the products and advertise the goods or services.

Forget about the fashion; forget about the advertising at the moment. Think about how can it be productive for you? How can generate some dollars for you? Being a student, you cannot start a t-shirt business physically (lack of finance, lack of expertise, lack of experience, etc.) but you can still make money. It is a very profitable business and the top online t-shirt companies are making millions every year.

Learn how you can make Money Online by Selling T-Shirts:-

Find a decent graphics program

The first step is to create your own online t-shirt design. If you’re not good with Graphics software like Macromedia or Adobe, no need to worry, as T- shirts with sayings on them are also big sellers. However, Use graphics that are well-made and as professional-looking as possible. The same goes for text-only shirts, but is easier to achieve. If something looks sloppy nobody will buy it. Graphic Programs are literally not difficult to get settle on. There are several of tutorials online that can surly take out an artist within you. Once you get started up with your personalized design, save it as a PNG file.

No Start up Cost – Only efforts!

The business is relatively cheapest as compared to all other making money methods. The startup cost isn’t high and you don’t need a factory to produce the t-shirts. In fact, at start up you can work with your local t-shirt printing factory (as my friends did) to print the t-shirts. Keep that in mind that initially you just have to focus on building and marketing your online t-shirt website. You need to build a good market first of all which you can easily do by maintaining your online website. Always be on the pay attention on ways you can promote your shop.

Let The Clients Choose their own persona- Become a Source!

When I was a kid, I always hated wearing the shirts of celebrities I didn’t like. On the contrary, anyone can fall for something he likes. Isn’t it? Give your clients (and potential clients) a platform to customize their T-Shirts via You! People love that their personality can be part of the t-shirts that they wear. You can offer loads of great designs that people will enjoy on t-shirts, but you should also offer them the opportunity to customize what they would like. This includes logos for their business, photos of their children, celebrities, their favorite quotes and much more.

Make Shopping Remote for your Clients!

If you read the biographies of successful businessmen, you will learn that business is run by Customers. The more priority you will give to consumers, the more fortune it will bring for you in return. You must involve your customers in letting them select and personalize their shirts. You can also allow people to create their own by uploading images online. If they have photos on their computer they can upload them and put them where they would like to in order to have the t-shirt they want. They can see how the images would look on the front, the back, and moved around before they make up their final decision. Figuratively, there are thousands of customized t-shirts sold every single day. just imagine your where your sale will reach once you get established with the business!

Think Bigger – Be Realistic!

Normally when Customized T-shirts are ordered for some campaign or for advertising some kind of brands or services, the Customers buy that in bulk! (Just like we did, we ordered around 150 Shirts to show our unity in a university event). When you get bulk orders by customers, you can then offer quality materials and cut your expenses too. You can sell each custom designed t-shirt for $20 or so and that means you will still make quite a nice profit for each one you sell. This has been one of the latest trends in schools, colleges and universities and you can undoubtedly work on this one.

Too Busy to handle all of it? Say yes to Cafepress

Just like any other Manufacturer that you can ask for manufacturing T-Shirts of your design, Cafepress prints your T-shirts and process all the shipping and ordering for you. All you have to do is to upload designs to CafePress and there will be tones of buyers ready to buy. Cafepress will estimate the production cost and you only have to mark up your price from there to make a profit. It also handles customer service inquiries itself, allowing you to deal with more important issues, such as, designing and promoting your store, your studies and other side businesses, etc.

I was searching about the user feed backs regarding this business and came across a forum where almost every member replied in the same way regarding the success of this business, have a look:

Re: Is it realistic to make money selling T-Shirts using cafepress etc?

Sure you can. There are a lot of people making some money on CP. Some even make a living doing it. If your designs are good and well promoted they will sell.
Good luck,
Ken

350tees.com

Keep your Expectations low.

My Professor always used to advise me that once you start something, never leave it incomplete. Take it to its destination, compare your expectations with the result and then decide whether to continue or not. See, you need to understand that since you have invested nothing, you may get back nothing too. If you can actually convince buyers to pay $15-20 (plus shipping) a t-shirt, you might want to consider printing them yourself and keeping more of the profit. But, in case you plan it up with Cafepress, it will absorb most of the profit and will leave you with a small percentage of the sale. On the other-hand, they are providing the merchandise for you so you do not have to keep any inventory in stock. Be wise enough in taking the decision whether to handle it all alone or you need Cafepress.

This is what you should do to become a perfect money oriented Businessman, try to take out something productive in everything you see around to get the maximum profit for yourself as well as let your hidden creativity come out of you!

Do share your experiences and views about it!

Have Fun,