How To Start A T-Shirt Printing Business?
1. Why Choose T T-shirt Printing Business?
The T-shirt market in India is all set to cross Rs 21,000 crore this year. Though men’s t-shirt dominates most of this revenue, t-shirts for females are also increasingly catching up and rising rapidly.
So if you're thinking about starting a t-shirt printing business in India, this is the correct time to do it. Make adequate efforts to properly source, create, and market a better-printed t-shirt. The four areas of emphasis in the case of a t-shirt printing business are designs, quality, price, and marketing & sales for any brand. Also, because of the availability of a broad variety of design choices, the purchasing trend is changing more online than offline.
2. T-shirt Printing Business In India
If you want to start a t-shirt printing business, you should first be prepared to sell your t-shirts everywhere. Marketplaces & own websites are the two options through which you can sell your printed t-shirts online. Marketplaces are easy, to begin with as they run with strong product investment.
However, marketplaces are often crowded. So, you need to learn more about sellers' models in markets such as discounts, coupons, etc. You can also opt-in for third-party companies that are listed and advertised on the market. To create your website, you can select from various platforms.
1- Finding Your Niche Design Area
When you sell t-shirts to a niche audience, you can effectively market your t-shirt business. You need heavy investment if you launch a regular clothing line. However, if you are involved in the niche design field, you can explore your target market’s real potential.
Check the competitors once before you finalize your t-shirt design field. An untapped niche can give you instant growth.
2- T-shirt Designing
You will never know which design will sell and which will not. So pick the design work based on multiple criteria. Use your niche experience and build simple, impressive designs that are out of the box. It would not be a smart idea to get the concept outsourced in the beginning. Use model inspirations or clipart to create your design. You can purchase a large package of modern clipart and build appropriate designs.
Display designs and gain input from as many people as possible. If you could get your target audience's feedback before you start, that would be perfect. Use your reviews to develop and refine your designs.
3- T-shirt Manufacturing
You need to offer the best price points and quality goods to have success in the market. You may have to pick a few vendors, order samples, negotiate branding choices, figure out the schedules, finalize the quality conditions, and order a batch to test the supply chain model. You can decide to launch your brand on your website and marketplaces once you select the preferred manufacturer.
4- Printing Options for T-shirts
Customized printing and order completion are the best ways to address niche audiences. In terms of printing on t-shirts, digital printing is the most preferred option for a small number of pieces. Ideally, screen only a few nice designs and connecting designs, that can be launched with digital printing options. Track the views and sales for every design and identify the most selling screen printing designs for which you can make a greater profit. But here you take the chance with unselling inventories since only best-selling designs are printed in large quantities.
You can use Screen Printing, Direct to Garment printing, Sublimation Printing, or Vinyl Transfer Printing for your t-shirt printing business.
a. Screen Printing
This t-shirt printing option is commonly used all over the world. If you have designs with fixed colors that you would like to print over 20 tees at a time, it's the best choice. The most durable prints can be availed with the screen printing option. It also requires repetitive one-time installation work for each color of the printed template.
Advantages
1. Cost-efficient for orders of bulk amounts
2. Durable
3. A wide selection of choices for printing
4. Volume discounts for printers
Disadvantages
1. Setup Cost for each color template
2. High cost for more colorful designs
3. Unable to cost-effectively print for a T-shirt with more colors
b. Direct to Garment Printing
A quickly expanding choice for printing T-shirts, particularly for e-commerce orders is direct-to-garment printing. You can easily print designs in full color but without printing costs for the screen. It is the perfect choice for the fulfillment of e-commerce orders and short-term events.
Advantages
1. Can print patterns in full-color
2. No cost of installation
3. Fast Printing
Disadvantages
1. Not cost-effective for bulk orders
c. Vinyl Transfer Printing
It is the most common form of T-shirt printing in the world. Multiple vinyl transfer methods are available in this form of printing. Various special effects such as gold, silver, and photo-light transfers are possible in this method.
Advantages
1. Can print-on-demand
2. Easy to set up
Disadvantages
1. Hard to scale
2. Questionable quality
d. Sublimation Printing
Printing for different surfaces with sublimation or polyester fabrics is an increasingly popular print process. The method of sublimation printing does not have white ink, so it can only be printed on white surfaces. This is an economical printing solution. Sublimation Printing can be used for a marathon or any event, or complements such as a phone case or coffee mug printing.
Advantages
1. Cost-effective Printing
2. Quick Printing Solution
Disadvantages
1. No White Ink
2. Can print only on polyester fabrics
5. Sales and Marketing of Printed T-shirts
Various smart business models for t-shirt printing business are available in the era of the internet. If you create a strong brand, you can sell printed t-shirts from various social media platforms. The business model for your company should have ample money to finance the company and reorder stocks. It is also advisable to adjust the price and have a healthy profit margin and. It will eventually benefit your company in the long run.
6. The Important Factors For T-Shirt Printing Business
Minimise COD Order Returns
For certain factors, returns are expected to happen. Call every client and confirm the reasons behind the return of the order before shipment. Before selecting a purchase price, include the cost of the returns on your inventory.
Minimise unsold inventory
If you are selling t-shirts from stock, some designs or sizes will remain unsold for the long term. You can sell them for a discount or use them for your winners in social media competitions as a gift.
Brand Visibility
Visibility of the brand and product is essential for achieving the desired online sales of any product. Ideally, you should include multiple backlinks, and join related blogs and forums to comment and share. Track, share, and participate religiously in your social media. Social networking Pages such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are a boon even with low marketing budgets for online sales.
Product Range
You should create a brand by keeping in mind the market demand. You can sell other items with the same designs such as Coffee Mugs, Mouse pads, and Mobile Phones, and can do shipping after using print-on-demand.
Trending Designs
Do not think twice about including the trends from the point of view of your brand. The designs and different trending styles of prints should be included for the quick popularity of your t-shirt printing business.
3. T-Shirt Printing Online
The formation of a brand and making a profit are not easy jobs. However, there are plenty of resources and collaborators available to design and print shirts. You should enter this business if there's enough market to explore as there are wonderful partners to learn from and improve. Any company starting up in India needs to have facilities for GST and accounting services. You can use various applications like OkCredit to maintain the daily ledger of your t-shirt printing business. If you're a new company that wants to start a new brand, You need to plan, purchase, sell, and then engage as a proprietor.
