The shirts are finally on sale! Get yours today. If you order within the first 24 hours, you get free shipping on your order!
http://www.lowdtown.com/shop.php
The prints are amazing, and the feel is super soft!
Since it’s finally the last day til the official launch, I decided to release some exclusive sneak previews of the shirts. The detail is amazing, and the print came out super soft. I’m so excited for the release!
I’ll be sending full body shots to all my loyal newsletter followers, so if you want that preview, sign up for the newsletter on the form to the right. All you need is an email!
So there were a few more designs that I decided to submit to some contest websites. I think they’re pretty fun designs, so if you would like to see them printed, be sure to sign-up and vote!
The first design is called Wigglearms and I submitted it to Chimpogo. This design was made back when I still had RAWR! Clothing, and I was planning to print it for RAWR! but as you all know, I shut down RAWR! so I decided not to use it for my line. I think the illustration is pretty fun and charming, so vote for it if you like it.
The next design is called Touchy Feely and it was submitted to Monsieur Poulet. This was designed for the tee-off over at emptees. Unfortunately my first round opponent was the mighty Collision Theory, so I got bested in round one. I always thought this was a pretty good design with a nice illustration, but I never used it for anything. If you like it, be sure to send a vote its way!
Man, this “Starting a Clothing Company” series is really picking up. Thanks for all the support guys! Well as promised, here’s part three.
Today I’m going to be covering the branding of a launch. I know everyone has their own theories, but here are just my two cents.
Well, that really shouldn’t be a question, because EVERYONE knows that your launch is maybe the single most important release for your clothing company. So let’s cover what we’ve learned so far… You now understand how much money you’ll need to run and start your company, and you now have a kickass website. So what’s next? You need to have some badass products for your release. Of course, this whole preparation would take several weeks or maybe months, so let’s pretend that the process has been sped up, and you’ve already done said things.
Normally, you would have a pretty good understanding of the branding of your company. If you haven’t read my article on branding and coming up with the perfect name (link), I recommend you do.
So here are a few things you should already know about your company before thinking about the launch:
1. What is the name of your brand?
- Simple enough, a name is very important to a brand, obviously. Coming up with the perfect name takes a lot of thought and time. Check out the article I linked to above to help you get started.
2. What type of clothing company are you?
- Are you a streetwear brand? Are you a brand that focuses on simplicity? Do you sell products with zombies and gore on them? Either way, you have to have a clear idea of what category of people you’re catering to. Honestly, it’s difficult to start a brand that has too many focuses.
3. What is your target demographic?
- It’s kind of hard to have an exact idea, but you should at least have a certain audience in mind. For example, my target demographic is quite broad (around ages 15-30, mostly male), but the point is that you have an idea of what kind of people would wear your clothes. If you think that anyone can wear you’re clothes, you’re probably wrong. Try imagining Grandma Josephine wearing your punky-graphic shirt, and you probably would think twice.
4. What is your price range?
- It’s a good idea to know what the price ranges of your t-shirts are. If you want to be a “high-end” brand, you have to price your shirts accordingly. If you want to be a very exclusive brand, and want to have high prices, it’s a little bit more of a dilemma. With exclusive brands, you want to have a following before you have high prices. People probably won’t buy your $70 shirts unless they’ve been following you from day one, so keep that in mind. I want to be kind of exclusive with my brand, but I understand that I won’t get a following unless it’s more affordable at first.
So now that you have those questions answered, let’s get into the nitty gritty. I realize that I didn’t really answer the first question, so let me ask it again?
Well, to put it bluntly, the launch is pretty much your single most important release of products. If you make a good impression on people with your awesome products, people will become loyal to your brand, and you’ll have repeat customers. Also, if your launch is weak, people will get a weak impression about your brand. So basically, unless you have a strong launch, people will not immediately feel attached to your brand. Think of your launch as your chance to make your first impression on the new super hot girl (or guy) in high school. Unless you make that great first impression, you might ruin your chances of getting to know her in the future.
So now let’s get into what you want in a perfect launch.
The first subject we will cover are obviously and most importantly the products.
I’m probably not the best example of “the perfect launch”, but a great launch consists of many products at many price points. Ideally, you want to make sales no matter what it is. The idea is to make customers, not so much to make money. The money can come later, but right now you want a fanbase and a following. So I’ll set a few examples; so here you are with your brand spanking new t-shirt brand, but it’s not a good idea to just have t-shirts. You want to be a brand with variety and diversity in your product range because you plan to expand in the future. So you have 3 groups of products at different price price points.
1. Badges, Stickers: this is for the people who don’t have too much money, but still want to buy something.
2. Posters: this is for people who don’t have quite enough money for shirts, but still want to buy something memorable.
3. T-shirts: this is the main product you want to move.
So as you can see, there’s sort of a hierarchy of products. The badges and stickers are for anyone with the least bit of money. Posters (or whatever comes midrange) are for the people in between. T-shirts are for the serious spenders who came to your website with a purchase in mind. And of course, there should and can be a group with a higher price range for maybe hoodies or something. One thing that I think is clever if you don’t have the extra dough to buy a high price range item is to set up bundles. For example, you can sell two shirts for a discount (save $5 if you buy two shirts), that way you make it more enticing to buy more than one product. It’s just food for thought, folks.
There’s a little bit of debate about this part, but is timing of your launch important? Some people think no, other people think yes, I’m kind of on the fence about this sort of thing. I guess, if you get lucky and you’re around a holiday season (mainly Christmas), you can sell more shirts at your launch than you normally would, but I really don’t think it matters. What does matter, however, is how often you release your shirts.
There’s pretty much two ways you can release new products.
1. You can release new product(s) every set amount of time. For example, you could release something new once a month, which is what I’m planning to do. And for bigger companies like Threadless, they have the funding to release new products every week. The benefit of this is that people will know when new products are coming out, and this will quickly create repeat customers. However, this is also a double-edged sword, because unless you’re very good at managing your time, you can lose your customers’ trust. So if you end up releasing a week late for your monthly release, you might end up hurting your own brand.
2. The other way you can release products is by season. This is the more typical and traditional approach. This way, you can release a whole bunch of products at one time. Ultimately this is also a great way because you can build a lot of hype for your new releases. However, the disadvantage to this way is that you have to live up to the expectation. If you build up a lot of hype and you only release one mediocre shirt, I’m sure your fans wouldn’t be that thrilled. But this way is also much more flexible with time, so you don’t have the time restraints like the first way. You can pretty much release new things as long as you let people know. It’s also a good idea to keep the seasons in mind, since you only have a set amount of releases per year, you should have products that maybe relate to the season. For example, if you’re releasing towards Christmas, you can maybe add a holiday-themed shirt into the mix.
So at this point, I’m assuming you’ve already thought about the products you’re going to release for your launch. If you’ve thought-through your branding, make sure that your launch has a cohesive theme. For example, my theme is Lowdtown, a quirky and fun town where all these creatures live. For my launch tees, I decided that I wanted to have two shirts (Chuck the Rock and Townster) that were based on the theme, and one shirt that was more for branding (LTFF Logo Tee). Make sure that people understand your theme from the get-go. I can’t stress this enough, but this is your chance to make a good first impression on your customers, so make sure your launch really represents your company.
So that’s pretty much my thoughts on making a good launch. Just remember that you want to make a good impression. Don’t care too much about making money; because the important thing is that you want customers. If people email you telling you about how much they like your brand, be sure to respond with nice, thoughtful emails. Don’t sound like a robot, at this point, it’s important to create a relationship with your customers. You can get more business-minded in the future, but for now think about making a good impression. Good luck!
So since the launch is only four days away, I just wanted to make a quick announcement. I wanted to make the launch a little bit more exciting, so here’s something to entice you a little bit. First of all, only on the first day of sale (March 1st 2009) all sales will be free shipping. Second, if you get one of the first ten shirts of the three new designs: Chuck the Rock, Townster, or LTFF Logo tee; you’ll get a coupon code with your package and it’ll be good for 25% off your next order! Third, on the day of the launch at 12:00pm EST, I’ll be posting a special question on my website (and maybe my blog), the first person to answer it correctly will get a free shirt!
Also, since the launch is coming up, I’m going to be starting the street team soon. My plan is that anyone who joins the street team will get a special code that is good for 10% off forever! For every ten times that the code is used, the code owner can redeem a free t-shirt (great for bloggers!). And, I’ll be selling stickers soon, which can be fun for everyone. They’ll be super cheap, like around .25 cents a sticker, so you get a bunch of them and go sticker bomb your area up!
Well that’s it for the update. I hope you’re as excited for the release as I am. I might post sneak peeks for you loyal fans in my newsletter, so if you haven’t signed up already, I recommend that you do! Thanks guys!
I don’t really get into the contest scene too much when it comes to designing t-shirts. I’ve never been too good at it, and honestly, the competition is so good that I never have any confidence that I’m going to win. Also, when I do create a design that I think has a chance of winning, I usually use it for my own line. I mean, I personally like the recognition that it’s MY design rather than some big company’s shirt that they printed.
But anyway, I had a design that didn’t do too well on DesignbyHumans, but I thought it was a pretty decent design, so I decided to give it another go at another competition website. This time I submitted to BadAsHell, in hopes that it would do better considering it isn’t as popular as DBH. If you get the chance, please send a vote my way. I’m not sure if you need to sign up to vote, but if you do, please, it only takes like 30 seconds, and it’ll make me happy!
In other news, part three of the Starting a Clothing Company series will be up tomorrow. This time I’ll be covering launches and the specific branding of a launch. It should be good, so be excited! And thank you for all the great comments and emails. I really feel like you take your time to listen to my words, and even though I’m no professional or anything, I feel like you guys are really getting a good read out of my articles. So I just wanted to thank you guys!
So assuming that you have a bunch of great products and you have the money to produce them, the next most important thing is to have a professional website. To us indie designers, a website is everything. It’s pretty much our only storefront, well, for those who can’t afford a brick and mortar store anyway. So like any store that you would visit in a mall or in SoHo or in Tokyo or wherever, it has to be presentable and professional and give the customer a good impression of your brand.
So to those who own a clothing brand, a website is our tool to sell the item at any time to any person anywhere. Imagine the website as your own wonderful employee who will always sit behind the virtual counter and take orders from people across the globe. And like any store, you wouldn’t want your employee to be irresponsible and unprofessional (and ugly), so that’s why a good, functional website is necessary.
So here are a few tips for a successful ecommerce website:
I personally think customization is extremely important when it comes to ecommerce stores. If your website looks like everyone else’s, how is the customer going to know that the products are unique and professional? Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t use templates, but just use them as a guideline and customize them to the point that they are unique.
I know a lot of people use BigCartel, and that is perfectly fine. The BigCartel admin panel is top notch, and the whole user experience is great. But I have a problem with everyone who uses the premade template and all they change is the background and the header. When I see a website that has a cookie-cutter template look, I automatically don’t feel as attached to the products because I feel like they didn’t put enough effort into getting my attention. But of course, that doesn’t mean that there is a problem with BigCartel whatsoever. There are some fantastic examples of well-designed BigCartel websites.
The one website that comes to mind is the ugmonk site. Even though Jeff used the BigCartel backend, he customized the storefront to fit the aesthetic of his products.
And that brings me to my next point…
Going back to the physical store example, if you had a very minimalistic, elegant store with white marble and sold Deathmetal shirts filled with blood and gore, people would be confused and terrified to the point where they would probably not come back ever again. Your website design must match the aesthetic of your products.
One of my favorite sites, and a perfect example of this is Ser-vice. Their products focus on minimalism and beautiful design, and their website fits this perfectly. They use a very minimal color palette, using only shades of grey and the one orange color. Their navigation is also very well designed, and the use of typography is thoughtfully used throughout.
And not to toot my own horn, but I went for a similar effect with the Lowdtown Friends & Freaks website. Since I’m a streetwear brand, I wanted something that was professional but also bold. So I chose to use a very stark, high-contrast black and white color scheme and used the bright pink for emphasis.
I think that some storeowners don’t understand the power of a website. Therefore, I believe that people should take full advantage of their website. A website should not only be there to sell, but also as an engine for advertising and marketing your product. Think about it, now that you own a piece of the internet, your website can be the fuel to get your name out there. So use that to your advantage! One of the best things to do with a website is to set up a blog. Not only does a blog give your readers a little insight about the company, but it also gives the customers a reason to keep returning to the website. Always think of how to keep your customers coming back. This way, you can build a loyal fanbase, and have customers for life. Another useful tool is a newsletter, use it to your advantage and create loyal fans. (Shameless plug: sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already, haha.) Also on your website, be sure to have an about section and tell the viewers a little about yourself. I don’t like when companies are anonymous, faceless corporations. If you get a little piece of personality from the owner, I would be much more likely to buy a product from them. Back to the analogy, you’d probably be more likely to buy a product from someone if the employee was being kind and helpful rather than someone who is unresponsive and apathetic.
Make sure that your website is easy to understand and that the viewer instantly understands what you’re selling. Online shoppers all have ADD, if they don’t know what’s going on within the first five seconds, they will leave without hesitation. I mean, I’m certainly guilty too. Whenever I’m trying to find something, like hmm… a digimon action figure, for example, if I search on google “digimon action figure” and click on the first website that appears, if it doesn’t instantly tell me where or how to get a digimon action figure, I’ll leave. It’s as simple as that, humans have the tendency to be douchebags on the internet, so we’ll leave your online store without hesitation. So make the navigation easy enough for a second grader to understand, and make it very clear what you’re selling without being obnoxious. Be attention grabbing, but don’t shove it in our faces, we’re not idiots!
Threadless is actually a great example of this, in my opinion. If you go to the homepage of Threadless, there is no way you can mistaken the website for a site that sells stationary or something. The navigation is simple, and you can easily click through the designs. Great!
A website is extremely important, and it is not something you can simply dismiss or ignore. If you have no experience with web design, I would honestly recommend that you drop some good money for a professional website. An alternative would be to learn web design, but not to sound like an asshole, but it takes so much time and effort to learn enough to make a professional ecommerce website. Personally, it took me a couple years to get to the web design experience level I am now, and I think it would take more time and effort than it’s worth. I’m not saying, “don’t learn web design”, but if you’re planning to release your brand in the near future, it’s just more practical to pay for a web design service. There are many people out there who have a lot of experience coding and designing websites (especially BigCartel), so it’s not a bad alternative if you have the money and want to save some valuable time.
Now that you have a website, it’s important to get your name out. I’ll talk about basic promotion techniques in a future post, so stay tuned!
I hope that this article gave you an idea of how important and essential a website is to an indie brand. Remember, a website can take orders at anytime, any day, and from anywhere. But be sure that your website is professional and matches your brands aesthetic. There is nothing worse than a brand with great products but a terrible website. I get the impression that they don’t care about their appearance, and maybe their products will not be good quality either.
In closing, here’s a link to an article by Smashing Magazine showcasing some great ecommerce web designs. These certainly gave me some good inspiration when I was thinking about the web design of Lowdtown.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/06/design-showcase-of-creative-online-shops/
So you want to start a clothing company, but you have no idea where to begin? You’ve come to the right place! I’m going to be having a series of articles on how to start a clothing company. Most of it will be based off my own personal experience but it should be helpful for anyone trying to get his or her feet wet. But of course, don’t just take it from me; starting a clothing company requires a great amount of preparation and research so after you read this article, be sure to also read up on many other resources. I’ll list a number of websites at the end of the article that I found useful when I first started. So this is part one of the series and I am going to be covering start up cost.
This is a HUGE question that I get asked a lot. And the simple answer is that there is no answer. Of course, I could give you an estimate based on your products and what you’ll need and what not, but ultimately there’s no way that I can just say that you need X amount of dollars to start Y company.
So let’s break it down a little bit to help you assess your business and how much money you will possibly need.
The way I personally think of it is that there are pretty much three types of companies. There’s the amateur brand, the indie brand, and the professional brand. Each of these types of brands has a range of startup costs. Take a look at the list below and try to assess what type of brand your company is.
- You started the brand on a whim just as a hobby.
- You might have a few products that are printed on cheap material.
- You don’t plan to expand your brand.
- You mostly sell your products to friends and family.
- You may have an online store/myspace to do some simple promotion.
- You’re not recognized by the state, and you don’t pay sales tax.
- You want to get your brand out there but you don’t have the proper funds.
- You have a few good designs and you have the money to buy designs from other designers.
- You care about the quality of your products but don’t have enough money to get them custom made.
- You have an online store that is professionally designed.
- You have a website to promote your products and events.
- You pay sales tax and plan to expand in the future.
- You think about one day having a brick and mortar store but right now you don’t have the money to do it.
- You have the money to promote and advertise your brand.
- You have many products and plan to release a whole array of apparel from shirts to denim to jackets.
- You care about the quality of your products and get most of your products custom made.
- You want to start a brick and mortar store and plan to.
So as you can see, it should be pretty easy to see where you stand as a brand. Personally, I started out knowing that I am an indie brand and would have to work my way up. Being a student, I obviously don’t have the funds to do everything that I want to do, but I have many plans for the future if I do get the money I need.
I’ll give very rough estimates of how much money each type of brand would need in terms of start up cost. Keep in mind that these are just my personal thoughts, so these numbers should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.
$100-$300
Maybe you’re just trying to make a quick buck or you’re just doing this as a hobby, but you’re not serious about making your brand big. With $100-$300, you’re not planning on printing on the best quality t-shirts, and you probably do it in a very DIY fashion by printing the shirts yourself, or you may be working with an online service like spreadshirt or customink. You mostly just design shirts for yourself and for your friends and family. You don’t really have the money for any kind of advertisement or website, unless it’s a free or very cheap service.
$500-$10,000
The range of start up cost is a little larger on this one. You have plans to make your company larger, but you don’t have all the money to make it possible. With $500, you can probably print a good amount of shirts for a launch, and you plan to print more shirts as you make profit and make a return. With $10,000 you probably can start your own in house printing with a silkscreen carousel that you could afford. You don’t have quite enough money to pay the rent to a brick and mortar store, but as long as business goes well, it isn’t impossible to do in the future. Between $500-$2500, is probably where most indie brand owners land. You’ll have enough to get a solid group of shirts for your launch. And you’ll have enough money to possibly buy designs from artists and enough money to get a nice website done.
$25,000 – $$$
Obviously these brands range from I’d say around 25k to the stars. If you plan to just get in the game and you have the money to do it, you can probably pay the rent to a really nice location and just get started. Of course, it’s much more difficult than I make it sound, but you really don’t have much of a limit when you have a lot of money. I recently read an interview about Kanye’s brand “Pastelle” and he said that he dropped a quarter million just to get samples for his new line. So that just gives you an idea of how much money you can potentially spend. Owning a professional brand means that you can comfortably maintain a company and you can release many products at one time per season.
So let me tell you a little about my brand and a few things to think about when you’re starting a brand. I don’t usually like talking about numbers, but I’ll let you guys in on how much I started out with for Lowdtown. I was fortunate to be able to use all the money I had left over from RAWR! Clothing to start Lowdtown, but my start up cost was $2100. Mind you, this may cost a lot more for some people and a lot less for others.
If you responded NO to the question, you have to consider how much a professional website design costs. You don’t want people to see a shitty website, so if you don’t know how to design a website, you have to get it professionally made. Services like BigCartel are great, but they at least cost $9.99 to $19.99 per month (if you want to have more than five products), so you have to keep that in mind. Also, I prefer getting a custom made website, because I personally feel like if you get a BigCartel, you’re automatically put into a group of “BigCartel Brands” and though it works for some, I wanted to be unique. Luckily, I know how to code and design websites, so I could do it myself, but if you don’t, getting a professional e-commerce website done could cost an upwards of $1000-$2000. Also consider web hosting; it’s extremely cheap nowadays, but you should still expect to pay around $5/month.
Ideally I wanted around five products but I couldn’t really afford it. If you think about how much a single shirt costs, and you think about your budget you should be able to figure out how many shirts you can buy. Also when you’re searching for a printer, many printers offers different services at different prices so definitely look around for the best service to price ratio.
The reason why my start up cost was so high considering the amount of shirts I bought was because I was really considering the quality and professionalism of my products. I used softhand ink for my shirts. I printed my shirts on American Apparel, which are much more expensive than brands like Hanes or Gildan. I got custom printed sizetags. I got custom embroidered labels. I got custom made hangtags. So factoring all those things in, it may really add up pretty quickly.
Depending on how serious you are about your business, this may be factored in. Even online advertising like Google Adwords is very pricey, so consider where you want to advertise. Many blogs have affiliate programs that you can work with to get good deals on advertising so think about that. Also print advertisement in newspapers and magazines are very expensive, but perhaps that may be a valuable way to get your brand out there, so keep that in mind.
So those are a few things to think about when you’re starting your brand. Ultimately, it really depends on your brand and your products, so the startup cost is different for everyone. But also keep in mind, if you think you can break even quickly, it’ll definitely be worth it. Once you break even and you put that money back into your company, you basically have enough to reprint your products or print new ones. It’s all about balance!
Here are some great resources for starting a clothing company:
- http://www.howtostartaclothingcompany.com/
- http://www.emptees.com
- http://www.t-shirtforums.com
Hopefully that gives you an idea of how much a brand costs to start. It certainly isn’t cheap, unless you want it to be. If you want to get serious about your products, you have to drop some money. The more money you spend, the better your products will be. If you have any questions, leave a comment or email me at ray@lowdtown.com and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP. Thanks guys and good luck!
Hey, this is a stupid little post, but I just wanted to apologize for not updating for a while. I came down with the nasty flu, and I’ve just too weak to do anything. So I’ve been sleeping early, instead of writing posts. I promise to start writing again once I feel better (which is soon hopefully).
Well the shirts are coming in super soon, so they’ll get shipped out sooner than later. I’m really excited to get my eyes on them, they should be fantastic! I already have a bunch of things coming up for the April release, and I think it’s going to be super awesome. I’m so excited, things are going excellently so far. Stay tuned folks!
I’ve been doing a lot of designing lately, but if you guys have been waiting for another informative blog entry, it’s coming up very soon. I’ve been feeling kind of down lately (caught a cold, methinks), so I haven’t had the time or energy to write a big long entry, but I promise, it will come soon!
I’m going to start a series about starting a clothing company. Like my other entries, most of it will be based off personal experience, but I think it would benefit many. The first in the series is going to cover a question that I get asked a lot, and that is “start up cost”. But until then, here’s another design I came up with called: Forget the Facts (and just have fun…)
Just a design I made for fun. It came out pretty nicely and is only 2 colors with the use of some nice halftones. I might use it for Lowdtown, but I’m not sure if it really fits in the whole theme. I might part with it if someone gives me a good offer.
If you’re interested in buying the design email me at: ray@lowdtown.com
