How to get your brand printed on t-shirts

As a screen printing business providing custom printed t-shirts for over 20 years, we’ve had our share of calls from individuals wanting to create their own brand of shirts. We’ve seen the successes and the failures. We’ve seen designs that didn’t think would do well that did. We have seen designs we thought were great that didn’t sell well.

That means one of two things. We print what our customers want us to print. We can give them recommendations on print colors, print size, locations, what color inks look best on certain color shirts, and more. What we are not is having the best pulse on a crazy the design the public may or may not want to purchase. We are a printer, not a brander. The branding aspect comes from our customers. They tell us what they want and we simply provide that.

The other thing that means is there is a definitive road to success to selling your own brand of clothing. There is also a road to failure.

how to get your brand printed on t-shirts. There is more to it that designing a logo and having shirts printed up. There are some steps to take to help you for success.

For us the most important aspect of the customers whose custom brand shirts were a success were bulk ordering. They budget X amount of dollars to their product so they get the lowest price per shirt. Someone who wants to start their own clothing brand, no how awesome the design or logo might be, no matter how many people identify with their message. If they order 12-24 t-shirts, they will fail. Anything that will be successful has to have some intended investment. Someone who wants to start their own clothing line and orders 12 shirts isn’t very confident in their brand. They also have not don the leg work yet to see what kind of opportunity their brand has. They are putting the cart before the horse per se.

Now, someone who comes in here and has a definite plan to sell their shirts online. They’ve done a pre-order online sale. They have a buzz about their product, and they are ready to pull the trigger with a 100 shirt order. These are the brands that are successful. They’re getting a very low cost product which means a higher margin on the profits. Their confident in their execution in getting their brand in front of the masses. It also seems like they are taking a risk. You need a risk. Having that inventory means you’ll work hard to get sell it. Most importantly they’ve done their homework before hand. They are confident in their brand and confident they can sell shirts with their brand on it.

The difference? Ordering 12 shirts for one price which yields low margins and or ordering more shirts with higher margins.

If you order 12 shirts at $12 each for $144. Or you order 100 shirts at $5.50/shirt. You’re selling your shirts online for $20.00. You only need to sell 7 shirts to make the same profit as selling 12 shirts on a 12 shirt order. It’s $8 profit versus $14.50 profit.

how to get your brand printed on custom t-shirts is easy. It’s the execution and homework you do for your brand in the early stages that determines if it’s going to be a success or failure. Contact us to learn more if you are looking to create your own brand of t-shirts.

you can start by filling out our online quote form.
Online Quote Form