How T-Shirt Business Made Over $1,000 In 3 Weeks

A couple of months back, we figured out how to create a site and launch an Online T-shirt business, and we Made Over $1,000 in three Weeks.

Remaining true to Dropshippigit.com’s tradition of sharing the experience, we documented launching an Online T-shirt business. 

Why not do it once more? Indeed, why not use various items, timelines, and a spending plan or budget again if you like? 
That is what I did. 

I spent about a month or so launching a business and documenting all the aspects.

The entire process, from brainstorming what to sell to paid ads, is the tip of the iceberg. 

Today, I’m glad to share the results with you. You’ll find and incorporate some, if not all, of this contextual analysis into your business or even get inspired to begin one.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Getting Started

One of the most significant aspects of building any business is conceptualizing the ideas stage and having the option to move from one of your online business ideas to an authentic product.

Bridging that gap can prove an arduous task. It’s simply a heebie-jeebies affair for some. 

I’ve discovered that the ideal approach to creating thoughts for a product is to sit down with a colleague and exchange ideas with each other. It’s precisely what I did with my team. 

As it happened, we knew that we needed to sell something relatively easy, anything but readily hands-off and that it could be a fascinating business that would be exciting to pursue for a long time. 

I additionally needed it to be something that required little to practically no upfront expense.

I want to invest a maximum of a couple of hundred dollars before the business model turns a profit.

Also, I needed to have the option to spend more cash on ads and less on inventory. 

That way, if this venture ended up being a catastrophe, I wasn’t more than a couple of hundred bucks in the hole. 

That left us with a couple of various choices: 

• Dropshipping
• T-Shirts
• Print-on-demand posters
• Ebooks and digital products
• Services 
• Drop service

We settled on selling shirts. It’s a simple plan of action for anybody to wrap their head over, and with the assistance of services like Printful, the beginning is fundamental. 

What sort of shirts did we need to sell? What kind of business was it going to be?

Did we need to manufacture a brand rivaling any towering household names like Nike, and that’s just the beginning?

Or did we need to build a shirt business that was more easygoing and topical? 

It would be tough for us to build a brand that contends a vast scope with little investment and time.

How might we recount a compelling story about an item that would inspire confidence in guests to confide in us and follow our vision? 

Additionally, beyond earning their trust – we’d still need to get them to take a leap and buy an item.

Growing a business around a brand story wasn’t the correct course for us then. In any case, building a business rapidly that can transform into a respectable brand was something to work towards its realization. 

Considering this, I began by figuring out what was selling at the time, what folks were genuinely passionate about, and something I was keen on, you know, vested interest. 

It didn’t need to be excessively captivating—no, it simply had to be a tested and tried model that could be quickly executed.

It’s at this juncture that I began doing market research.

Market research and finding a passionate community

I’ve found that you need to sell something on the off chance; riding on already-existing communities or trends is simpler than trying to build your own. 

Indeed, developing a thriving and passionate community can have massive rewards. It can be a very fulfilling exercise, yet we’re here to make something and sell it fast. 

I was short on time and didn’t quite have the luxury of months to spend creating content, marketing it, and then selling the product to the community. I wanted that to come later after the business model was proven. 

I laid down some criteria that I looked for in a community. The community didn’t need to match every criterion strictly, yet the more the net was secured, the better. 

Affability — is it a “vibe great” topic? Is it something somebody would be glad to declare, “I’m selling shirts”? (market or product type)

Is it an “exceptional” market that will be staying put? 

Is there high shareability? Is the topic “viral”? Is there the potential for a solitary design to break the internet? 

Will the audience need to purchase a shirt? Is the audience devoted large enough? 

Are there influencers in the space? Are there Instagram accounts?

Could we send somebody a $20 shirt, pay them for a highlighted post, and get a noteworthy return? 

Is there the potential for designs to branch out to different mediums?

Packs, Mugs, and so forth? 

I chose to do a couple of Google searches for “most passionate communities,” which, as you’d likely suppose, didn’t turn out so well. 

I changed gears and moved to one of the most significant online communities – Reddit. 

I’ve often known there is a way of filtering Reddits based on activity. As such, I bumped into a terrific tool for doing this kind of research. 

The following are the various verticals I came across: 

Evergreen Verticals: Meme Shirts, Funny Shirts, Gaming Fitness, Movies, Televisions

Vertical Based on Subscribers: GetMotivated, AnimalsBeingBros, Fishing, Food, OldSchoolCool, Cats, Dads, MapPorn, Gaymers, Canada, MURCIA, Baking, UFOs, Beer, PenmanshipPorn (lettering), BritishProblems, Zombies, Yoga, Baseball, Sloths, EDM, Gardening, Mechanics (Justrollintotheshop), 

Vertical Based on Activity: Beards, CrappyDesign, Ecigs, TattoosSneakers, HipHopHeads, Canada, MURCIA, CorgisGetMotivated, Minions, Mechanics, Bitcoin, Nostalgia,

After a search on Reddit for “What are you passionate about? ” There were countless threads made, and hundreds, if not a large number of folks, shared what they were generally passionate about. 

Among the typical stuff across various threads included: 

• Animals
• Running 
• Fitness
• Pets
• Maps

Regardless of whether you aren’t building an online business, I’d suggest this activity.

Take time to see what individuals are enthusiastic about—it may motivate you to begin something. 

These threads are loaded with keen insights concerning what individuals are enthusiastic about and why.

Undoubtedly, some other passionate communities are simply holding on as a ready market.

Check whether there’s one that you can find that could be taken advantage of. 

For example, in this thread, the most upvoted comment at the time was somebody passionate about some stuff:

Along these lines, I had that to work from. 

Fitness appeared to raise my curiosity, yet, I’m not a wellness nerd- I’m a junky; thus, fitness hit a brick wall on arrival.

Running was a fascinating market segment, yet I had limited knowledge about running society.

Of course, I might have ridden on some of Nike’s success. However, it wouldn’t feel authentic. Furthermore, as is currently the case, there were a lot of people doing business in the sector. 

Maps were another intriguing idea, too. Considering the possibility that I could sell shirts with exceptionally detailed city maps. In a real sense,” wear your city on your chest.

” I figured that was cool. The main issue was landing high-caliber, inexpensive maps I could print on shirts. It merely seemed a dead-end doable. 

That is when pets and animals became an integral factor. My knowledge about pets suffices.

My neighborhood is home to many canines, and it was a market that could be dissected and branch off into various niches within the dog communities. 

Now, imagine how that would pan out. Consider that for a second. 

How about we start with dogs? There are a staggering number of various breeds. Shouldn’t something be said about owners?

In the family, who takes care of the dog? What dogs are generally famous in specific countries?

What’s the typical age of a dog owner, and what does their household structure reflect?

Who, between men and ladies, most keep German Shepherds? Does the average Pitbull owner save their canine? 

I mean, the potential for focus-targeting was immeasurable. 

Considering that, I began getting excited. Dogs just appeared to be an ideal fit. My head was spinning and flooding with designs and marketing avenues. Dogs seemed a perfect fit for me. 

The time was ripe to plunge further into this model at this juncture. 

What’s popular in the dog community?

Since there are various dog breeds, I realized it isn’t easy to locate the most famous variety and make shirts about that one breed – because odds are, somebody’s doing it.

What’s more, they’re most likely working admirably on it now. 

Finding an unbelievably loyal community of dog owners of a particular breed could be highly lucrative. However, I needed legroom to try it out. 

I realize that two Pugs, a Labrador, two French bulldogs, and a couple of different breeds in my neighborhood. 

Next, I did a couple of Google searches for dog breeds that are generally mainstream worldwide and explicitly in the U.S. 

I decided to do a worldwide and U.S.-based search since I knew most of the individuals I’d market to would be residents of the U.S. 

The following are the outcomes of my Google search: 

• Top Dog Breeds in America
• Labrador Retriever
• German Shepherd
• Golden Retriever
• Beagle
• Bulldog
• Yorkshire Terrier
• Boxer
• Poodle
• Rottweiler
• Dachsund

Well, that was a decent beginning stage. In any case, what would assuage me that these breeds had loyal, loving owners who’d readily display their adoration and loyalty on their chest? 

I chose to make a beeline for Reddit once more. I reference Reddit a lot, as it’s a fantastic platform for market research. And it’s free, that’s the best part.

The Leading Dog Specific-Subreddits

• reddit.com/r/labrador/
• reddit.com/r/germanshepherds
• reddit.com/r/beagle/
• reddit.com/r/Bulldogs/
• reddit.com/r/Rottweiler/
• reddit.com/r/pugs/
• reddit.com/r/dogpictures/

So, what do these top dog-specific subreddits mean? 

Above all else, it implied an existing community I could sell to. If I needed to, I could market to these subreddits directly.

It’s relatively affordable (about $10 or less) to run an ad on a specific subreddit, and I’d have loyal puppy owners readily available. Also, I had an incredible resource on Reddit Advertising to leverage. 

Besides, it implies that if this community exists, others should also. There must be different online and offline spots where puppy owners meet to discuss everything canine-related. It was merely a question of discovering them. 

That was all anyone could need: approval for me to continue. Be that as it may, what was the next phase? I realize these communities exist. However, what are they purchasing? How would they align with their perspective to see the shirts a dog owner would buy? 

My next step entailed cracking the code of what was already selling and attempting to work from that point. 

What’s already selling

With this business, I wasn’t hoping to waste time. I was set to adapt to a proven business concept, iterate on it, market it better, and repeat it. That is why Finding out what’s already selling was critical and working from that point. 

At the time, finding stylish shirts that were selling was elusive. I found some shirts when I did a snappy Google search for “dog owner shirts”: 

While some of the shirts were right, they fell short and didn’t fit my desired taste. If the shirts appear in Google searches, it must mean there’s a community around these breeds and businesses. 

With readily available tools such as the Noun Project, the Creative Market, and my limited Photoshop skill set, it dawned on me that I was ticking the right boxes. 

The prospect of going down the prosperous path made me more excited and upbeat about the opportunity. 

A couple of things about the shirts promptly caught my attention, and they included: 

• They are breed-specific 
• Some advance a specific way of life 
• Some are entertaining 
• Some are taking a specific position on a particular subject 

The following stage sorted out how precisely to produce and print the shirts. 

Deciding how to print shirts 

When deciding how to print these shirts, I needed to work in a way that permitted me to spend money upfront on ads rather than inventory. 

The primary choice was to utilize a print-on-demand service. Many alternatives are available that integrate with Shopify stores.

With services like Prinftul, Printify, and Merchify available, setting up a print–on–demand store is relatively easy and quick. 

I opted to give Printful’s fulfillment service a go. 

Printful makes running stores a hands-off activity. While it requires some time to set up and sync all products, everything is an absolute breeze once it is up and running. 

The order flow is effortless. A prospect places an order on PUPPY PUP, Printful takes that order, prints the Shirt, ships it out, and I keep the difference. 

The best part is that it didn’t need an upfront cost!

Coming up with a business name

Coming up with names has never been my best boots. In our situation, a name wasn’t the most significant thing on the planet – however, something else is undoubtedly a critical step in building your business. 

The merchandise should sell itself, particularly in this kind of business. No one will say, “Amazing, I will BUY the latest PUPPY PUP shirt!” No, they’ll buy a couple of shirts that are particular to them.

Creating a lot of buzz about a new lifestyle dog brand would be difficult for me. 

Nonetheless, there are a couple of things that I do consider when coming up with a name, and they’re as follows: 

• It must be adorable and easily memorable. 
• It must have a .com available. 
• It needs to read nicely without any problem. 
• All social accounts must be readily accessible. 

Considering that, I began spinning various synonyms for “dog” into the business name generator tool. 

Take a look at the preliminary outcomes I had: 

I attempted things like doggy, canine, puppy, pup, dogs, pups, dog—you get the drift? I think you’ll know when you land a name you like. It’ll simply sound right. 

Then, later on, I’d set up a rundown of names that fascinates me. To get varied perspectives, I shared my list of names with colleagues, and I had the following: 

• FunPooch.com
• PupSupply.com
• Dogsimply.com
• Doggrab.com
• PoochUp.com
• DogGlory.com
• EveryPup.com (how is this not taken?)
• PupForce.com (join the #pupforce)
• PuppyPup.com
• PuppyYou.com
• PoochYou.com
• PupPulse.com
• PupMind.com
• AnyPooch.com
• EverPooch.com

We didn’t waste any time at this stage, as we both concurred on a name that was pretty much the same. 

I began by signing up for a 14-day free trial, then got down to business. Shopify makes it simple to purchase and set up a custom domain.

Sign up for a free trial and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for $1/month on Select Plans.

You’d automatically have all the configuration done on your behalf and your custom domain. 

And with that, PUPPYPUP came into being. 

Designing a logo and storefront

This stage of building a business excites me. It’s my favorite. It’s when things begin to fall into place.

There’s nothing more fulfilling than working a couple of hours to help aspects of your store come together and then watching it spring to life piece by piece. 

However, it wasn’t a smooth sail. I hit a snag in the business’s design and branding. 

Sadly, I’m hopelessly a pathetic graphic designer. Contrasted with others, I may better understand design, but I am still in no way, shape, or form a Photoshop or Illustrator whiz. 

I’d much rather utilize free or paid tools that can quickly assist me with creating something. I was aware of the potential of resources like Noun Project, Creative Market, GraphicRiver, Burst, and more that I could leverage to set the ball rolling. 

The logo

Along these lines, that is what I did. I began my quest for a logo for PUPPYPUP by proceeding to the Noun Project and searching for “dog.” A bunch of various logo and icon alternatives came up. 

I needed something pleasant, however. It had to strike as exclusive or top-ranking in terms of quality. It had to be simple and approachable, but at the same time, it had to feel almost luxurious-high caliber. 

Bearing in those parameters, I landed an icon, then I bought the extended license for about two bucks– $1.99: 

From then on, I needed to incorporate the business name into the logo. Without much ado, I got to work in Photoshop. I had a couple of concepts, and the logo had to pass through various steps.  

Piecing together the different aspects of the iteration didn’t require too much time. The logo was soon ready. With the logo complete, I had to set up the eCommerce shop. 

The store setup and theme choice process

Among our past contextual case studies on setting up a Shopify store, we utilized a paid theme that best suits selling a single product.

Nonetheless, this time, I needed a free theme to limit expenses and a straightforward theme, allow me to feature various shirts on the store’s front page. 

There are many options in the Shopify Theme Store, yet I wound up settling with the React theme. 

Also, Shopify has made a few updates to its Theme Store, and the React theme is not currently available.

We suggest that you try the new Brooklyn subject. 

I was content with what the store was looking for. I knew there would be more changes sometime later.

However, this was impeccable as a viable base product. I wanted to avoid getting lost and distracted by the minor details. 

The slideshow pictures are only simple pictures I bought from Stocksy for $10. They’re not terrible by any means. What’s more, they’re incredible, fun pictures! 

Then I made a couple of deliberate decisions regarding the store’s design as follows: 

• I eliminated the navigation such that prospects had to scroll down or click a product 
• I ensured all the shirts were shown on the frontpage
• I tried tinkering with the checkout such that the colors blend with the rest of the store 
• Having only a FAQ, Contact, and About page, I was able to realize a simple design 

At a glance, you wouldn’t tell what I was selling and that there was room for improvement. Yet removing the navigation meant visitors had no option but to scroll down—exactly my intention. 

From then on, it was time to start filling the store with the products.

The Shirt Design Process

I’ve already alluded to not being a designer. I have a basic grasp of Photoshop. Oddly, when building up your first product, you’re in a situation comparable to mine. 

What counts, however, is your ingenuity. If you’re a conscientious person, you’d easily do anything.

Through being resourceful, I could piece together some of the winning designs. 

My search started by looking through a rundown list of renowned subreddits. What was the first Shirt I would design?

Would it be appropriate for me to focus on a well-known subreddit, post to it, and see what ensues? 

I needed to ensure these shirts would sell without stepping on different entrepreneurs’ toes.

I know that competition will invariably exist—particularly in the attire and clothing industry—but I would not like to steal the shine from an entrepreneur who has been in the game for some time. 

While piecing together this write-up, I bumped into Animal Hearted – an environmentally conscious clothing organization.

The company creates shirts for dog owners. Animal Hearted offers 25% of its proceeds from each order to a non-profit animal sanctuary.

They have helped rescue several asylum pets, and with your assistance, they can rescue thousands more. 

That portends a lot of headaches, as many canine owner shirts are out there, and it’s tough not to draw inspiration from them while undertaking my preliminary research.

If you do some digging, you’ll likely find some overlap between my designs and those of others you may encounter on the web. 

The following is a list of the sources I combed through for fonts and designs that I’d use to design the shirts: 

• Creative Market
• Noun Project
• Font Squirrel
• DaFont

I hadn’t decided on the number of shirts I should begin with. My mind was racing with questions like, Should I make 10, 20, or 30 different breed-specific shirts to launch with? What colors? Thus, I didn’t have the idea’s foggiest and wound up beginning with around 15 unique items. 

I figured I’d use a shirt mockup generator, although I wasn’t prepared yet. 

After researching what colors sell best, I chose neutral colors for most shirts. The choice for a neutral tone partly drew from the statement of a Chief staffer at a reputable art brand who posted on Quora, and I’ll paraphrase as follows:

“Black and neutrals seem the best based on T-shirt forums, Impressions magazines, and personal experience working with various clothing companies.

Artistically speaking, black typically makes everything pop, and artists often like designing in black because of that bit.”

Ultimately, I would try and have a new shirt designed each day. I’d create at least one Shirt and perhaps even more. That enabled me to test and assess which shirts resonated most with my prospects.

In the background with some shirt designs 

Before, I had sought to ascertain how much one would incur to get custom craftsmanship made for resale.

It’s undoubtedly expensive – and in light of current circumstances. They should be appropriately compensated if you’re paying an artist for their work.

In this situation, profoundly illustrative, colorful designs were not what my target audience was buying.

At this point, there were no compelling reasons to spend cash recruiting artists during the business-building phase.

It would have gobbled up my spending plan, with designers charging hundreds to thousands of dollars for work. 

I proceeded to Photoshop and began working through ideas for shirts. I put together some designs that would inevitably end up on the shirts. 

As profit begins to burgeon, I would undoubtedly recruit somebody to do the shirts for me. 

Since I had completed a couple of shirt designs, the time had come to work on the product page.

Effective product page essentials

Since most ads I’d do would send prospects straight to a particular product page, having an alluring duplicate on the item page was not a pressing need for me. 

The product page could have been improved by including anecdotes about the breed and maybe a tale about a particular pup situation.

However, I excluded anything like that because I needed to approve designs as soon as possible. 

If somebody navigates the product page, they are likely keen on purchasing. Shirts are one of the most outwardly telling products. 

In any case, I needed to include a couple of elements for the product page, and they were:

• Product title.
• Description
• Size options
• Product shot
• Price
• Shipping times
• Garment description
• Related products

Getting top-notch shirt mockups made 

In the wake of spinning a couple of various designs, I expected to get them onto shirts to look as though they were real.

I would wait to order any sample shirt because I required the capital I had for running ads. 

Fortunately, I landed a terrific resource that Printful offers.

Besides being simple to utilize, their shirt generator imports the designs straight into your Printful dashboard. 

Furthermore, that saves a great deal of time. 

Upon finishing the mockup and printing the file generator, I can download it. This was impeccable as it allowed me to upload the mockup to my Shopify product page, ensuring uniformity across the shirt designs. 

I won’t expound on the method for getting Shopify and Printful to match up orders—essentially, there isn’t a lot of detail to go into.

Like the other print-on-demand services accessible with Shopify, it’s an unimaginable, effortless integration. 

Any order placed through my Shopify store automatically goes to Printful. They charge my credit card on file, print, pack, and ship the order. 

It was a thoroughly hands-off, completely automatic experience that left me with the capacity to devote my time to any online store’s most critical marketing aspect.

Deciding a proper pricing strategy

I’ve previously expounded on psychological pricing strategies and how you can leverage them to sell more, and now I have to apply some of those strategies to this store. 

First, I needed a profit margin of about $10 per Shirt sold, which meant having a consistent revenue stream.

Printful charges $13.50 per Shirt, mainly depending on what you print on, which implies I’d need to charge $23.50 plus shipping. 

I examined several online assets to decide how to price the shirts accordingly.

I came across an astonishing summary of shirt pricing from Shirt Magazine that simplified things.

And the excerpt read;

“$16-$24 – The unofficial typical price range for most t-shirt brands. Most brands have tees at this price range, whether new or have been around for a while. Healthy profit margin when you buy huge orders, good enough margin when you place small wholesale orders.”

At first, I needed the model to work as a low-investment business so that I could pass along any funds I was generating to the clients.

Nonetheless, no one needs a low-quality shirt! Additionally, these shirts were expected to withstand all the potential pup adoration they’d receive. 

The type of Shirt I chose to print on was the Anvil 980 Lightweight shirt. As indicated by The Printful: 

“The Anvil 980 is our most famous Shirt, and customers are opting to rebrand it. The Shirt has tear-away labels that make it workable for inside label printing. Several customers who started with American Apparel 2001 shirts have changed to the Blacksmith’s Anvil 980 shirts to exploit our branding option.” 

P.S.: Shipping fees change. Most rates were around $5 or less within the U.S. 

Thus, given that, I set the price at $22.99 to begin. This exploits the left digit effect – a similar kind of pricing technique Apple utilizes on the entirety of its line of products. 

I ended up tinkering with pricing tactics down the road, yet $22.99 appeared to be a decent price point for the time being. 

With a couple of shirts stacked up in the store, the time she had come to flip the switch and promote the T-shirt to the public and people in general.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Launch, social account setup, and my first sale

The time I had come to launch my business—kind of. 

I needed to snatch the easy winnings, the low-hanging fruits. By that, I searched for immediate successes that could improve my work so far. 

It was only possible to spend cash on ads with enthusiasm for the merchandise. That would be tantamount to throwing money away. 

That is why it was compared to a launch day. I swiftly made a checklist of the free things I could do. 

The following is the specific rundown checklist I made. Check whether there’s anything you would include or strike out. 

• Set up social media accounts
• Request friends to social media accounts
• Setup exit intent email popup
• Post to /r/shutupandtakemymoney on Reddit

Generally, I’ll begin with one of these and work on it until I’m content with the outcomes.

If it doesn’t produce results or improve brand awareness, I’ll move on to the next thing. 

We set up all the social accounts quickly and generally straightforwardly. They are on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. 

I began by requesting my buddies to go to the Facebook page. Possibly 40 joined promptly, and others streamed in since the page opened. 

I didn’t want to interface my personal Facebook account with the Instagram account, so I didn’t add friends or family. 

Pinterest was set up later than I had anticipated, yet I needed to ensure I secured the username, so I also set that up—the same thing with Twitter.

Lowest hanging fruit as an approval strategy

In a previous contextual analysis case study, we examined how extraordinarily viable posting on specific subreddits is. However, it’s essential to be cautious with your methodology. 

Redditors-Reddit users disapprove of being sold to. That is the reason I tried to share with specific communities. 

I began by sharing the Corgi Low Rider Tee on the mainstream subreddit/r/shutupandtakemymoney on the store’s launch day.

This was shot for a long time, and the odds of getting a deal through this channel were slim.

Despite that, because it was a cute, simple shirt, it might have had an opportunity to make the dough. 

It is anything but a focus on the crowd, not a target demographic by any means – the main benefit is that every individual in this community is ready to spend cash.

I swear individuals who browse this subreddit have their credit cards at the click of a button. 

Of course, that, too, is a direct ticket to a sudden takeoff. 

The post claimed the top spot on the subreddit that day, with over 500 total upvotes and over ten comments.

It also remained on the subreddit homepage for a couple of days following that. 

Accordingly, the store took off. I saw rapid success, with real-time traffic drifting between 30 and 80 live visitors. This went on for a couple of hours. 

And voila! It happened: 

My first sale! It’s the best feeling on the planet. Indeed, even today, this simple alert is such a pleasurable moment. 

The notification validated all my work. It implied that somebody had an interest in the item, and if one individual is eager to give me their hard-earned cash for this product, others must be willing, right? 

It was a very significant beginning. The best part is that it didn’t cost anything! 

Somebody likewise posted it on the Corgi subreddit, which was equally welcomed. 

Likewise, it was taken and cross-posted on another subreddit called Life With Igor, which is, by all accounts, associated with an acclaimed corgi puppy. 

At that point, orders began coming in. A lot more than I had foreseen. The outcomes? 

One introductory post to this particular subreddit generated an aggregate of over $500 in income, more than 10,000 unique visits, and 20 orders. What’s more, it merely took overnight to realize. 

They came to get serious about my concept, and this one Shirt was approved. What was next?

Would it be a good idea for me to focus entirely on corgi-related shirts? Would I need more shirts? I’d wonder. 

This was very fortunate. I realized the circumstance was perfect when I posted it on Reddit.

I don’t know if it is anything but difficult to replicate for each item and business, yet it’s worth a shot if you figure your product would fit in with those generally mainstream on that subreddit. 

If your item is original, funny, or offbeat, it may be a decent place to get it approved.

Regardless of whether you don’t get any sales, you get traffic – it implies there’s something there, and you can begin bringing these prospects into your business funnel.

The Reddit impact and the emergence of a new referral source 

An incredible aspect concerning the/r/shutupandtakemymoney subreddit is that blog users frequently lurk in it.

There have been instances in which products have been featured on that subreddit, which more significant sites like BuzzFeed have taken up. 

Amazingly, a product blog did get the Low Rider Corgi shirt. At this juncture, I had not contacted any product blogs, so it probably was picked up by somebody scouring that subreddit. 

Ironically, the site that highlighted the Shirt is called I Waste So Much Money.

This was also an extraordinary success, as getting featured was free. It also generated a lot of traffic. 

Until now, this has drawn over 70 unique visits, which brought about two orders for a total income above $50.

Facebook and dog breed-specific groups

Next, I went to Facebook. I would not like to spend any cash on Facebook yet – that was something futuristic down the marketing line.

I began by researching the most famous dog breeds, for which I prepared shirts and joined specific Facebook groups. 

It’s a similar principle to posting on breed-specific subreddits. However, you’re posting to a more engaged audience on Facebook. 

Sadly, none of the posts I made converted into sales.

It might have been more effective if I had actively participated in the discussions before sharing a link to PUPPYPUP. 

I should have informed the group admins and sought their consent to post my products in their groups.

I even offered to pay them to pin the link to the top of the group page. 

After posting on several Facebook groups, I needed to include something indispensable to advancing sales further down the sales funnel.

Email capture and exit-intent popups to remarket to prospects

I needed to catch email addresses from likely clients to use as a remarketing strategy.

Tragically, I didn’t expect the Reddit post to gain as much foothold as it did, so I passed up an enormous chance to capture emails from each guest. 

While it was a primary “uh oh” on my part, I set up an exit-intent popup either way.

The odds are that a few guests would stream in from Reddit, and I wasted so much money throughout the following few weeks. There was potential to catch those email addresses as well. 

The least demanding path for me to get this set up was to utilize an app called Picreel.

It let me create a custom popup that would display when someone moves their mouse cursor outside the store page as though they are going to tab away. 

I signed up for Picreel’s free trial and was very content with its ease of use. I used an image of one of my neighborhood dogs; the rest was a breeze. 

This is one final outreach to the prospects. Maybe I could arrest their attention, give them 15% off to place an order or secure their email address. 

Previously, we examined why you should consider using popups on your online store. Test after test has demonstrated that popups work amazingly well. 

As of today, the method that captured an aggregate of 40 emails has given me a conversion rate from guest to email address of 1.70%.

While that isn’t an impressive result, it’s a beginning stage and a sign that the exit-intent popup works. 

Unquestionably, work must be done to optimize it for an improved conversion rate. However, I am content with how it functions for now.

Content curation and working out the blog 

One thing if there’s that many store owners ignore is the significance of working out your blog.

It is such a reconsideration to many organizations. However, it lets you begin building a relationship with guests, who, after some time, will likely buy your item. 

Since I am just one man, working out structure content wouldn’t properly utilize my time.

Moreover, would researching aspects like grooming skills, dog tips, and more be advantageous?

Well, at least not in the short term. However, there would be a monstrous advantage in the long haul. 

I made the blog a spot to curate entertaining pictures and videos. Who doesn’t love a good laugh, be it from funny pictures or adorable videos of dogs?

I discovered amusing videos on YouTube and inserted them into a blog post. 

If I could get somebody to visit the blog, they might navigate the landing page and see the items I am selling. 

On the other hand, because of the exit-intent popup I had installed beforehand, they would at least leave me their email address. 

Lamentably, no one who read an article on the blog bought an item. However, the exit-intent popup did give me a couple of email addresses. 

Having exhaustively deployed my free marketing techniques, which yielded a few sales, the time had come to leap into paid advertising.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Moving into Paid Ads

In our last eCommerce business contextual analysis, we discussed paid promotion only briefly because we were exceptionally time-barred.

That implied it would have been difficult for us to optimize any advertisement execution. 

Fortunately, this time, I could dive into paid promotion based on the inconceivably low upfront expenses of launching a shirt business. 

My first assault line was to go to Instagram, locate more significant accounts, and check whether they’d be eager to work with me. 

The purpose of hitting Instagram first is because it is the platform I’m generally acquainted with.

I realize that a group of people exists there now, and I know that there are monstrous pet-related Instagram accounts that might be happy to work with me. 

That gave me a practically immediate sales channel that required little demographic, keyword, or other research.

It was the snappiest route for me to begin with paid advertisement, and the benefits could be colossal.

Instagram marketing basics and building an audience

We’ve previously examined how to rapidly scale your Instagram account by effectively utilizing paid-backed posts. 

I was hoping to do that here, and it was unbelievably helpful. When I put together this article, the Instagram account had close to 400 followers and 50+ posts. 

Here are a few things that I ensure I address each time I set up an Instagram account. Consider applying these strategies to your business account also: 

• Make sure to make your account adorable and fun with emoticons (emojis) 
• Get a username that is your accurate business name or something close 
• Get a solid visual profile picture that will catch somebody’s consideration when they’re looking through their feed 
• Utilize a Google URL shortener to send guests to a particular item or page on your store 
• Utilize Google’s UTM parameters generator to follow clickthroughs and sales to your store 

From that point forward, you’re good to go.

Developing an Instagram account from zero

The least complex approach to escalate any Instagram account is to be dynamic and post content consistently.

I attempted to post one image each morning and another at night soon after supper. 

I began by scouring Instagram for various adorable dog accounts. My goal was to discover different accounts, repost the pictures to my account, and give credit where I could. 

I might have done more regarding posting schedules; however, I realized it needed to be more significant when beginning. 

The ideal approach to discovering relevant Instagram followers involves the following:

• Looking for hashtags that identify with your target audience and then liking.
• Following.
• Remarking on their accounts. 

The following constitute the hashtags I looked at: 

I utilized the tool in tags to discover these. Some of these don’t significantly affect the clients I’m attempting to reach.

However, that’s okay. You can also look for any hashtag pertinent to your target audience. 

Take a look.

#golden #picoftheday #puppylove #smile#bestoftheday #happiness #dogoftheday #dogstagram #pet #nature#ilovemydog #love #family #dog #iloveyou #instadog#loveit #petsofinstagram #catatanhariansherly #photooftheday #animal #instapet #goldenretriever#cute #puppy #petstagram #adorable #happy #doglover#dogsofinstagram

Finding famous dog accounts in horizontal markets

I’ve seen them, you’ve seen them, and you presumably follow them. I focused on those enormous Instagram accounts that post pictures of charming dogs. 

Or, on the other hand, a “popular” Instagram pet. Something like the canine rendition of Lil Buddy would be great. 

I needed to discover somebody with an Instagram account with a couple hundred thousand followers who would promote our items. The main issue was landing eager accounts. 

The simplest method to land famous accounts that might be willing to advance the item is to ride on individuals already in the game. 

Utilizing the services of a resource called Webstagram was the most effortless path for me to take.

Looking for Pitbulls, corgis, dogs, and more gave me a rundown of accounts identified with those Keywords. 

A while later, based on my prior knowledge, I searched for criteria that speak to the following: 

• The account should have 100k+ followers; anything less didn’t appear beneficial. 
• The account ought to have an email address in the bio. 
• Each image should have a couple of thousand likes, regardless of what they post. 
• The account should charge under $100 for a post. 
• The more affordable the post, the better. Since I intended to profit $6-$10 per sale, I would need to earn back the investment on any ad I did. 

Upon reading some emails, I got to work. 

I sent an aggregate of 50+ emails over about fourteen days. Not all the accounts I messaged were eager to work with me—and that was alright.

Some weren’t eager to market products on their accounts. 

The process was simple for the most part. I emailed the account owner, asking about the amount they charge, how to pay them, and when the image could be posted.

I don’t like waiting, so if they were happy to post after getting paid, I’d be game to run sponsored ads.

My ads were simple and direct but compelling. I incorporated a specific coupon code for the paid shoutout to include an extra tracking layer to see who ordered from the post.

I made an account for the sole purpose of marketing the Shirt. 

To this date, four coupon codes have been utilized. That implies that four individuals navigated to the low Rider Tee Instagram account, tapped the bio link, or entered puppypup.com into their browser and then purchased. 

Since I employed Google’s URL Shortener for the profile link that directly redirects to the product page, I could track the number of prospects who clicked through. It tracked about 50 clicks. 

Fifty ticks and four sales imply a conversion rate of 8%. 

It was a good beginning on Instagram, but I realized I could improve. Also, I knew there were more excellent fish out there. It was simply a question of discovering them. 

I repeated the above process to land more relevant, breed-specific, or dog Instagram accounts.

Postscripts on Instagram marketing

Instagram marketing became a highly effective sales channel for the store. Each time an ad was created, at least one sale originated.

Instagram is an exceptionally visual platform, so you know precisely what you’re getting. 

While the campaign might have yet to bring about a gainful result consistently, it broadened our reach and was an impetus for further scaling the Instagram account. 

On certain occasions, the account growth recorded 40-70 followers after being featured. The largest growth I saw was after being featured on Pitbulls of Instagram. 

With Instagram marketing proving fruitful as a sales channel, there’s a lot of space to scale. Still, the account is gradually developing, and anything is possible regarding demographic size.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Facebook marketing and another channel for growth

Some may find Facebook marketing easy. Nonetheless, it was my first time committing time and exertion to make it work.

Furthermore, I had a frank budget put aside to make it work. I needed to make it work. 

Most, if not all, of the famous Teespring campaigns, are either marketed to an audience through a dog-related Facebook page or promoted through paid ads.

Since the PUPPYPUP Facebook page audience was so thin-40 friends, I needed to utilize the paid ad strategy. 

At this point, I had to make a plan and get right to work.

The plan of attack for Facebook campaigns

Being new to Facebook marketing, I knew I had much headroom to explore.

Since I chose to limit myself to a $50 spending plan for Facebook advertising, I needed to get inventive. 

As such, here’s what I had set out to do: 

• Setup a Facebook retargeting pixel to remain before prospects by displaying advertising focused on individuals who had visited the store previously 
• Test with varying campaigns and targeting for different shirts. 
• Setup a Facebook retargeting pixel for guests who added an item to their cart but didn’t checkout 
• I’d only suspend the campaign if I got a conversion after spending the $10 ad money. 
• Repeat the process if an ad brings about a conversion.

The first ad campaign

Since I knew from my Reddit post that folks loved the corgi shirt, I began with that Shirt for my first campaign. 

My ad was a simple image of the Shirt with a clarion call to action source. Given a modest spending plan of $10, it was time to run the ad. 

Herein lies the specific focusing techniques I utilized.

Note that it is practically compared to tossing spaghetti at the wall as a first test, and a great deal of tinkering might have been done to reach a more focused demographic. 

• Area: U.S. 
• Age: 24 – 65+ 
• Interests: corgis, every day corgi, corgi canine or corgi fanatic 
• Desktop Placement: News Feeds 
• Mobile Placement: News Feed
• Estimated daily reach: 1,200 – 4,000 individuals of a crowd of people of 140,000 

The ad got an acceptable engagement. Hitting more than 30 likes and a couple of comments implied I must have been getting stuff right.

But why did no one purchase it? Was my copy that horrendous? Was the Shirt not luring enough? Was the call to action not satisfactory? 

The results of the ad are as follows: 

• Active clicking factor: 5.55% 
• Reach: 270
• Clicks: 15
• 1 Page Like 

I may have let the ad run longer to reach a broader demographic.

However, considering it was my first ad, I wasn’t set up to spend excessive cash on this mission.

I needed more than the sum I was eager to spend now to do an appropriate test. 

I realized that there was significantly more I could do. I could tinker with various campaign styles, spending plans, targeting, and more.

Targeting with Facebook

If you do a snappy Google search for case studies on tee-shirt campaigns on Facebook, you’ll discover various tremendously successful individuals on Facebook ads.

I invested a great deal of energy researching distinctive, effective campaigns that individuals had run before. 

What boxes were they ticking that I wasn’t? 

I’d ask myself. 

My answer lay with the targeting strategies I had employed. My technique could hit 50%; thus, I was halfway. 

• Also, I figured that my target demographic was: 
• An excessively enormous audience 
• Already being offered better 
• Not true devotees of the item or thing I was selling 
• Not enthusiastic enough 

Here’s a key takeaway you’d want to execute into your Facebook campaign system. What you’ll need to do is target stuff like: 

• Equipment manufacturers 
• Rescue groups 
• Newsletters 
• Associations 
• Magazines 
• Websites 
• Forums 
• Clubs 
• Events 
• And a whole lot more. 

P.S.: All the groups should be dog groups.

Focusing on these more specific fans makes you realize they’re already passionate about the topic. 

In light of that, I immediately started running ads, this time with another shirt design, a more targeted demographic, and a higher ad spend. 

This time, the ad got substantially more engagement than the previous ads. I had the option to clean up the copy, and above all, I made the offer appear to be time-sensitive. 

Below is the targeting that I implemented: 

Location: United States

Interests: Tails Hope Dog Rescue, a sanctuary for senior dogs, or reconnects

• Age: 45 – 65+
• Gender: Female
• Desktop Placement: News Feed
• Mobile Placement: News Feed

The results of the ad are as follows: 

• Website Clicks: 16
• Post Shares: 12
• Other Actions: 8
• Relevance Score: 9/10
• Clickthrough Rate: 6.0%
• Conversion: 1 

I continued seeing pit bulls, a dog breed with an enthusiastic owner community, so why not attempt to tap into that market as well? 

I made several Pitbull shirts, yet I made one specifically for ladies.

The Shirt was terrifically well received. With more than 400 likes, ten remarks, and 70 shares, it received resounding admiration from the specific target audience I picked. 

Below is the targeting that I implemented on this Shirt: 

• Area: The U.S.
• Interests: I love my pitbull
• Age: 35 – 64
• Gender: Female
• Desktop Placement: News Feed
• Mobile Placement: News Feed

The outcomes of the Shirt checked as follows: 

• Website clicks: 40
• Post shares: 70
• Clickthrough rate: 10%
• Relevance score: 9/10
• Conversion: 1

Postscripts on Facebook advertising 

Facebook advertising was an effective decent channel for a couple of sales.

If I had had additional time and a bigger spending plan, I would have had the option to keep tweaking these ads and discover a shirt design that resonated with an audience in a purchaser’s attitude. 

The most significant aspect of this was the scope of PUPPYPUP. Since the ads had such incredible engagement, each campaign’s organic reach was valuable. 

The Facebook page audience scaled to more than 140 fans in a snappy timeframe, and the organic reach of the ads started to burgeon towards the end as I had gotten more precise with my Facebook ad targeting.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Blog outreach and free marketing

One of my preferred advertising strategies is to contact relevant blogs and inquire whether they’d be eager to feature my product. 

I’ve previously expounded on various approaches to getting press coverage on a zero-spending plan—notwithstanding, for this situation, because the item is so one-of-a-kind, the average product blog would presumably not feature a shirt.

I need help employing various strategies to get featured on a blog like Supercompressor, Uncrate, etc. 

I needed to be more specific. I had to address what kinds of blogs would feature an amusing dog shirt. 

When I began my research, I had a couple of ideas, and they included: 

• Rescue affiliations that would need to do cross-marketing 
• Tumblr accounts with enormous followings 
• Breed-specific dog blogs 
• BuzzFeed Animals 
• Dog fan blogs 

It becomes challenging to connect with the owners of these more niche blogs. They merely journal as a hobby, passion, or interest. 

The odds are that they’re hoping to bring in cash or sell ad space. 

Still, I found one more win with a site called Corgi Addicts. I submitted an anonymous tip through their contact form, and a couple of days later, the Corgi Low Rider Tee was featured! 

Sadly, the Corgi Addicts feature didn’t generate any sales.

However, it was not an exercise in futility as it extended PUPPYPUP’S scope and still directed people to the store. 

These links often prove critical to budding new businesses since they assist with search ranking and authority. In this instance, the link was able to draw 47 guests.

Email marketing

I concluded that the time had come to set up an email marketing campaign. It would be a decent method to offer items to individuals who need more time to decide about buying. 

By sending an email, I could impact either: 

• Prospects who abandoned their checkout (which Shopify does as of now. However, this would go about as a subsequent reminder) 
• Individuals who gave their email address in the exit-intent popup form 
• I needed to export the email list for abandoned checkouts and then upload them to my email marketing software. 
• I needed to send a simple reminder email to prospects to let them know that we’re holding their items for them. Then, someone could take the offer and proceed to buy. 

I had an email rundown of 24 subscribers, and I’d send them a specific email. 

I also offered free delivery here—but it’s not real. I bumped the cost of the shirts up by $5, which was the standard rate for shipping orders across the U.S. Of course, prospects interpret this as a generous deal.

However, it’s generally the same price as they were before. 

Implementing the tactic is easy, and most email marketing tools make it simple to set up. The outcomes were incredible! 

• Opens: 47.47% 
• Clicks: 10.47% 
• Sales: 1 

I had a sale! It was from somebody who had visited the site long before I sent this email. 

This demonstrates how effective email marketing can be. This didn’t cost me a dime, and it won a sale.

Projecting a more extensive net with paying clients 

The unpacking experience is unquestionably significant, yet the shirts I was selling were print-on-order.

We weren’t shipping them ourselves, so there needed to be more space for a messy unpacking experience. 

Nonetheless, Printful offers a workaround for that—an approach to making a client’s experience only slightly more personal. 

You can edit and write a personal note on the packing slip included with each order. 

I utilized this to have clients share their orders and shirts with their loved ones on Instagram. 

I am still determining how well this will function, but given that it’s a free promotion channel, it should ideally bring about more free exposure.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Promoting channel results: an outline

Here’s a summary of where all sales originated from. 

Email Campaign: 1

Corgiaddict: 1

Twitter: 2

I Waste So Much Money: 2

Abandoned Cart Recovery: 2

Facebook: 5

Instagram: 12

Reddit: 18

Total sales: 43

Intriguingly, most sales originated from free marketing strategies. I can’t imagine how much further I may have gone, making the idea of a fruitful paid marketing effort unimaginably appealing. 

Some key takeaways from these outcomes are that mobile traffic is considerably more famous than desktop traffic. As such, the theme I utilize must be mobile-responsive. Luckily for you, each theme in the Shopify theme store is mobile-optimized. 

I was interested to see how much traffic Instagram drove. Since I could set up UTM parameters, I could track Instagram traffic. A total of 470 visits originated from Instagram links. 

And the Numbers Rundown checked as follows:

• Revenue: $1,250
• Marketing and Setup Costs: $270
• Instagram paid posts – $130
• Facebook ads – $60
• Shopify Basic plan – $29
• Rights to icons – $17
• Domain – $13
• Hero image – $10
• Profit (after Printful fees): $174.47

While I made $174.47 in profit income, many expenses were trialed. After some time, I enhanced my marketing endeavors to zero in on the channels that yield high ROI, thus achieving a healthy profit margin. 

Also, with combinations like Pinterest Buyable Pins and Facebook Commerce not too far off for stores like mine, the future is pregnant with infinite growth opportunities. 

There’s such a tremendous amount of space to delve into going forward. If I had given myself a couple of more months to deal with this, I would have researched P.R., Google Adwords, Twitter, and the sky is the limit from there – this was only a hint of something larger.

How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business: Conclusion

I trust that you found this study case worth your while. If you enjoyed this post, kindly let us know in the comments below! You can also check out this step-by-step walkthrough on how to Start a T-shirt business Online. 

If you have thoughts about the kind of business we should handle, feel free to share them with us, and we may grant your wish. 

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your support, for sure.

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