A beginners journey into selling T-Shirts

Toern

Newbie
Joined
Feb 15, 2017
Messages
39
Reaction score
8
For maybe the last 6 months I've been learning how to make t-shirt designs, that I've been selling pimarily through Redbubble. Most designs I've sold are extremely niche, associated with a strong culture, so there's neither a big market nor strong competition.

With the upcomming integration of Amazon and Teespring, I'm planning to branch out a bit. I'll be testing the waters with designs both related to the mentioned niche, along with some more generic stuff. I've haven't been able to do much market research though, so at first I will just be focusing on themes that fit the style I'm capable of making.

I currently have 61 designs uploaded to Redbubble. It's the place I promote and also the place I upload basically everything I make to. I've started to upload to other places in the last month, but so far only made two sales on Teepulic

Anyway, here are my Redbubble earnings so far

This month (since the 14th)
Earnings to be paid - €17.04
Pending Sales - €8.61

Payouts
14 March 2017 - €52.79
14 February 2017 - €12.21
16 January 2017 - €14.34
15 December 2016 - €6.11

----

I've currently uploaded 14 designs to Teespring, in anticipation of the Amazon integration. The next update will be after that have kicked in. In the meantime, I'll try doing market research and reading up on how to rank in amazon.
 
As I said, I currently publish on Redbubble and similar sites.

No ads, except the ads these sites do themselves. I have two tumblrs with a total of 1700 followers and I have also posted links on Reddit and on a smaller private forum related to the niche I talked about.
 
As I said, I currently publish on Redbubble and similar sites.

No ads, except the ads these sites do themselves. I have two tumblrs with a total of 1700 followers and I have also posted links on Reddit and on a smaller private forum related to the niche I talked about.

if you don't mind me asking, do you think the meme thing is overdone? Ofcourse people can think out of box. But do you have any idea about it? What designs do you make? Like one-liners with cartoons or something?

I am sorry if I am intruding way too much.
 
What an interesting journey, didn't know tshirt design was still profitable.
 
if you don't mind me asking, do you think the meme thing is overdone? Ofcourse people can think out of box. But do you have any idea about it? What designs do you make? Like one-liners with cartoons or something?

I am sorry if I am intruding way too much.
Most of my sales are "meme" related, but they are original artwork. There is an audience searching the stuff and no worries about trademarks. I'm sure there is some money in just reposting popular memes, but since it's easy it is also slightly saturated. I prefer to make stuff that at least stands out a little.

Most of my designs are portraits of historical people, with the occasional slogan.
 
Most of my sales are "meme" related, but they are original artwork. There is an audience searching the stuff and no worries about trademarks. I'm sure there is some money in just reposting popular memes, but since it's easy it is also slightly saturated. I prefer to make stuff that at least stands out a little.

Most of my designs are portraits of historical people, with the occasional slogan.

Ok thanks a lot. I did want to get into teespring with meme tshirts but had no knowledge. Thanks a lot.
 
You should save to make a DIY printer, you would be making some more profits, as a graphic designer, could you show me a design in PM? I love seeing other people's creativeness.

 
You should save to make a DIY printer, you would be making some more profits, as a graphic designer, could you show me a design in PM? I love seeing other people's creativeness.

Can't find the pm option on my phone, but my stuff is findable using my nick and what I've written in the thread.

Not sure I want to set up a print-shop of my own, but in the future I might do a separate web-store since I'm also into web-development.
 
Just noticed that if you add additional products (aside from standard t-shirts), the size available for printing gets reduced. Doing a bunch of re-uploading because of this, which is quite a tedious process on my shitty laptop.

Got promised that the Amazon integration will be rolled out this week for all users, so hopefully I won't have to wait another week.

Also made two sales on Redbubble since I started the thread.
 
Still no Amazon for me, but there are reports of others getting their teespring designs posted there.

Since they will take a huge commission for every sale on Amazon, I'm going to do some experiments with promoting my teespring stuff directly, but with a discount.
 
I Have 40 on redbubble but make n barely any sales, I think I just suck at design haha
 
Offered a $6 Teespring discount to reblog products from my niche tumblr with 500 followers and only product posts. Wonder if I get any takers.
 
Created a facebook sock account, a business page and started adding people with fake names/avatars. Right now getting constant notifications of new friends

This niche is pretty special.
 
I actually got approved at Merch for Amazon, was thinking of giving it a shot myself. Good luck with your journey.
 
Just got the amazon integration added to my accont. Now filling out descriptions for my 29 (uploaded a few more) campaigns

My facebook account now has 179 friends and the page has 9 likes. Good thing I can actually talk about relevant stuff with people who wonder who I am. I haven't really promoted the page, but I wonder if I should just focus on the account itself.
 
Last edited:
Should have started this facebook thing earlier. Now talking with a small charity about making a t-shirt design for them
 
Back
Top