Start a Successful Shopify T-Shirt Store

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Choosing a Niche
3. Finding a Supplier
4. Designing Your T-Shirts
5. Building Your Shopify Store
6. Launching Your Store
7. Marketing Your Store
8. Successful Shopify T-Shirt Stores
   1. Sassy Spud
   2. Factory 43
   3. Home Fields
   4. Because Tees
   5. Self-Care Is For Everyone
   6. Ferian's Clothing
   7. Shirtbox
9. Conclusion
10. FAQ

How to Start a Successful Shopify T-Shirt Store

Are you looking for a way to turn your passion for design or interest in making some extra money into a successful business? Starting a Shopify t-shirt store might be the perfect solution for you. In this article, we will review the steps you need to take to start your own Shopify t-shirt store, including choosing a niche, finding a supplier, designing your t-shirts, building your Shopify store, launching your store, and marketing your store. We will also take a look at some of the most successful Shopify t-shirt stores out there to give you some inspiration.

Choosing a Niche

The first step in starting a successful Shopify t-shirt store is choosing a niche. Your niche should be a specific group of people interested in a particular type of t-shirt, such as a t-shirt related to a certain topic or theme. For example, a niche for a Shopify t-shirt store could be vegan t-shirts or t-shirts for cat lovers or t-shirts with quotes from classic literature.

Choosing a niche allows you to target your marketing efforts to a more specific crowd instead of trying your luck with a more general store that offers a bunch of different options. When deciding on a niche, you should focus on the following five factors:

1. Passion: If you choose something that you're passionate about, it will make it that much easier to come up with good ideas and content for your store.
2. Interest: Make sure that people are interested in your niche. Use tools like Google Trends to find out if there's even any interest in your topic.
3. Competition: If there are already a ton of super successful sellers in your niche, it might be harder to stand out. It might be better to choose something less popular but be one of the top sellers in that niche.
4. Profitability: Figure out how much people are willing to pay. If they aren't willing to pay much, you're not going to be turning a very good profit.
5. Target Audience: Having a target audience in mind can be super helpful when it comes to figuring out your niche. That's because when you have a certain audience in mind, you can come up with specific design or marketing strategies that will appeal to them.

Finding a Supplier

Once you have a niche or product, you're going to need a supplier. There are a few options out there. You could purchase blank shirts in bulk and print them yourself, or you could use a print-on-demand service that handles production and shipping for you. Each approach has its own pros and cons, but if you ask us, the easiest way to start out would be the print-on-demand option. That way, you won't have to invest money up front for printing equipment or inventory, and there's less risk.

Designing Your T-Shirts

When it comes to designing outstanding designs, there are two options to consider: do it yourself or hire a t-shirt designer. If you're going to do it yourself, keep it simple. A lot of times, simple designs are actually the most effective ones. Make sure the images you're printing on the t-shirts are as high quality as they come. Otherwise, you're going to be printing grainy, pixelated pictures on t-shirts that no one is going to want.

If you're just not comfortable designing the t-shirts yourself, no problem. Hire a t-shirt designer. When it comes to hiring someone else to do those t-shirt designs, we recommend keeping the following things in mind:

1. Budget: Ask yourself how much you're willing to spend. This important criteria will help you narrow down your search according to your budget.
2. Portfolio: Always make sure to check their portfolio to make sure it's consistent with what you're looking for.

Building Your Shopify Store

To get started, you're going to need to create a Shopify account. Since Shopify offers several different plans, you're going to want to choose the plan that works best for you. The next thing you're going to want to do is create your brand. Creating a unique, professional, and recognizable brand takes a lot of work. Luckily, we have an entire video dedicated exactly to that.

Once you have all these basics in place, you can start to actually set up your store. You'll have to choose a theme, integrate your print-on-demand app and other essential apps like ReConvert for upselling, and customize the look and feel of your store. Obviously, you're going to need to set up payment methods so you can start seeing that revenue sooner rather than later.

Launching Your Store

All that's left to do is to hit publish to make your store live and start selling some t-shirts. If you really want to see some profits, you're absolutely going to need to market your Shopify t-shirt store. Some of the best ways to market your store are going to include social media, email promotions and discounts, influencers, Google ads, and SEO.

Successful Shopify T-Shirt Stores

Here are some of the most successful Shopify t-shirt stores out there to give you some inspiration:

Sassy Spud

Sassy Spud figured out how important niche selection is, and their niche is one very passionate audience: vegetarians and vegans. For many vegetarians and vegans, their dietary choice is a big part of their identity. Sassy Spud's gorgeous tees allow their customers to express themselves and flaunt their unique personality to others. Plus, they have strong branding with a unique color palette, copywriting, imagery, and typography that appeals to their target audience.

Factory 43

When it comes to graphic design, Factory 43 is the clear winner here. Their page is super simple while still being unique and unexpected. They also utilize a custom version of Shopify's Block Shop theme, which uses the full width of store pages to create an immersive shopping experience.

Home Fields

Home Fields caters to a large American audience by catering to college students and alumni. They have vintage-inspired designs for over 120 colleges and universities across the US. One thing that Home Fields does exceptionally well is website navigation. It's super easy for customers to look up their school by using the top menu to browse alphabetically or by visiting the all schools page.

Because Tees

Because Tees is a family-owned business based in Northern California that sells t-shirts and hoodies featuring prints inspired by local wildlife. The best part? For every purchase, 10% of the proceeds go to a planet-saving cause of the customer's choice, and the company also plants 10 trees. They are highlighting their brand values front and center, which really resonates with their target audience.

Self-Care Is For Everyone

Self-Care Is For Everyone prioritizes their customers' mental health. The importance of self-care has really skyrocketed recently, so not only are they utilizing a very important trend, but they are also trying to make a difference by donating a whopping 10% of their net profits to mental health and suicide prevention organizations. They also use independent artists to create the designs, so the product itself is super amazing.

Ferian's Clothing

Ferian's Clothing is a pet-centric Shopify t-shirt store run by a team of pet lovers who work at the same animal supply store. They started out by just creating a few fun t-shirts for themselves but quickly turned into a successful business. While they have plenty of shirts for dog lovers, there's something for fans of other animals as well. They also offer customization on a lot of their tees, so you can add names, jokes, or more to create a truly unique gift for that pet lover in your life.

Shirtbox

Shirtbox realized that it's not always profitable to sell single t-shirts at 20 bucks a pop. Instead, they decided to add a subscription element to their Shopify store. Instead of selling one t-shirt, Shirtbox sells a subscription for 11.99 a month. What this means is that if a customer stays subscribed for one year, they're generating an average of 143 pounds on average per customer. A lot better than 20 pounds for one shirt, am I right?

Conclusion

T-shirts have always been a popular clothing item, and I don't really see that changing anytime soon. Starting a Shopify t-shirt store can be a great way to turn your passion for design or interest in making some extra money into a successful business. Just remember to choose a niche, find a supplier, design your t-shirts, build your Shopify store, launch your store, and market your store. And don't forget to take inspiration from some of the most successful Shopify t-shirt stores out there.

FAQ

Q: What is a niche? A: A niche is a specific group of people interested in a particular type of t-shirt, such as a t-shirt related to a certain topic or theme.

Q: What is a print-on-demand service? A: A print-on-demand service is a service that handles production and shipping for you. You don't have to invest money up front for printing equipment or inventory, and there's less risk.

Q: How do I market my Shopify t-shirt store? A: Some of the best ways to market your store are going to include social media, email promotions and discounts, influencers, Google ads, and SEO.