The US Spreadshirt Blog

TweetNTest - Tweet and Help Us Test Some New Apparel

2009-11-13T03:49:26Z

We have had great success with the user tests over at Spreadshirt.net (that’s the European side of Spreadshirt) so we are excited to launch this here at Spreadshirt.com too!

We are looking for a few good testers to check out some products in the Spreadshirt apparel collection. We are going to give away 1 of each of these items to a few lucky twitter followers (or leave a comment below).

On Wednesday, Novemeber 18, 2009 we will select 3 people to receive a coupon valid for the item, a design and shipping. Once you get the item - try it out - wear it, wash it and then tell us what you think!

If you want to test one of the products - send a tweet with a link to this post AND the hash tag #tweetntest. If you are not a twitter user - just leave a comment below.

Random Acts of Kindness - A T-shirt for Veterans Day

2009-11-11T22:28:12Z

I was browsing through some of the headline t-shirts in the CNN headline t-shirt gallery and this one caught my eye last week - “Boy returns lost heirloom to WWII vet” - this is just one of those great stories that reminds you that there are some really nice people in the world.

You can read more about the story here at Omaha.com. Ted Mogil lost his prayer book 61 years ago, this year 12 year old Wil Beach found the prayer book at a used book sale and decided he had to buy the book and return it to Mr. Mogil. One of the most amazing parts of the story is that the book belonged to the first Mr. Mogil Wil called on the phone.

Get the Spreadshirt Blog Delivered to Your Email!

2009-11-10T21:15:11Z

Get the Spreadshirt blog delivered to your email. Thanks to the magic of Feedburner - you can now get the Spreadshirt blog delivered daily to your email.

How to become a successful Marketplace designer at Spreadshirt

2009-11-06T15:51:16Z

What do Neo Rauch and spreadshirt Marketplace designers have in common? Correct, they both create artwork and offer them up for sale! Given, the commissions on the Marketplace don’t usually rake in $1 million of Brad Pitt’s money, but rather “only” $1.95 on average. But don’t give up on the Marketplace just yet: compared to Rauch’s work, these designs can be sold more than once, namely 7,832 times (the current record holder “I heart” design). That’s how the top 100 Marketplace designers are still able to earn an average of $180.97 per month. Take that Neo!

But how can you make it into the top 100 of the spreadshirt Marketplace?

Rule number one: keep it simple! Take a look at the bestselling designs in our T-Shirt Designer, for example. You quickly realize that the designs are kept very simple and are only one or two colors. That certainly makes sense, as many of our customers also end up writing some text on their shirt and use the designs to compliment their statement or even complete it. Products which only have one design on them are less common (29%).

Bestselling Designs

Current events are also a factor of success. Successful designers react quickly and creatively to current events (take Michael Jackson’s death as an example) and also create designs in preparation for large events (various sport championships) – be careful about copyright in these cases. You can also take into account our customers’ general wishes as they enter search terms into our designer.

Here are the most searched-for terms from 2009 to yesterday for the US:

heart
twilight
peace
wings
star
skull
music
crown
love
football

Another well-known Marketplace designer secret is that success often is found in niche designs which convert better sales as the usual blockbusters. These niches can focus on things like extraordinary animals, obscure sports or unheard-of cities. A good indicator for empty niches can be the often searched for terms which end up with 0 results:

s
yearbook
?
2013
bunco
sophomore
$
freshmen
70’s
bearcat

A further success factor is, of course, the price. Too high, and no one buys it. Too low, and you earn peanuts. Here are a few numbers to help you out here:

Average commission for sold designs (average): $1.95
Average commission for sold designs (median): $2.00
Highest paid commission for one design: $20.00

Well, I hope that leaves only the following question left to be unanswered: why don’t we have Neo Rauch’s paintings on the Marketplace yet?

If you guys have any further questions about stats, the Marketplace or the price of rice in China, please feel free to use the handy comment box below.

Election Day T-shirts: Gots to Vote and Another Obama T-shirt

2009-11-03T18:24:25Z

It is election day here in Pennsylvania and in a bunch of other states today. This morning, I tweeted a photo about my t-shirt today but I was thinking about election day and the fact that is has been a year since Obama was elected. We had a lot of fun following the 2008 election via t-shirts and putting together this post of 100 Obama T-shirts last spring. A few weeks ago I got to participate in a walk through of the Shepard Fairey exhibit Supply and Demand with Shepard Fairey (check out the write up of the walk through from the Pittsburgh City Paper) which just opened at the Warhol museum here in Pittsburgh - which got me thinking about the power of t-shirts and elections all over again.

So today I am wearing my “Gots to Vote” t-shirt by MNKR that I bought at the Unique LA craft market in May. This was just a few weeks after I had finished the 100 Obama t-shirts post and I just could not stop looking at Obama t-shirts. There were tons of amazing t-shirts at Unique LA and the reason I stopped at the MNKR booth was this Obama t-shirt - which Matt from MNKR was kind enough to send me a better photo of the t-shirt. I love looking back at all of the Obama shirts from last year and how many different designs there were.

Here is the t-shirt I am wearing today - I know this isn’t the best photo - and the shirt is a little wrinkled - which is funny because I just had a big conversation with the other Spreadshirt bloggers about ironing t-shirts yesterday.

I also wanted to show off the inside of the t-shirts because I really like how they screen printed the tag area - and marked the size with a little baby button. I think this is a really great example of an awesome one color design and nice use of font and spacing.

Want to see more from MNKR check out the nice post about their Fall 09 Collection from T-shirts Around the Internet.

Are you wearing a t-shirt for election day today? Share your election day t-shirts with us!

Calling All Facebook Fans!

2009-11-02T21:20:01Z

Be a fan of Spreadshirt on Facebook!!

Spreadshirt on Facebook

Do you have a fan page for your shop on Facebook? Share the link below so we can be your fan too!

Costumeless for Halloween? Last Minute Apparel Costume Ideas

2009-11-02T09:05:09Z

I am sure that I am not the only one in this boat. Tomorrow is Halloween. I don’t have a costume. I have been told I won’t be let into the party without one. This happens every year. Add to the fact that my girlfriend wants me to get rid of some old clothes – presto! Two birds with one stone: it’ll be a do-it-yourself Saturday afternoon!

I am kind of leaning towards the octopus hoodie from Instructables (shown above). It certainly involves some sewing skills, a few hours of spare time and a hoodie you are willing to shred.

I’m not the trick or treating type anymore, but for those out looking for some candy, this t-shirt trick-or-treat bag from Craftzine is a great way to impress those candy givers (and get you more candy)!

Bargainlist also offers some great cheap and scary last-minute costume options, like dirty laundry, bat or mummy as costumes. All certainly plan B worthy.

Worst case scenario: I’m not in the DIY creative mood tomorrow, and perhaps you aren’t either. There’s always the one-minute-last-minute ninja mask. Yes, that will be it! I just have to remember where I left my samurai sword. Instructional ninja mask video after the click:
Click here to view the embedded video.

T-shirts Scarf Ideas from Around The Internet

2009-10-30T02:57:33Z

Early this week there was a great post on the Craft blog about how to make a t-shirt memory scarf. I think this is a great twist on the ever popular t-shirt quilt - but almost better because you can wear a scarf and you can’t really wear a blanket. We have been talking here at Spreadshirt about other t-shirt remixes - ways to resuse your t-shirts so I thought I would do a little round up of some other T-shirt Scarf ideas.

Next I found this post from Dana about Craftster’s T-shirt Scarf. I think Dana is wearing the Craftster’s Sweatshirt from Spreashirt (I love that skull and knitting needle design :)). Here is the tutorial from Craftster for the Scarfy/Necklace thing.

The blog Wardrobe Refashion has a nice tutorial for a Ruffly T-shirt Scarf. This could be a great way to use up the scraps from the sleeves of the shirts used for the memory t-shirt scarf too.

I also took a look at the excellent list of 50 ways to reuse t-shirts that Andy who write the t-shirt blog Hide Your Arms put together last month. (If you haven’t checked out Hide Your Arms, you should - Andy has lots of great t-shirt lists!) Here are some more scarf ideas:

I know this post is about reusing t-shirts but I have to mention that you can now create custom scarves at Spreadshirt. We have just added the American Apparel jersey scarf in red, royal blue, dark pink and black. Check out some of the custom scarfs in the Spreadshirt Marketplace here or you can create your own scarf design here.
Feeling extra crafty - you should enter your finished scarf into the Craft Me, My Scarf, and I Contest too.

Wired Podcast with Spreadshirt CEO Jana Eggers - T-shirts & Bacon

2009-10-29T03:04:02Z

Jim Hopkinson a reporter for Wired, has a new podcast interview on his blog with our very own CEO Jana Eggers.

You can check out the interview here on his blog TheHopkinsonReport.com. Jana talks to Jim about t-shirts, bacon, triathalons and more.

Check out The Hopkinson Report Spreadshirt shop too - http://thehopkinsonreport.spreadshirt.com/ and you can follow The Hopkinson Report on Twitter @hopkinsreport

Snow flakes falling all over your shop!

2009-10-28T09:21:27Z

To save the shop partners amongst us a little time in preparation for the upcoming holidays, our graphics team put together two lovely winter-holiday-snowy-and-sparkly background images for you.

You can simply download these from our Flickr page or right click and save the images. Then you can upload them to your user area and select it as your shop background under “Profile – Shops – Shop Layout”. If you go the extra step and set your theme to “Winter” under the “Selected Design” drop-down, you will be sure to get your customers whistling their way into the holiday shopping mood!