Guide to Building a Custom T-Shirt Online Store and Printing Business

Let's imagine you are an owner of on-line clothes shop and you are seeking for a possibility to make your business better. If so, it can be a good idea to sell customizable products, T-shirts for example. Why? Because custom T-shirt on-line store is a modern, fresh e-commerce solution. By allowing your customers to personalize products and by delivering quality printed garments, you can definitely high-demand your business and gain popularity. So, the decision is made but what do you need for the start and who will do printing work? This article is written to give light to these questions.1. Choosing a printing techniqueFirst of all, you need to think over how you will print custom works. First option, you can do it yourself. Second option, you can order printing work to some company who do quality job. Second option is an easy way, but you will always depend on third-party, and you will always pay for the service. First option is subject to lots of questions. What printer to choose? What are the benefits of different printing methods? Below you can see a brief overview of printing methods which are the most suitable for printing individual designs of the customers.

• Direct to garment printing. It gives high quality output but rather expensive for the start.
• Heat transfer printing. This printing solution is affordable in price but print may have a heavy look and cracks on dark t-shirts. However, you can get over this problem if you use only quality materials.
• Dye sublimation printing. It's a little more expensive than heat transfer printing but you get high quality output on light polyester t-shirts (not suitable for black garments and cotton).
• Vinyl heat transfer printing. This method is good for printing a simple text or vector artwork, it's impossible to get a photographic print.

The choice of printing method mainly depends on your budget. If you have funds, don't economize on your business and buy a quality Direct to garment printer. 2. Choosing a T-shirt design tool for your shopping cart platformIf you already have a shopping cart platform you should find a T-shirt design tool for it. There are several companies which offer such modules Alt-team, we Print Design Studio, Online-Product-Designer, Live Art designer application by Develop Flash, etc. If you don't have a shopping cart website so far, you can consider purchasing a ready to use software which includes both shopping cart and T-shirt design tool. There are some reputable companies in e-commerce area who offer ready to use T-shirt designer software : Alt-team, Design 'N' Buy, i Scripts, Online-Product-Designer. These companies offer one-time payment software. Recurring software is available through Ink Soft or Deco Network.3. Advertising and promotionIf your on-line store has constant customers or very popular among people, you don't have to launch a special advertising campaign to let people know about new functionality of your store. But if you are a beginner in selling business you shouldn't underestimate this step. Even a perfect on-line store with great design and features will not survive if nobody knows about it. And remember here that your advertising methods should always aim your target audience. I'm not going to tell you about traditional ways of promotion such as placing ads on-line or giving a link to your website in email signature, etc., there is nothing new here. While thinking over your marketing campaign, don't forget about modern ways of promotion and the big role here can play social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon and others. Nowadays, lots of people lead a successful business with the help of social services. Create an account in there, make your fan page on Facebook, post your news and offers, find your target audience and work with social services on regular basis. Be sure your efforts will bring the results.