A custom t-shirt isn’t just a staple of casual wear—they’re articles of clothing that often reflect our personalities, interests, and identities.

Because of this, selling custom t-shirts online has become a popular choice. Especially for entrepreneurs and artists looking for a relatively inexpensive way to start a business. Plus, the global market for the custom t-shirt printing industry is expected to eclipse $10 billion by 2025.

1. Choose a niche

A niche will help your online custom t-shirt business stand out and better attract the right target audience without blowing your budget.

You hear the term “niche” tossed around a lot, but it’s important to choose one when looking for t-shirt business opportunities. One of the most important parts of building a successful t-shirt business is the ability to stand out. One of the best ways to do that is by catering to a specific target audience or interest group.

Generally, categories like “t-shirts for people who like funny slogans” are going to be too broad to get noticed. You’re going to want to tighten it up a little more.

2. Source quality material and t-shirt printing options

Not all t-shirts are the same and not all print jobs are the same. As we mentioned above, quality is paramount to your brand and its success.

It might be tempting to sacrifice quality for higher profit margins. You need to consider how the quality will affect a customer’s decision to share your brand and purchase from you again.

Choosing a quality t-shirt encompasses several factors, including fit, sizing, material, softness, and weight. A great starting point for determining which blank t-shirt to use is to check out T-Shirt Magazine’s review of some of the most popular blank t-shirts for printing.

Once you narrow down your choices, it’s strongly recommended to order samples so you can make an informed final decision.

3. Create your own designs for your t-shirts

Here are a few ways you can get a head start on your t-shirt business designs.

Find the best-selling designs and niches

If you’re stuck for t-shirt niche ideas and designs, a great start is looking at what else is popular and currently selling well. Below is a list of pages for some of the top graphic t-shirt marketplaces. You can use them to search the “best sellers” and “most popular” sections to help you get a better idea of your next niche or t-shirt design. 

Buy designs for your custom t-shirts

If you’re stuck finding a designer, you can always purchase pre-made designs. Keep in mind that if you choose to go this route, there’s a high likelihood that other people are already selling whatever design you pick. This is only making it harder for your brand to stand out.

Check out the following graphic marketplaces:

  • Designious: which sells vector packs and PNG t-shirt designs, as well as clip art to create your own products. 
  • Tshirt Factory: which offers a variety of vector images — from old school to punk rave and urban styles — for t-shirt printing businesses. 
  • Creative Market: This doesn’t focus exclusively on t-shirts, but you can find over 3 million unique fonts, graphics, themes, photos, and templates designed by independent creators from around the world.
  • Graphic River: where you can buy and sell royalty-free, Photoshop files, vectors, and icon packs for your t-shirt designs. 

Keep in mind, if you plan to sell t-shirts online, you may need to purchase a commercial license. 

4. Mock up your custom t-shirts

Once you have some final designs, your next step will be to get some mockup images made. This is so your customers can see what the final design will look like printed on a shirt.

There are a few ways you can get images of your final designs on custom t-shirts, including ordering samples and taking product photography yourself or, with the abundance of t-shirt templates online, opting to create a 100% digital mockup,

Adobe Photoshop t-shirt templates are the most common types of mockup files. They allow you to quickly preview how your designs will look printed on a t-shirt. Most Photoshop templates come with multiple layers that let you change the color of the shirt and apply your own design that will blend with the shirt’s creases, folds, and contours.

If Adobe Photoshop isn’t right for you, you can also use web-based mockup software that will let you do the same thing without having to download and figure out Photoshop.

Another great option for tasks like this is to enlist help from someone on Fiverr. Just search for t-shirt mockups.

5. Validate your designs

Before you invest a lot of money on your new business idea. You should verify that there is a market for and interest in your designs. There are many ways you can go about validating the market and sell t-shirts online.

Some of the most popular and more common methods for validating your design ideas include:

Personal social networks. Post some of your designs to your Facebook profile, niche Facebook groups, IG, and other social networks. So your friends and potential customers frequent. Be careful when asking friends and family, however—their opinions are prone to kindness.

Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding sites have made it much easier to test, validate, and collect money upfront for your new business idea. Launching a crowdfunding campaign can be time-consuming and requires a good deal of preparation. However, the benefits can be huge, including fully funding your project before you launch it. If you have a particularly novel t-shirt business idea (say, matching custom t-shirts for dogs and dog owners), crowdfunding might be for you.

Print on demand. Finally, with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, it’s never been easier to set up a fully functional online store (domain name included) in a matter of hours to validate your business idea. Start a 14-day free trial and integrate a print-on-demand service to validate your custom t-shirts by trying to sell them online.

6. Set up your online store with CO Print Press

Now that you have your custom t-shirt designs in hand, have made your mockups, and validated your idea. It is time to build your store. 

There are a handful of t-shirt print-on-demand services that directly integrate with your Shopify store. Allowing you to start taking orders in no time. These services will print and ship your t-shirts to your customers on your behalf every time you receive an order. 

There’s no need to purchase or hold any inventory upfront, making it a great way to get started. Best of all, if you want to use your design on other printable products. Such as mugs and tote bags, you have that option as well.

There are a variety of t-shirts available through the following print-on-demand companies:

Once your store is set up, you’ll be ready to start selling t-shirts online. 

5 considerations for starting a Business for Custom T-shirts

Although the tools and technology available for designing, printing, and shipping custom t-shirts make starting up relatively simple. The difficult part is building a brand to stand out from the competition. Combining competition with slim profit margins. Building an online t-shirt company becomes a little harder than it might first appear.

If you want to design and sell custom t-shirts online, you have to make the right decisions from the get-go.

There are several critical elements involved in starting a successful t-shirt business. Each of these elements needs to be considered closely before moving forward:

  1. T-shirt printing techniques. There are many different ways to print designs on a custom t-shirt. Choosing the right one can help you save money and make smarter business decisions. 
  2. Design. The majority of people purchasing graphic tees are looking for designs, graphics, and slogans that connect with them and reflect their opinions and personality.
  3. Quality. The quality of the shirts you use and of the print job need to be top-notch to build a sustainable business.
  4. Brand, A strong, interesting brand is vital in the t-shirt industry.
  5. Inventory, Will you manage your own inventory to take advantage of volume discounts or use a print-on-demand service to save time and effort.

If you need custom printing contact CO Print Press 720-734-9994 print@coprintpress.com