- You know, in the last 10 years
online t-shirt sales have absolutely exploded.
Yup, every single year demand, and sales
for t-shirts grow and it grows.
And so if you are looking to take advantage of this
and create your own t-shirt line to sell,
then this video is for you.
Because you see, as a lot of my subscribers already know,
I have a print-on-demand clothing business
and while I do sell a wide range of clothing,
my number one clothing item that I sell is t-shirts.
Each month I make thousands of dollars selling t-shirts
and while I may not be the leading world expert
on selling t-shirts,
Over time I've definitely learned a lot
about why some of my t-shirts sell super well
and others, well don't.
So in this video, I'm gonna give you ten actionable tips
I've learned along the way about creating
and designing t-shirts that sell
and it doesn't matter whether you're selling t-shirts
in your own private store like me
or on Redbubble or Merch by Amazon or Etsy,
these tips are for you.
Tip one, spy on super popular winning t-shirt designs.
So a lot of people ask me this question,
they say, "Sarah, I see the t-shirts sales,
"they're growing and growing
"and I wanna take advantage of this.
"There's just one problem,
"I don't know what types of t-shirts
"that people want to buy,"
and you know what, nobody does when they first get started
so what do you think that they do?
They spy on other successful t-shirts stores,
see what their top designs are
and take inspiration from those.
And one of my favorite places to do this is on Etsy
because on here, you can very easily spy
on super popular t-shirt designs
to inspire you to make your own.
Now, I'm sure my regular viewers
and subscribers will know what Etsy is
but the reality is most people
who watch my videos aren't subscribers
which is why I sometimes have to re-explain these things.
So those of you who are new out there, welcome.
Second of all, this is not an Australian accent,
I have a New Zealand accent
and thirdly, yes, this is Etsy
and Etsy is a third-party marketplace.
And it's very similar to eBay.
If you come to eBay and you type in funny t-shirts,
the listings you get won't be from funny t-shirts
that eBay themselves are selling,
instead, it'll be everyday individuals
like you or I that come in
and list out t-shirts for sale.
Well, Etsy is exactly the same, except on Etsy,
it has some limitations.
So on Etsy, you can only sell vintage items
or items you've designed or created yourself,
such as t-shirts that you made
with free print-on-demand apps
like Print Fire or Spreadshirt.
So I suspect most of you who are looking
to start selling your own t-shirts are going to be using
print-on-demand apps like this.
So here's how you can find t-shirts
that are currently selling well on Etsy.
So just open up a t-shirt category
and browse through the listings.
Now Etsy literally has thousands and thousands
of t-shirt listings, so you can't look over them all
but what you should do is go through the first 10 pages
or so of t-shirt listings.
And that's because every time a customer
buys a t-shirt on Etsy,
they will bring that t-shirt to the front
of the order listing
So you know that any t-shirts that are listed
the first 10 or so pages must be bought recently.
So go through these and open up the t-shirts
and use the reviews to identify
which ones are super popular designs
and so here's how you can tell if a design is super popular.
So take this t-shirt here as an example.
Now, yes, this has obviously been bought recently
because it is on the second page of results on Etsy.
However, if you check it out,
this t-shirt has only been reviewed five times
in the past year that it's been up online.
Now, it is true that most people,
they don't leave a review on Etsy.
I mean, as you can see, the store has had 5,123 reviews
but yet it's had over 36,000 sales.
So most people who buy products on Etsy,
they don't leave a review but even with that in mind,
chances are this t-shirt only sells
a few times a month for the seller.
So it's not a big, super popular design.
So, it's good to use as inspiration
if you just wanna create a t-shirt
that will sell moderately well but lists good
if you wanna create a viral, super popular design.
Instead, you wanna find t-shirts like this one here,
not only has this t-shirt had substantially more reviews
but they are spread out over years and years either.
This t-shirt, it's relatively new,
it gets reviews nearly every day.
Some days it gets multiple reviews,
which shows that this t-shirt is selling multiple times
every day, not just occasionally.
And remember, only a small percentage of customers
actually, bother to leave a review.
So basically what you can take away from this theme
is that yes, if you have a free organic traffic source
like free Etsy traffic,
then sure you can take inspiration from this t-shirt here.
But if you wanna create a viral design,
then this t-shirt would be a much better one to study
and use as inspiration for creating your own winning design.
And by the way, if you've got any questions
about selling t-shirts online,
then you should be sure to come
to my Instagram live hangout,
which is gonna be held at 8:00 p.m. Eastern USA time,
tonight, as in the day that this video goes live.
I regularly hold Instagram live Q and A hangout sessions
for my followers, so go ahead
and follow me if you haven't already.
But anyway, back to the video.
Tip two, cross-niche, cross-niche, and cross-niche.
All right, so let's circle back to that winning design
that we found on Etsy.
So this design here sold really well for many reasons.
One, of course, is that obviously,
we can say that it's visually appealing to people.
This style of typography design, it's super cool
and it's a great basis for people watching
to use as inspiration for your own designs.
But there is another reason that this t-shirt
has sold really well too
and that's because it's a really good example
of a cross-niche design.
So we can see that this t-shirt,
it targets a very specific type of person.
It targets someone who is a mother,
someone who loves tattoos and excuse my language,
I tried to think of another phrase for this
but I genuinely couldn't.
It describes someone here who is basically a badass
and who doesn't adhere to traditional beauty tropes.
So let's imagine for a moment that we've got a lady, Anna.
She is buying a t-shirt as a gift for her friend, Zoe.
Now, Zoe is someone who personally identifies
as being a badass, or in New Zealand,
we would say is a badass.
She has tattoos, she loves them.
She rejects traditional beauty tropes
and she's also a very proud mother.
Now, Anna is buying a t-shirt for Zoe
and she sees this one and she's like,
"Oh yeah, Zoe is proud of being a mother, she'd like this."
And then she sees that this one and she's like,
"Oh man, Zoe, isn't just proud of being a mother,
"she's proud of being a badass mother, she'd love this,"
but then she sees this one and she's like,
"That is Zoe, to a T.
"Zoe would be like, "Whoa, that's totally me."
"She'd love this t-shirt.
"This will make the most amazing gift,
"I have to buy it."
The more the customer identifies and sees themselves
in the t-shirt, the more it will trigger them emotionally,
making them want to buy it.
That is the power of cross-stitching.
However, it does have some limitations.
Tip three, research your customer
before you design your t-shirts.
So I remember I had the super lovely view of Kyan,
who unfortunately had opened a store
and his t-shirts were not selling well.
And he asked me to look over his Merch store
because he wasn't sure why his t-shirts were not selling.
He wanted to know why his store had,
in his own words failed.
So I went to his store to do a review and check it out.
And I was like, this store is so average and underwhelming.
Take this t-shirt, it's an underwhelming cartoon picture
of a lazy pug on a t-shirt, that's it.
And so, after I accidentally called Kyan, Kyle
and I'm really sorry about that by the way,
I basically told him that right now,
his t-shirts were too bored and he needed to niche down
to appeal emotionally to target his customer.
And so, do you know what Kyan responded with?
"Okay, could I cross a pug with a milkshake?"
Oh no, Kyan, no.
So here's what you want to do.
You want to imagine a real-life example of a pug owner
that you want to target.
What sort of person is likely to own a pug?
Well, probably someone who was at least moderately well off
and affluent and that's for many reasons.
Pugs are a pedigree breed and they have small letters
and they have a myriad of health complications
and are in high demand
and the reason they're in demand
is because while I'm definitely not a fan
of the ethical issue surrounding their breeding,
I'm seriously not blind
and I can tell you they're extremely cute.
So a lot of affluent women purchase pugs.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Do you think these women are particularly interested
in milkshakes to the point
that they would buy a t-shirt about it?
Chances are there really aren't that many.
So, a t-shirt featuring pugs and milkshakes
doesn't really make a lot of sense
but a t-shirt having pug owners that like coffee,
that makes a whole lot more sense to try.
You can't just cross-niche two issues together,
they have to make sense.
This was one of the top-selling t-shirts
last Halloween on Amazon,
it's a fantastic example of cross-niche,
combining Halloween and dinosaurs.
No, these two things, they ain't related
but you know what, when the target market,
i.e, eight-year-old boys see this and they go,
"Awesome, I love Halloween, I love dinosaurs.
"I love this t-shirt," it's gonna sell super well
whereas if you came along and decided
to change up this t-shirt to instead be this,
Zoe looks at us and she's like,
"Yeah, I was really vibing with that t-shirt
"until that bit about the dinosaurs."
Understandably, 30-something-year-old Zoe
isn't particularly interested in dinosaurs.
Just because you can do something, Kyan
doesn't mean you should.
And by the way, if you're enjoying this video
and you would like to learn even more
about setting up a print-on-demand store,
then should be sure to download my free ebook,
"The Six Steps That Six-Figure Online Stores Follow
"To Make Their Routine Thousand A Month,"
and you'll find a link to download my free ebook
in the video description below
but anyway, back to the video.
Tip four, choose a style that matches your customer.
So remember, a reasonably affluent, pug-loving lady,
we'll call this lady Claire.
So if I was here on Shutterstock
looking for some art to make a pug t-shirt for Claire,
you know what?
There are some designs that I'd be much more interested
in trying than others.
See, when I imagine Claire,
I picture her as someone who wants to wear something
a bit more elegant rather than cartoony.
So Claire would probably appreciate this design here
a whole lot more than say, this design here,
and sure, the pun may get a laugh out of her
if he showed it to her but seriously,
can you picture Claire wearing this shirt
out to a lunch date with her friends
or can you picture Claire wearing this t-shirt instead?
Out of the two, I think that she would find this
a more aesthetically pleasing design.
So design with your target customer in mind.
Tip five, black t-shirts sell the best.
So I and pretty much any other t-shirts store out there
will tell you that it's usually our black t-shirts
that is our number one top-selling color and honestly,
I don't think that this is surprising at all
because I don't know about you but I love black t-shirts,
almost as much as I love smashing the like button
and helping out your favorite YouTuber.
But seriously, thank you very much for your support
but yes, if I sell a t-shirt and it comes in black,
that is usually the most popular color.
And I honestly don't think it takes rocket science
to figure out why black t-shirts are so popular.
It's flattering on most body shapes,
it's neutral so it goes with most clothing
and it doesn't get dirty easily.
Everyone loves black t-shirts.
Because of that then,
if I had any advice to give to this Etsy store,
I tell them, "Mate, this most popular t-shirt,
why not make it in black color?"
They offer all of these other colors,
many of the colors that probably no one wants
and yet they aren't offering the one color
that everyone wants.
Black, black does mean that you usually have to create
an alternative design for example,
make a version where the text is white instead of black
but it's definitely worth the extra effort.
Tip six, steal popular t-shirt designs from other niches.
So I was having a conversation the other day
with someone that wanted to create a coffee-themed t-shirt
and he was like, "Okay, I'm gonna go away then
"and look for coffee-themed t-shirts then."
And when he said this, I was just kinda like,
"But why coffee t-shirts in particular?"
And he was like,
"Well, because I wanna sell coffee-themed t-shirts."
And I was like, "Sure but you know
"what's even better than that?
"Finding the most popular t-shirts in general,
"even if they have nothing to do with your chosen niche,"
and then thinking about clever ways
to take this visual design, take this layout
and overall attitude and then combining it
with a phrase aimed at your niche.
So if you wanted to create a coffee-themed t-shirt,
don't just research coffee-themed t-shirts,
research popular designs like this in general
and then use them as inspiration
to create your own niche design.
Researching and spying on competitors
and top-selling t-shirt designs,
is something I discussed in my premium
an e-commerce video course, the econ compass
and if you're interested in seeing
if my course might be right for you,
I'll have a link to it in the video description below.
Tip seven, get an honest friend or family member
to look over your t-shirts.
So, recently a lovely viewer, Nate left a comment.
He had opened an online store and he was getting clicks
but no sales and he didn't understand why
so he wanted to know, can I review his store
to tell him why?
Now, whenever I see comments like Nate's,
I think two things.
First of all, Nate,
why do you want me to review your store on this channel?
Seriously Nate.
You're probably a super nice person
and any store review I've done has always been very blunt.
So I'm really sorry in advance, Nate.
I know you've probably tried really hard
when building the store but as usual,
I'm gonna be really honest and really blunt.
And secondly, whenever I see comments like Nate's,
I always think, oh no.
I bet if I go and check out the store,
it's going to be ugly as sin
and look extremely unprofessional and lo and behold,
I'm pretty much always, right.
So yes, while we're talking about t-shirt stores
in this video and Nate's store isn't a t-shirt store,
I think it's still extremely relevant to the discussion
because I get so many people just like Nate,
who no matter what type of store they're opening,
whether it's a t-shirt store or a dropshipping store,
will leave comments asking why nobody
is buying the products and usually when I open the stores,
they look as unprofessional, lazy, and ugly as Nate's does.
Now, I honestly don't know where to start here.
There's so much that's lazy about the store
that adds to the ugliness.
This logo, it's got a giant orange box around it,
stretching at the top of the page
with the most basic menu given next to it.
Now, usually, if you put your mouse over, say catalog,
the list of item categories will drop down
but Nate hasn't even bothered to add
this most basic usability feature and look,
there's no favicon on the store either.
It truly looks like whoever made the store
had absolutely zero pride in their brand or store at all.
It looks like a scammy crash grab
and seriously, check out the text
on these generic stock images that don't even showcase
Nate's products.
This takes is some of the most generic I've ever seen.
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