Sell T-Shirts Online: How to Start a Dropshipping Business
Hot take: inventory kills creativity. We break down a step-by-step playbook to launch a t-shirt store using print on demand, from niche to promo, with real numbers. What niche would you pick first and why? Ever dreamed of a t-shirt brand without boxes, tape, or risk? Learn how print on demand lets you launch with low cost, real margins, and smart marketing. Ready to build a niche that lasts? Listen now and tell us your niche idea. Your design. Their printer. Your profit. Get the exact blueprint for launching a Shopify-powered POD t-shirt brand, testing designs fast, and scaling without a warehouse. Hit play and drop your biggest launch question.
Want to Build a T-Shirt Business?
Who doesn’t love a cool t-shirt? Something comfortable, graphic, and that lets the world know what you’re passionate about. Owning a successful online store selling creative t-shirts has always been an aspiration of mine. But before dropshipping, it just wasn’t worth it to pursue.
Why? Because you needed to invest thousands of dollars in order to stock your own inventory. Then figure out the printing. And then you have to deal with storage space and shipping!
What if I told you that you can bypass all of those problems.
Imagine owning a t-shirt store with hundreds of styles, colors, and sizes WITHOUT ever touching any actual inventory.
Holy smokes autocorrect. What I really mean to say is…
You can have a store FULL of awesome t-shirts that CUSTOMERS order from you, WITHOUT EVER stocking your own inventory. It sounds too good to be true, but with dropshipping (and specifically print-on-demand dropshipping), you CAN start an online t-shirt business.
In this podcast, we’re going to break down how the dropshipping model works AND how you can apply it to start selling your own tee shirts online.
The Old Way vs. The New Way
Before we jump into how you can build your own t-shirt brand from scratch, let’s take a look at how most people sell t-shirts online (the OLD way):
1. Design a few t-shirts.
2. Purchase hundreds/thousands of blank tees in the colors/sizes/designs you THINK will sell.
3. Outsource the printing process to either a local or online print shop.
4. Store all of your inventory at your house or pay to rent a storage unit.
5. List those shirts on your website. Once they sell, you have to go find them, box them up, and ship them off to your customer.
boom.
💥
If your designs flop… you’re stuck with tons of dead inventory, aka shirts you paid good money for that you can’t sell.
Enter Dropshipping.
Dropshipping Vs. Print-on-Demand (POD) T-Shirts
Dropshipping is essentially flipping every step of the traditional retail model upside down. When it comes to t-shirts, dropshipping is typically fulfilled by what’s called a Print-on-Demand (POD) company. These companies allow you to “dropship” tees that are printed after-the-order-is-paid-for. Here’s how it works:
1. Pick a POD supplier: Connect your online store to your Print-on-Demand supplier. Printful and Printify are both great options. Teelaunch is another option that we love because it allows you to manage Printful and Printify integrations FROM WITHIN Shopify .
2. Upload Designs: You upload your designs to your supplier’s product catalog. They use your designs to generate realistic product images, also known as mock-ups , of your design on different t-shirts. You then list these mock-ups for sale on your website.
[A screenshot of teelaunch's screen that allows users to add mock-ups to Shopify. ]The Teelaunch dashboard for adding mock-ups to Shopify.
3. Customer purchases a t-shirt from you for $30
4. Order is sent to your POD supplier: Once the customer checks out, the order is automatically sent to your POD supplier. They mark themselves up for the base cost of the blank tee + cost to print your design on it. Let’s say this cost is $15 for this example.
5. Product is printed and shipped to your customer: Your POD supplier prints your chosen design on the specific style, size, and color of shirt that was ordered. They then package the shirt (usually with your branding included), and ship it off to your customer.
6. Keep the difference: You literally never touch the product, but you keep $15.
Boom. Dropshipping T-Shirts made simple.
5 Benefits of Using Dropshipping to Sell T-Shirts Online
Ok, so how is that better than the old way? Here are five of the biggest benefits to starting a POD t-shirt brand.
1. Start Up Costs Are Extremely Low
This one is by far the biggest. Most dropshipping companies don’t charge you anything up front. You aren’t investing money into buying inventory. The largest expenses you have are the e-commerce platform you host your store on (Shopify), any design software/freelance designer you may need, and your marketing budget. No more massive financial gamble with your fledgling business.
2. No Inventory Management
No more rushing to ship packages before your locker-sized apartment looks like IKEA Storage Dump Warehouse. With dropshipping you literally NEVER have to touch your physical product. Once again, your supplier takes care of EVERYTHING.
3. Unlimited Creative Freedom & Flexibility
You aren’t printing shirts until someone purchases them. This means you can create AS MANY designs as you want. Test out all sorts of styles, colors, and collections. You can even drop limited collections that match different holidays. And if they don’t sell? No biggie. You can always create new listings by simply uploading new mockups.
4. Focus on Branding and Marketing
When you outsource your printing, packaging, and shipping you free up time, energy, and resources to focus on what WILL actually bring you sales. You transform yourself from a warehouse-preneur into a marketer. Build your brand image, create killer designs, grow your social following, create video content, run ads, connect with your customers, and everything else that matters when running a business in 2021.
5. Incredibly Scalable Business Model
Whether you sell 1 shirt, or 1,000 shirts. The order fulfillment process is the exact same on your end. You don’t need to hire help to manage a “rush” in orders, and you don’t ever need to worry about running out of stock. Let your POD supplier deal with that.
How to Start a Dropshipping T-Shirt Business [Step-by-Step]
Want to learn how to start your own dropshipping store? Well you came to the right place. Let’s walk through how you can launch your own t-shirt brand step-by-step.
Step 1: Find Your Niche
This is by far the most important part. The internet is FULL of random t-shirt stores trying to sell graphics. You NEED to find a niche market. Who are you selling these shirts to?
Kittens? Trucks? Yoga? Coffee? Pick something you’re passionate about, and run with it. Creating specific shirts for a specific group of people will allow you to design better products and market effectively. Significantly increasing your chances for success.
Step 2: Create Your Designs
This is your product. How you design these will determine if someone buys from you.
A. Do It Yourself. If you have experience in graphic design, you can create your own tee shirts using software like Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, or Canva.
B. Hire a Designer. Websites like Fiverr and Upwork are filled with talented designers who you can pay to create custom graphics for you.
- Buy Designs. Yes, you can also buy graphic designs from sites that offer them for sale. (As long as they allow for commercial use.)
Step 3: Pick your POD supplier + E-commerce platform
This step is important. Do your research on different POD suppliers. Check out print quality, printing methods, pricing, shipping times, and integration capabilities. Once you’ve picked your supplier find an e-commerce platform that integrates seamlessly with them. As of right now, Shopify is the most popular option for designers. And lucky for us, both Printful and Printify have Shopify apps that allow you to connect your store with minutes.
Step 4: Build Your Online Store
Setup your Shopify (or WooCommerce) store. Create your product listings with the help of your POD suppliers mock-ups. Write product descriptions. Determine your price points (Don’t forget to charge enough to make a profit ), and add your payment/shipping information.
Step 5: Promote Your T-Shirts
[Different social media icons.]
This step is where you’ll be spending most of your time. You can’t open up a store and magically have people come to you. You have to go out and PROMOTE your shirts. Here are some ideas:
A. Social Media: Build a following on social media platforms where your target demographic consumes content. (Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest are great places to start.)
B. Content Marketing . Start a blog or YouTube channel centered around your niche.
C. Paid Advertising: Use Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, or Google Ads to target potential customers.
D. Influencer Marketing . Use influencers to market your product to their followers.
Wrap Up
Dropshipping has allowed for anyone to get into the t-shirt selling game. Before this method you needed lots of money laying around to be able to build your own brand from the ground up. No more thankfully. POD t-shirt stores have leveled the playing field for creatives to start their own business.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not going to make you rich overnight. You still need good designs, a strong brand identity, and you still need to put in the work to market your product. But what dropshipping gives you is the ability to focus on what’s important. Building a community. Creating products that people love. And helping others express themselves wherever they go.
Visit Printify to set-up a free shop and test it out for yourself - Much Success!
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