So I decided a few weeks ago to sell some T-shirts online. I only have a handful of designs, but I wanted to get started sooner than later. I uploaded one T-shirt design to a website that provides the product with your design printed on it. This seemed like a great place to start. I didn’t have to pay anything upfront, nor did I have to provide the product to the customer.
Of course the catch was that the graphic designer receives less than 8% in royalties. Sure this was explained upfront, but last week I sold my first tee! I received an email informing me of the sale…I was excited. I mean, how easy can this be! I upload some designs that have been filed away on my computer collecting virtual dust and…voila! I earned a whopping $1.83! This small “profit” got me thinking. I would have to sell more than 115 t-shirts to pay for my design work!
With this revelation, I decided to get to work building a e-commerce site to sell my own tees. Sure, I’ll have to create the site, market my product, & provide the merchandise (all of this in addition to creating the actual graphic designs, but I think the work will be worth it. I imagine that I’ll be able to earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $12-15 per shirt! This means that I if I sell 30 shirts it will not only pay for my design work, but also the e-commerce website, & a year of hosting for the site!
As I am a novice, if anyone has some feedback in this business please share your expertise? I would love to be aware of any pitfalls before I dive into this endeavor.
