The three key factors that make or break T-shirt selling businesses
T-shirt businesses seem to pop up everywhere, but as great as they can be, many of them quickly shut down. The reason for this is that selling T-shirts, like many other hustles, has become a full-fledged industry that warrants a good deal of careful planning.
Make no mistake, this is a lucrative niche. Data shows that in just the United States, the T-shirt industry will have a revenue of $5.53 billion this year. More interestingly, the top names like Old Navy, SHEIN, Abercrombie, Urban Outfitters, and more only add up to 14% of the brand share.
In other words, 86% of this industry is dominated by various small-to-medium-sized businesses, either at home or sourced from outside America.
If you want to know how to ensure you can cut a piece of the pie for yourself, then stick around. In this piece, we’re going to look at three determinant factors that you need to know.
1) A personalized sales experience
According to McKinsey, modern customers expect a personalized experience and will often take it for granted. In other words, it’s become an unofficial default requirement. They note that 71% of consumers want personalized interactions and 76% of these consumers get frustrated when these expectations aren’t met.
So, what does that mean for you as an entrepreneur of a T-shirt-selling business? Well, for starters, it means remembering that you have to think beyond “How do I make more sales?” Too many entrepreneurs put on the profit-seeking blinders, and that becomes a stumbling block for them.
The sad part is that all it takes is a little initiative in something like website design to make a difference. If a customer is on your website and the entire UI is just optimized for sales, it’s not ideal. You want your website to facilitate customers and their often highly specific needs.
Hocoos recommends website builders that use AI to help create custom websites in a matter of minutes. Think about the categories that can help with personalization. Try to come up with at least five such categories or aspects and try your best to get them implemented in your website.
Similarly, consider adding a live chat feature so that people can quickly get in touch instead of calling a number or writing an email. It’s a relatively simple step, but it makes a huge difference in terms of personalization.
2) Ultra-fast lead time
If you’re unfamiliar with what this is, Investopedia explains it as the time from the start of a process until its conclusion. In other words, the time between the customer placing an order and the time of delivery. In virtually every industry, you want your lead times to be as short as possible, and the T-shirt business is no different.
This is one situation where it might even be worth taking a hit on profit initially as well. If you have to choose a logistics partner that can promise fast lead times, it’s often worth the price you pay.
Think about it, you are far more likely to create satisfied customers with 2-day shipping and grow your business. Conversely, choosing a logistics partner that saves you a little money but only does 4-5 day shipping is arguably a bad idea.
This is especially true if your business is still in the early stages. Even with marketing efforts, a nice chunk of business will be from customers giving you ‘a chance.’ They might have seen you as a new business that looks promising and decided to place an order. If you mess it up with long lead or delivery times, they’re just going to go back to their regular supplier.
Of course, the logistics partner you choose isn’t the only factor. According to CFI, you can also reduce lead time by reducing non-value-added activities, sourcing locally, vertical integration, and automation.
3) How strong your scaling capacity is
Being able to satisfy large orders is something that often makes or breaks T-shirt businesses. Many entrepreneurs in this niche erroneously believe that customers are always going to be random individuals buying for personal use.
However, if you offer personalized T-shirts, be aware that your clients can often be large organizations that suddenly make bulk orders. Think of schools that suddenly need T-shirts for 100+ staff or companies that need three different T-shirt designs in large quantities.
This often represents a huge jump not just in raw production but also in terms of every other business factor. Your design team and your logistics– all of them end up struggling during these sudden orders. You could turn them down, but you’d be losing what could have been a lucrative deal. At the same time, if you accept the order but fail to deliver in terms of quality or time, that creates more problems too.
Thus, think about how you intend to deal with these situations because they can and will happen eventually.
At the end of the day, a T-shirt business seems simple enough. However, even though it’s a single-product business, the factors of personalization, custom requests, and bulk orders can quickly complicate things. That said, if you can cover these angles as best as you can, you’ll have a better chance of success.
