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How To Make Money By Selling T-Shirt Designs Online

by Henna Ray Tweet - in Tshirt Design

Last updated on February 2nd, 2023

Are you a t-shirt designer looking for ways to earn money? If yes, then you should be looking to explore earning opportunities. Well, there is one such surefire way. This is selling t-shirt designs online. You can even build a steady career on it. But merely designing and waiting for the buyers do not help. It requires a strategy.T-shirts are inexpensive everyday wear and also the most cost-effective marketing solutions to take products or services to masses. We all know how a humor-filled text or an image on t-shirts tickles us. This power of casual apparel is best used by smart marketers to promote a business or a social cause.

A t-shirt design that stands out in color, text, slogan, etc. is the one that people want to buy. The design should be an outstanding idea. It requires a careful selection of a lot of elements such as colors and text.

After you designed a brilliant t-shirt, you should also acquire some marketing skill to sell it. Knowing some key selling tactics is even more critical if you are a freelance designer. There is enormous potential for the growth of your small T-shirt selling brand, provided you market it well.

So, both the designing and marketing aspects should be handled properly. If you do that, your chances of the steady growth of your brand are higher.

Some people who took up t-shirt designing as a hobby and made millions of dollars. You can also sell your creative tshirt design and sell them successfully.

Here Is What You Need To Do To Sell T-Shirt Designs Online

01. Have A Unique Shirt Design Idea

The first step to take for selling T-shirt designs is to have a great design idea. Without a unique idea, it will be increasingly difficult to convince clients or customers to buy the shirts. After all, they are buying the tshirt design and not the T-shirt.

Have A Unique Shirt Design Idea

What it means is that T-shirt as apparel are plenty in markets. They can purchase any of these casual wears. So, they are likely to opt for the shirt that has a fantastic design on it.

Therefore, make it sure that your shirt design idea is unique and attractive. It must catch the otherwise wavering attention of people right away at first glance. That is the key to sell the shirts. In the absence of any such idea, do not think of making it big in the sales department.

02. Brainstorming

The best way to get a shirt design idea is to brainstorm. Sit down with your team to find out which idea will sell. You have many options. You can create clever puns, cute designs, or have laugh-out-loud jokes that everybody loves. People like to wear such funny t shirts.

Brainstorming

Another option is to just explore the ideas regarding movies and popular TV serials, without infringing their copyrights. You can also exploit some cultural side of people. Make sure that you have a great design idea when you sell your art design to the target audience.

Looking For a T-Shirt Design?

It’s very simple. Choose a t-shirt. Select color and size. Choose from thousands of ready-to-use designs. Create your own design.
You can also hire a designer to get a design for your t-shirt.
Create Your Own T-Shirt Hire a Designer

03. Learn To Design

In case you are not a designer and still want to sell T-shirt designs and make money online, you should acquire some working knowledge of designs. Learn about typography and colors and how to make a good choice. Learn also how to use Adobe Photoshop. This software will help you create graphics easily.

You can also have a good experience of using clipart and word shapes. It will be useful in enhancing your image on the shirts. Also, use new apps like Wordswag and Over to have some mastery over design. Get some design tips as well from online experts.

Learn To Design

If designing is not your forte, hire a freelance graphic designer to do the job for you. In that case, you can then focus on increasing your sales.

Either you design it yourself as a freelancer, or hire a designer, make it doubly sure that the design is unique. Every element of fonts, words, clipart, images, etc. should make an impression.

04. Major Sites For Printing Your T-Shirts

Now that you have a great T-shirt design idea, the next step is to get it printed from a reliable T-shirt printing site. You will be selling printed shirts that have your designs. At this stage, note two things. Either you should learn to silkscreen shirts, or you will order someone to do the printing.
Major Sites For Printing Your T-Shirts

If you order printing of shirts and get them delivered to your home, you will have to store them in more significant numbers and sell to whoever places the order. That is a time-consuming exercise and an expensive way to do the business.

A better idea will be to have a great design and then let others do the production and shipping job on your behalf. Many credible t-shirts printing sites and storefronts can efficiently work as a warehouse to store your T-shirts and then ship the orders.

Here Are Some Of The Printing And Selling Sites

• Merch By Amazon

Merch by Amazon is a great platform to sell your T-shirt designs online. One of the advantages of this site is its high traffic volume. According to an estimate, Amazon gets around 669 million visitors per month.

This far greater than combined traffic received by many other sites such as Teespring, Zazzle, CafePress, etc. So, get access to those millions of people many of whom you can turn into customers of your custom shirts.

You will get additional selling resources tools at Amazon. You can use these tools to analyze your traffic to have an insight into managing the business properly.

• CafePress And Zazzle

Both these sites are popular for their ease of signup and product setup. These sites set the price of printing your T-shirt design. They also let you choose your royalty which is added to the shirt’s base price.

At Zazzle and CafePress the base prices are attractive. They also give you a performance bonus. You can also access a t-shirt maker tool to create your own design before selling it from these sites.

• Redbubble

With Redbubble, you can set up your store to sell the printed T-shirts. The site will decide on the base price. But you are allowed to determine your markup.

• Shopify

Just set up a shop at Shopify and you have quick access to a printer as well as a drop shipper. You can then manage the right balance between your price and other options. In fact, there are many other great t-shirts printing sites such as Custom Ink, Spreadshirt, Teespring, Printful, Vistaprint, UberPrints, and Print Aura.

Compare these sites to find out which one allows you to set your prices higher, besides printing your t-shirts on time. Most such sites will also provide you shirt maker tool to design the apparel on your own.

05. Set Up Your Shop

After you have signed up with choice of printing and selling site, you need to set up your shop with the site. You will be selling your T-shirt designs online from the store.

Set Up Your Shop

Many sites allow you to personalize your online storefront. You can then upload your designs to the storefront and set up them to sell.

06. Build Your Website

Another option to explore selling T-shirts online is to build your own site. But this option is a bit tedious. You have first to purchase a domain name for your website. It will be your web address of the business.

Then, you need to design the website in a unique and user-friendly way. You will also create a logo for your independent business. This logo will find the place at the top side of the website to establish its identity among customers.

Build Your Website

You will also buy the services of a hosting company. The host will ensure that your website is running smoothly on the web. Some of these companies have e-commerce shopping cart platforms that you can choose to sell T-shirts.

Another thing to note when selling T-shirts from home through your website is that you have to take a license and pay taxes. You will file with the state authorities. Additionally, you may think of copywriting and trademarking your business. All such exercise is a lengthy and expensive for an all business owner.

07. Make a Marketing Strategy

After you have a stunning t-shirt design idea and opened a storefront or created a website to sell the design, it is now the time to market it. In fact, marketing is a crucial stage. It can make or break your business. Marketing is about devising unique ways to reach out to the target audience. It needs a sound strategy.

Since you intend to sell T-shirt designs online, it automatically brings the SEO best practices to mind. Search Engine Optimization is about bringing your storefront or website on the top search results. When potential customers type keywords related to your business, your site must be visible on the top search results that you can ensure by the right optimization techniques.

Make a Marketing Strategy

Marketing also means that you need to figure out your target customer. Who is the one that is most likely to buy your T-shirt? You create a design. But which age-group and social or educational backgrounds your customers come from?

Find out your ideal customer and then make a plan to sell your T-shirt to that audience. Do not try to sell to everyone.

You will also be looking for influencers who can talk about your T-shirt designs online. They can help you boost your sales tremendously. This is because they have millions of followers who will come to know about your business. Influencer marketing is also a great way to build your brand identity.

Then, you should also explore the marketing opportunities on social media. Open accounts on different social channels like Facebook and Twitter. Then, regularly post your content about your unique T-shirts to attract buyers.

These are the key points to consider while selling T-shirt designs online. Take care of all the aspects well by investing your time and money carefully.

When designing, you can also outsource your work to Designhill, a leading marketplace. Launch your design contest to get dozens of new design ideas from as many freelancers. You can get a winning idea for your T-shirt at an affordable price.

Are You Looking for a New Graphic Designer?If Yes, Call Us on +1-855-699-2851 [times for calling 9am to 6pm EST (US)] or Register for a Free Design Consultation

Conclusion

You can successfully set up a business by selling T-shirt designs online. First, ensure that the design is unique and targets an audience. Then find out the right sites for printing the design on T-shirts. Afterwards, you should create an online storefront with the printing site or have your own website to sell. You should also make a marketing plan to reach out to the audience.

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Hi! I am professional Logo designer and an aspiring blogger. An expert on various tools Like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Coral Draw, I have successfully designed several application interfaces, android apps, logo designs, business card designs, letterhead designs, envelop designs, flyer designs, brochure designs and web banners. Twitter

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