Hi guys Jon Kruse here from how to start a clothing company. Today I’m reviewing a new e-commerce store system called storenvy which offers a free stores to everyone. It is most similar to big cartel which charges  $10- $20 a month for it’s services but also includes a bunch of social networking stuff  to get your site seen.

Big cartel vs Storenvy

• Bigcartel
• There are only two things that big cartel has storenvy beat on. One is that you can use cnames on bigcartel and use your own domain.  The other is big cartel lets you have multiple pages you can edit and storenvy doesn’t let you add any extra pages besides the faq and contact pages. The downside is you have to drive all the traffic to your site by yourself and it costs you $20 a month for their best plan.

• Storenvy
• First and foremost it’s free and you have to love free. They have up to 5 pics per product, on bigcartel it would cost you $20 a month. The stats they give in the admin panel are great, even though you should be using google analytics to track all your stats.  I really like how easy it is to design a site in css and there are a couple sites that have started customizing their stores. Check out my site I did for my clothing line Shred and check out this site for Fashion Loves People. Storenvy has social networking to get you traffic and make sales. Finally I’ve spoken to the guys that work behind the scenes and they are passionate about what they’ve created and plan on making a lot of improvements.

What the owner of Storenvy had to say.

“Storenvy doesn’t want to be just another online store system. There are hundreds of them out there already and have some of the same problems. They require you to drive all traffic to your store yourself, they only offer fulfillment, or made for only stores who are well established. On top of that in this day in age the internet is all about being social. Storenvy wanted to fix all of those problems and build the first Social Store Community.

Shopping Features.

• Buy from multiple stores at once all shipping from different locations around the world. Pay all stores at once with one checkout.
• Shoppers have the ability to browse between all stores at once by different product categories. From Apparel, Jewelry, Music, Books, Housewares, Toys and more.
• Markets are a group of stores with similar interest. Example being handmade, Metal bands, & clothing companies. Shoppers will be able to see all stores in each market along with browse all products, and a forum to discuss what they find.

Social Features

• Shoppers have the ability to make their own user profile/user account. With this they have the ability mark items they find on Storenvy as favorites, share with their friends, follow a store, leave comments, chat on the forums, and follow their friends and see what they are doing.
• When you follow a store you find out whenever they add new products.
• When you follow another Storenvy User you find out what they are favoriting, and comments they are making to help you find out about new and interesting items they discover.
• Shoppers also have the option to share your favorite products they find on their facebook wall. (we are setting up Twitter integration right now as i type this)”

Storenvy is a great start for what looks like a very bright future. It doesn’t have big cartel beat on everything just yet but they also have a lot of things bigcartel doesn’t  have like a free system with social networking. I just made the switch last week and am really happy with what storenvy has to offer.

Also besides their e-commerce stores I know about storenvy because of their printing. There are lot of people out there that can vouch for their printing and really it’s the best printing/service I have ever gotten from a screen printer.  Large oversized prints, bright colors, and everything is super soft (no big piece of plastic here). Storenvy is offering 75 cents off American Apparel printed shirts until December 1st. I’m not sure if they still do this but when I first talked with them about printing they offered to send me a sample shirt, just ask Nick. Go to the storenvy printing page by clicking here.

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Storenvy: Free online store review

When I first started my Chaos Wear, my original plan was to use ‘inkjet transfers’ as my printing method, simply so that I could produce them as and when I needed them. Just like most start-up business owners I had this nagging voice in the back of my mind asking ‘what if it doesn’t work out?’, so I wanted to keep my costs to an absolute minimum. I bought a heat press and a vinyl cutter so I could contour cut. After literally months of not being able to get along with my cutter I decided to change my business model and outsource my printing, I figured a couple of benefits of this would be that the printing would be to a better standard if I left it to the professionals, any error would cost them and not me and I had more time to spend on actually running the business.

I then began looking into different modes of printing and screen printing seemed the best option. The biggest problem for me was that my designs were very colorful and detailed, and since screen printing is billed per color, it wasn’t looking good (I would very much advise you guys to pick your printing method before designing your shirts). The other problem was that I was offering my designs in 5 different sizes in mens, 4 sizes in womens, 5 sizes in hoodies and 4 sizes in kids, so for example if I wanted to order 5 of each type for 20 designs I would have ended up ordering 1800 garments in total! the nagging voice in the back of my head was ready to explode!

After doing some research I found out about plastisol transfers, for those of you who don’t know what plastisol transfers are, it is the same process and quality as screen printing, however, instead of printing directly onto the garment, the design is printed onto release paper and then is heat pressed on, below is a video of the process to help you get an idea of what is involved (the t-square it tool is helpful but not a necessity)

And it really is as simple as that! For me it was a no-brainer, it felt like ordering plastisol transfers was a much better idea as I didn’t need to buy tons of preprinted shirts, I could simply press as I sold, minimizing costs if the business didn’t work, the other benefit that really appealed to me was the fact that I was able to offer all shirt types; to me there was nothing worse than turning away a customer that wanted to buy a specific design in a certain size which was sold out whilst the other shirt sizes were overstocked. Another benefit of plastisol transfer printing is the ability to purchase ‘gang sheets’, this means putting several designs onto one sheet, for example if an a3 sized sheet costs $2.40, and you’re able to fit 3 designs on there, the cost of each design would be $0.80, so it can work out to be much much cheaper for some than screen printing depending on the design. Gang sheets would look something similar to this;

Remember my problem I told you about earlier about too many colors? Well I found out about a type of plastisol transfer/screen printing called ’4 colour process’ which has the same price for 4 or 40 color designs and tackles gradients and shading well, I have even seen US companies offer quantities starting from 8 pieces!

However, screen printing directly onto shirts also has it’s advantages, as many screen printers do not offer printing as plastisol transfers as a service, it may be that you are able to negotiate a better price, you could also get a better price if your screen printer gets good discounts for purchasing large amounts of blank garments, another benefit is that you get the complete product, so that you are spared from any wastage due to errors whilst pressing. Outsourcing your printing completely would also spare you the cost of purchasing ‘heat press’ machine that range from around $200-$1000+.

whichever method you choose, I highly recommend that you request samples from potential suppliers and give repeat test washes to ensure the quality of the garments and also remember to include the cost of screen charges to the cost of the transfers when comparing prices of different companies. To get you started here are a list and details of some of the most popular plastisol suppliers

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkQjJPlThfo_-PmJjgISnDA

I wish good luck to you all in whichever method you decide to take

This post was written by:

Ruchi the owner of Chaos Wear, a funny t-shirt company in the UK!

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Screen Printing Vs Plastisol Transfers

Post from: How to start a Clothing Company

Why You Should Pay A Professional To Print Your Shirts

This article assumes that you (the reader) have already started your company, have designs that you would like to print and have found a printer to work with. It is intended to walk you through the process of your first print and bring up any “did you knows”. Enjoy!

1. Prepare your files for print.
2. Select your printing method.
3. PRINT!

Prepare Your Files for Print

As a clothing company the first thing you should know is designing for print (4-color process) and designing for t-shirts are two different worlds. Make sure you or your designer make it as easy as possible for your printer to print your shirt without compromising your design. This will not only make it easier for you in the long run but it will give you a better product for your customers because you did not make last minute changes during the process.

As a designer and company owner, I am very familiar with how to make my life and my screen printers life a lot easier. Make sure you convert all of your text to outlines, use Pantone colors, create your artwork to size (exactly, not bigger or smaller), use vector artwork when possible and expand all stroked lines to at least 0.5 points.

What do you need to know before talking with your printer?

• Where the print is going.
• How many colors are used.
• The Pantone color codes for all colors used.
• The type of printing method you are using.
• Are you using specialty inks?
• How many units you are printing.
• The type of ink you are using.

Read the full article at Pop Culture Tees by clicking here

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Your First Printing Experience: How to Prepare

This Article was written by Derek Deal and was originally posted on the Black Axe Blog.

I recently started predominantly using Illustrator to color my designs since starting The Black Axe. So far its been going pretty well. My file sizes are a fraction of what they used to be and pre-press has been a breeze. Im not going to lie though, it definitely took some getting used to. Illustrator is a quirky program, and has no problem letting you do things the hard way if you are ill informed. I tend to do a lot of experimentation when coloring and often times have to provide a few different colorways when submitting work to clients, so any time i can save in that process is a huge help. That’s why i decided to pass some knowledge i picked up on using global swatches. Hope it helps.

Global Color in Illustrator from The Black Axe on Vimeo.

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Tutorial: Global Color in Illustrator

Over the last couple of years the GoMediaZine has been a cookie jar full of tips, tutorials & practical advice about designing for apparel. There have been in depth tutorials, lots of inspiration, a fantastic three-part series full of experience & advice – we even showed you how to ‘Make it look like Affliction‘. And just in these last couple of months, we showed you how to make photorealistic mockups of your apparel designs.

Read the full article at gomediazine.com

http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-insights/designers-guide-apparel-production/

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Designers Guide to the Apparel Printing Industry

Here’s a great article from The Art of Apparel about relabling your shirts.

There are a few ways to do this but the two most popular are printed tags and woven tags. Its totally a personal choice but these are some things to think of. Woven tags have high minimum orders so it will be a larger up front cost; you will also need a way of sewing them into your shirts which can add to cost if you have to hire someone to do this. Most start up brands go the printed tag route because it is fairly cheap and it can be done at the same time your shirt designs are being printed (most printers will cut the “stock” tags out of the shirt in order to print your custom ones in).

Ok so you have decided which method you would like to use for your relabeling and now you need to know what should go on the actual label. If you are printing your tags then you have a lot of creative freedom as far as design. Some companies even but whole new designs inside the shirt. Just layout something that fits the style of your brand and provides the correct information….Well what is that information!?

Here is what should appear on US apparel products:

• # Size. Labels must be a minimum of 13/4 by 23/4 inches (4.5 x 7 cm).

• Lettering. The required information must be no smaller than pica or 12 point type, with all parts of the information in letters of equal size and conspicuousness.

• Country of Origin
  * Imported products must identify the country where they were processed or manufactured.
  * Products made entirely in the U.S. of materials also made in the U.S. must be labeled “Made in U.S.A.” or with an equivalent phrase.
  * Products made in the U.S. of imported materials must be labeled to show the processing or manufacturing that takes place in the United States, as well as the imported component.
  * Products manufactured in part in the U.S. and in part abroad must identify both aspects.

• RN# or Company Name
  An RN# is a unique code for textiles that allows the garment to be “tracked”.
  You can obtain an RN# for free by going HERE. RN#’s are not required but you are required to label your product, this can be done with your RN or your companies name as it appears on business documents.

• The product size

• Care Instructions (there is a lot of talk about if this is really needed or not but according to the FTC it is very much required)
  To learn how to write the proper care instructions click HERE

I also have a PDF of the symbols used in care instructions. If you would like to download clickHERE

So there you have it, the info you need to make your tags for relabeling your shirts and stepping up to the next level. Trust me the extra cost is worth it and you will feel really great when you get your first batch of shirts with your own labels, it just completes the whole process.

Source: FTC.gov

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The Science of Relabeling

Here’s a quick video by AKT enterprises about making shirts. AKT also runs merchspin which offers great print quality at affordable prices.

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Design To Print (a quick video about making t-shirts)