Thumbs up, you’ve made a smart decision to design your own merch free and get it going. But there’s more to that. We’re going to help you through the process of creating and launching your custom merch store, from the very beginning. We’ll be going over the bare essentials of getting a store up and running and getting your first sale.
You could tune up your store endlessly before your custom merchandise store could be considered “perfect”. However, we’re here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be launched – it has to be functional. Because in reality, you only need to complete 4 steps to launch your own merch store:
So let’s go ahead and take a closer look at each of these steps.
You’ll agree that it makes sense to have this identified at the very start since the idea for your design is the fundamental building block to your entire online custom merch journey. It will set the mood, define your audience, determine your direction and your theme for your custom merchandise. To move on with a design, you should be asking yourself these questions:
With that being said, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to make it a bit better, a bit more interesting, slightly different…you get the idea. There are plenty of things that will help you make merch that sells great online.
If you’re out of ideas, you can use different online tools to help you do the research, for example, Google trends or Facebook audience insights.
Take a look at this example. These guys have created a custom tshirt that speaks all languages. Call it the ultimate fashion statement — a shirt that can do the talking when no one understands a word you’re saying.
Next step in your journey to make merch – designing. Once you have an idea for your design, you need to put it together in a printable format. In order for your design to be printed, you have to submit the image itself in the correct dimensions and matching the guidelines for the production partner (we’ll get into details about production partners in the next paragraph). Each production partner will have their own guidelines for each product, decoration technique.
The most popular tools to create print files hands down are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Though both come at a pretty fee, and not always is viable for someone just getting their hands wet with design and ecommerce. Luckily, there are alternative tools that are free to use and do the same basic graphic editing:
If, however, you want to hand it over to a professional, there are plenty of places you can look. Here are a few of them:
Furthermore, you’ve got your designs ready, you have to set up your custom merchandise website – a digital real estate. Also, you have to find a production partner. The best option when starting out is using print on demand services. Services like Printful, Printify, Society6, Spreadshirt and Bonfire will help you make your own merch online.
When choosing the production partner for your own merch line you have to consider the following:
If you want to build your brand, make merch and sell it on your personal merch store. The best option is choosing print on demand partners like:
These partners will handle the printing and shipping part of your making merch process. Here is a full list of merch designer companies. You will, however, need to make your own merch shirt store on Shopify or other e-commerce platform. Our suggestion is to go with Printful – they offer seemless fulfillment services and integrations with 15+ e-commerce platforms and marketplaces.
Not everyone has time to spend on creating your own merch store. Luckily there is a slightly easier way to enter the market. You can make merch and sell it on marketplaces like:
While your brand would have a higher competition to stand out, there are several benefits choosing to make your own merch on a marketplace. You will get some chunk of organic traffic – these merch marketplaces have millions of visits per month. Meaning that, if your custom made merch stands out, you can get sales with no advertising budget.
Once you’ve got your own merch shirt store set up, you are all set to make your first sale. Bear in mind that the money won’t just start rolling in as soon as you click the “live” button on your online merch store. Your first sales will be a result of hard work and persistence – very important words when starting an online store! There are a few ways you can get your store’s first sales, while neither Google nor the world knows you exist yet.
Your initial market will be your friends and family, the people who support you unconditionally (did anyone use it before Katy Perry’s song?) and genuinely want to see you succeed. Post to your personal social network accounts, but be careful to not overspam your friends. Your main goal at this phase is to:
You can also send a mass email to your friends and family outlining how they can help.
Last but not least, another way to get the word out about your merch line is by approaching already existing audiences. Say there’s a blogger or Instagram influencer that writes about your niche that has several thousand social media followers. That would be a person who you’d want to get involved with to consider a possible collaboration.
Some ways to interact with an influencer just as you’re getting started: Interview them, create a blog post, do a paid campaign. Tweet to them that you featured them, and then they might retweet your post
Ideally, you want to get in front of that influencer’s audience. You can find a few influencers in your industry and niche, and start talking to all of them. Some may be more receptive than others, and you will encounter a great deal of rejection. But don’t let that dishearten you, get up and keep going!
One of the easiest ways to generate quick social media buzz about your own merch is by hosting a competition or giveaway. Offer a sample of your product in return for a form of engagement – liking your page, sharing your post and other. Make sure to make the most of the competition or giveaway by collecting the emails of the people who enter. You can later send a coupon with a discount code to those who didn’t win the Giveaway.
Speaking of discounts, when you’ve built up traffic to your store, you’d should benefit from running a few deals. For example putting a particularly merch shirt on a sale.
Creating, publishing and promoting your own custom merch can be an excellent idea for all types of groups and creative individuals. From YouTubers, artists, influencers to celebrities and fundraisers. Making merch is a smart way to engage your fans or build new societies, and of course, earn some side income. The good news is, you don’t have to be a superstar to do all that!
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