T-shirt company

[PhiLLer]

I've been seriously thinking about this for a while, starting my own online t-shirt company/shop.
My idea was to buy plain t-shirts (good quality though and great looking too, not just crap white ones ya see for 2 quid) and then print various designs, text etc. on them, kind of in the style of freshcotton.com or bustedtees.com
Basically cool, awesome t-shirts. I have found a possible wholesale distributor for good quality tees (really good quality) and I'm still thinking about a good name and I have tons of ideas for designs and text but my main concern would is how would I get this printed. I suppose there are print shops or something? How do the established tshirt retailers do this? Anyone got any idea?

 

[Scotto]

i don't know the answer to your question, but if u want any designs (funny ones) hehe then i can help or are your designs not in that area

 

[Coon]

First you need to make clear whether you want to make a legal business out of this or if you just want this to be some online shop that's basically "not legal." If you want it the legal way, get your taxes figured out and what not depending on your location.

Regarding the printing... you need to search the web or look through a phone book where you live. Try to find a place that prints stuff on shirts, and ask them for wholesale prices. If you want a good price, get many shirts at once and go from there. Another thing you might want to do is start the website now. You don't have to start selling, but have a site with info on it so that search engines can crawl it and pick up info on it. Without a lot of hits you will really not have many sales.

Good luck and let me know if you need anything else. If you decide to do this, you will need a shopping cart. Let me know when you get there and I can help you out a bit.

 

[Moron]

put the shirt onto your computer printer.

That should do the trick

 

[Lennon]

I think mutt wants to have a t-shirt company too, so he might know some things already about this.

 

[PhiLLer]

Thanks for the tips, especially Coon. I know you've got your online shop selling kits so you obviously have experience in that area.
I don't have a real plan yet at the moment though I was thinking of making it a proper "legal" business though I know I'd obviously have to invest in it and basically hope that it works out well.
What would you advise, Coon?

I found, what looks to be a brilliant wholesale tshirt (amongst other things) seller, they also print designs www.europeanwear.com

Again, obviously I would have to think this through and get everything sorted and organise it all very well so I don't end up shutting down after a week or something like that.

 

[Rochester Rhino]

RochesterFC1013 has made a couple iron on shirts, including one for me, those are easy to do but not the quality you are looking for.

 

[Pferd]

with my limited knowledge of business (8th grade economics lol), the thing about "non-legal" versus "legal" isn't really true, at least in the states.

I think, that if you set up a business, you count any income as personal, unless you go through a process of making a corporation, in which case, there are some things you need to consult with a lawyer about. the only difference between a personal business and a corporation is that in a corporation, you don't have any personal liability, so if someone decides to sue, your personal property isn't at risk and that a corporation gets taxed seperatley from your personal wealth.

also, theres something about taxes that make corporations better or something. i read it in "Rich Dad Poor Dad" lol, im actually pretty sure on the stuff ive said, but perhaps im wrong?

 

[Coon]

Originally posted by Pferd
I think, that if you set up a business, you count any income as personal, unless you go through a process of making a corporation, in which case, there are some things you need to consult with a lawyer about. [/B]

You might be right to some degree, but from what I know if you are selling items to other people and making a profit off of it, then you need to pay at least your States' sales tax. Basically, if you live in Texas, and you have someone buying from you that lives in the same state, you need to charge them tax. This is because at the end of the year you will have to go to the Tax office and pay your taxes (both income and sales tax.) Sales tax is just the tax that you charged your the customers from your state. Income tax on the other hand is a bit different and you can deduct all your expense (food, internet access, hosting) from your actual income.

There is more to it but those are the basics behind it. PhiLLer, where are you located by the way?

Now, to get the proper paperwork for your business you will not need much money at all. First, you can go and get a DBA (Doing Business As.) This costs you in the States about $20, but you don't need to get it. It's basically saying that you are doing business as "Your company name" and that nobody can take your business name from you. After that, you need to go your Sales Tax Comptroller and ask about sales tax. They will give you a form to fill out, which should be free. Then you should be ready to go.

After you got your paperwork ready, the real money-spending begins. If you want to buy wholesale you will have to dish out some pretty good money to get the items. It will take a while to sell them then and make a profile, but you will get your moneys worth if you work on your shop. Just make sure that you are careful about what you print on your shirts. Do not put real brand trademarks on your shirts if you don't have rights to them, and don't place club badges, EURO 2004 logos on the shirts and stuff like that. That junk can come back and bite you legally.

I hope that helped a bit more. Ask me more specific questions and I will see what I can do.

 

[Mutt]

get your shirts screen printed... at the moment ... ive made 200% profit on 40 shirts sold .... and sold with the simplest bit of text.... tried printing my own shirts myself with transfer paper... but that just doesnt work.. its all about market... im not sure if online is the easiest way to go.... who knows... i have a lot of friends that i use as publicers... give them a shirt.. tell them to go get some sales... make the shirts that the people want and sell them lol. ... although... my mate and i aint extremely serious bout it yet... when we get everything organised properly we will be.. we sorta rushed into it a bit..

 

[Sanel]

very good idea, i think you should do it and tell us about how your biznis is going.

 

[manutd4eva]

My cousin and I wanted to do this a couple months ago but we got stuck at the printing stage.

He's got another job now, but I'm still very interested in doing it though, when I get some money.

 

[Andrew]

Good Idea Phil

Hopefully if you get some good designs and shirts going, i might buy a couple from you. Good Luck mate

 

[PhiLLer]

Coon, I'm located in The Netherlands and I've already made an inquiry with the tax office etc. about what I would have to do, I also have a rough idea of how much the cost would be for registering the "company" (around 60 euro per year if I'm not mistaken) although I'm not quite sure what it includes.

Mutt, How does screenprinting exactly work? Is it the same a printing posters and such or does screen printing stuff onto t-shirts work totally different? I presume you went to a company to print the shirts?

I do have a mate of mine who has connections everywhere (no he's not a mob boss) so he might know some shop or know a friend of a friend of a friend who knows stuff about this so I'll ask him too. The main thing is to prepare everything and see if it's worth the money/work etc.

Thanks for the support guys, I'll certainly keep you updated

 

[::Jason::]

I wish you the best of luck for this Phil. Atleast it won't come down to the lack of designing skills.

One way would propably be to try to get hooked up with some sports-shop with it's own printing possibilities, or some bigger shop with connections. It'd ensure the existance of the market too, only that im not sure how the consumer goods business works in Netherlands.

I have this 'Royalfour-project'. Im currently wearing a royalfour-shirt, but I've only sold like 5 of em and have a few for myself. It's nothing big and not even supposed to be yet. I was thinking of expanding this if I decide to study design and propably even try to end up as an educated clothing designer. Or this might just stay as a hobby in the future..

the transfer-paper trick can provide high quality, but it's very expensive and it requires a lot of work.

and a for moron, he provided the two seconds of entertainment that this thread well may need in the future.

 

[PhiLLer]

Cheers, Jason.

I contacted the dutch trading office commission type thing and they told me I should make an appointment (it's free) and discus it with them and they can answer any questions I have and tell me all about it so I think I'll do that.

I was also thinking I could start if off "illegally" ie. not being registered as a business and sell some t-shirts first and once it becomes more succesful then register as an official business.

 

[::shinji::]

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[::shinji::]

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[::Jason::]

thats really confusing.

what are you trying to say?

 

[::Jason::]

thats really confusing.

what are you trying to say?