Spreadshirt Offers No-Risk Way to Sell T-Shirts Online

SpreadshirtLogoSpreadshirt is an e-commerce platform through which you can design and sell T-shirts (and other custom-printed products) that promote your brand, studio, books, events, or social causes. As of the end of 2012, individuals, teams, family groups, and organizations had set up more than 45,000 online shops on the Spreadshirt platform.

If you choose to set up shop on Spreadshirt, you can design and sell more than basic T-shirts. Spreadshirt will print more than 140 different products, including hoodies, polo shirts, pants, shorts, and accessories such as aprons, bags, backpacks, phone cases, and water bottles.

Spreadshirt’s fulfillment service handles everything from production and payment to shipping and customer service.

Because Spreadshirt offers direct-to-garment print-on-demand technology, you don’t have to order a bunch of T-shirts at once, in a mix of sizes. Your T-shirts can be produced one at a time, in the sizes and colors in which they are ordered.

Ethically Sourced Garments Support Your Brand

CAWSpreadshirtIn March, 2013, Spreadshirt took the unusual step of launching its own collection of ethically sourced imprintable clothing in Europe. Now, they are launching The Spreadshirt North America Collection.

With a choice of 10 colors and a range of styles for men, women and children, the collection is ideal for people who want to create, buy, or sell quality clothing with social responsibility at the core of production. Men’s sizes range from small to 5XL; women’s sizes range from small to 3XL.

The Spreadshirt North America Collection will be produced in Bangladesh using the highest quality products, and optimized for print-on-demand

The T-shirts and other garments are fully compliant with ethical sourcing and production (as certified by Fair Wear foundation, Confidence in Textiles, and Respect-Code.org).

On the website www.respect-code.org, you can enter the “DNA code” that is unique to each batch and trace how your T-shirts were produced — from the cotton fields through delivery to your doorstep.

Spreadshirt-Collection-info-graphic

“We are passionate about making sure our customers want to wear and use our printed products every day,” explains Philip Rooke, CEO at Spreadshirt. He said Spreadshirt decided to produce its own line of T-shirts so they could have better control over consistency of the fit, fabric, and color.

The color consistency of the manufactured garments is particularly important for T-shirts that are printed on demand using color-managed, digital workflows. Every time a third-party T-shirt supplier changes the fiber structure or pre-treatment they use during manufacturing, the changes can affect how the colors look when the T-shirt is printed. 

Spreadshirt also wanted to be less dependent on the stock levels of third-party sources of garments they offer.

Over time, The Spreadshirt Collection will be expanded with products such as long-sleeved styles, tops and accessories.

Rooke says the company has spent a lot of time developing and testing the products in the collection. He notes that while Bangladesh experienced a terrible disaster when an eight-story garment-production facility collapsed, not all factories in the country are poorly run. The garment industry in Bangladesh employs 3.5 million men and women and is helping lift the workers and their families out of poverty and into an emerging middle class with access to better schools, roads, and housing. Spreadshirt received expert advice on which manufacturers were safe and well managed. Rooke believes that while shoddy working conditions in Bangladesh must be publicized, “Supporting good manufacturers there is as important as campaigning against the bad ones.”

Get Up and Running Quickly

If you have ever thought of getting into the T-shirt business, Spreadshirt makes it easy to do so. If you already have designs or content ready to print, you can have your online T-shirt store up and running in about 30 minutes.

Rooke says some students have successfully funded their way through college by making designs and selling them through Spreadshirt: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a big celebrity, a big brand, a charity, or just someone with a few followers on YouTube, you can go into this business at no cost.”

Spreadshirt was founded in Leipzig Germany and has become a global company. Spreadshirt has headquarters in Germany and the United States and factories in North America, Germany and Poland.

LINKS

Opening Your Own Store on Spreadshirt

The Spreadshirt Collection

 About Spreadshirt