Your New Store – Getting Started Primer – Graphic Tee Coach

Your New Store – Getting Started Primer

Congratulations and Welcome!

You’ve taken the first step… and it’s a big one.  Deciding to sell t-shirts online.  My job is to make sure that you’re successful -for whatever level of success you’re striving.  Whether you’re trying to replace your primary source of income or just make a few extra hundred dollars a month, my goal is to show you everything you need to know to make it happen.  So, let’s get started… procrastination is the number one killer of any new income opportunity.  First, let me give you a quick overview of what’s going to happen next:

  1. First, you’re going to learn about the pieces you need (and now have) to start selling.
  2. Then you’re going to create products. (Definitely do not procrastinate here… this is not hard, but it does take commitment.  If you commit, you will be successful).
  3. Next you’re going to get these products for sale online.  For starters, this will be on your own store (www.insert_my_domain_name_here.com).  If you already sell online or want to sell on a different marketplace (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Bonanza, etc.), let me know and we can go that route.  I recommend the store to start because it’s fast, relatively painless, and inexpensive.  BTW, you can fast track this part with our shop set up service.
  4. Sell, ship, and provide customer service.  Soon you’ll get your first order… I’ll let you know what to do next.
  5. Go back to Step 2.  Always creating new products is key.  Read on and I’ll tell you how to make all this happen.

Important: You’ll be receiving emails from me that will without a doubt help you sell shirts.  These may go into your promotions folder in gmail or worse… possibly into your spam folder.  Fortunately, you can control that!  Click here for instructions on how to add me to your whitelist.

I Signed Up – So What Exactly Do I Have Now?

My job is to get you set up with the services you need to sell.  As a member of Graphic Tee Coach you actually have access to three services.

  1. graphicteecoach.com (GTC) – GTC is me!
  2. tshirtgang.com (TSG) – TSG is your dropshipper.  Actually much more than your dropshipper.  More about this in the next chapter.
  3. tshirtdesignservices.com (TSDS) – Provides low cost graphic design and marketing services for sellers. More about this down the page.

Your Graphic Tee Coach Membership

First, make note of your login information for GTC.  You’ll need it:

Username: Your Email Address
Temporary Password: Temp4321 (Change this after logging in)

Now, there are many ways that you can sell t-shirts online.  You could sell on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and myriad other marketplaces.  However, those can be expensive, complicated, and slow to get moving. To get you started selling fast, what I recommend for you is the approach that has served me and many others well – sell t-shirts on your own private site (e.g. www.mytshirtshop.com). Here’s what I’m going to help you do:

  1. Register your domain name.
  2. Set you up with a free ecommerce site.
  3. Set you up a free account with a dropshipper (Don’t know what dropshipping is?  Read my post here).
  4. Teach you how to upload some starter products.
  5. Show you how to advertise your products using a Google Shopping campaign.
  6. Provide you with a steady stream of tips and tricks to create new products that sell.
  7. You already have access to the blog posts on this site with all kinds of useful information.

Why do I recommend this approach?  First, it’s very, very inexpensive compared to any other option you may have heard of.  I’ve been an entrepreneur for many, many years, and I’ve never seen a legitimate business opportunity where the profit/investment ratio is as attractive as this one.  Second… it works.  If you follow my plan you’ll sell t-shirts and earn a profit… plain and simple.  That’s what this is all about.  Full disclosure… I earn an affiliate fee when you sell using my method… that’s how I can afford to provide this information to you for so little.  That said, I’m suggesting services that I have used and use to this day.  The services I suggest are based on the low cost and customer service that you need to be successful.

Understanding Your Dropshipper Account

Dropshipping one of the secrets to success in this business.  You’ll never have to handle inventory or shipping. The dropshipper takes care of that for you. If you want a little more explanation about dropshipping, check out my article here: What is Dropshipping?

My dropshipper of choice is Tshirtgang. There are others available but I use Tshirtgang for several reasons:

  1. Low cost.  One of the best dropshippers for one-off print pricing.  This is important. One of the reasons this business works is because you can make a shirt that you sell only once and you’ll still make money.  You don’t need volume sales of a single design to profit. More on this to come!
  2. Competent, low-cost, quick shipping.  Your customers will receive their shirts in 2-5 days generally but there is a rush option.
  3. Good variety of shirts, hoodies, aprons, iPhone cases, etc.   You come up with one design, and you immediately have multiple products available for sale – not just t-shirts.
  4. Good customer service.  Quick, reliable response when you have issues… either with customer shipments or technical issues with your store.
  5. Marketplace connectivity.  This is the single biggest benefit.  Tshirtgang.com is connected to multiple marketplaces -eBay, Amazon, Wish, Etsy, Shopify, Bonanza, and WordPress/WooCommerce with more connections being built all the time.
  6. Free Store! – This is the biggest and best reason to sell with Tshirtgang.  They host a store for you for free!  You need to pay for your domain name and SSL security… but that’s cheap… and that’s it!  Now… it’s not easy to set this store up.  Google Shopping (critical to your success) can be a nightmare. But, that’s why I’m here!

Okay, it’s time to check out your Tshirtgang account.  Read on…

Start Creating Products

The single most important factor in being successful selling t-shirts is… inventory!  No, not physical inventory, but t-shirt designs.  Images.  Your images are your products. Don’t procrastinate on this one… let’s get started!

How to Create Products

First thing you need to do is log into your Tshirtgang account.  Log in info is the same as your GTC account (login: your email address & password: Temp4321).  Change this to your preferred password at some point soon.  So, let’s log in and create a couple of products!

Log in Here  (click the Login button in the top right corner as per the image below. Tshirtgang will open in a new tab so you can keep reading this Primer)

The Quick, Easy, and Free Approach – Tshirtgang Templates

Once logged into Tshirtgang, click the “Create a Product” button.  

Shortcut: click the Tshirtgang logo from anywhere within the site to get the product creation page. 

That takes you to here:

There are a few easy things you can do to create t-shirts using this page:

  1. Create a simple text based shirt:
    1. Click on the “Toggle Text Editor” button
    2. Enter some text
    3. Adjust the font, colours, and other settings as desired
    4. Choose a style, model, and color
    5. Title your shirt
    6. Choose a category
    7. Click “Continue”
    8. Voila!  Your product is complete!
  2. Upload an existing image
    1. Click on the “Browse for Image” button.
    2. Find a PNG or JPG image on your PC, Mac, or device and double-click to select it.
    3. Click the “Upload” button.
    4. Choose a style, model, and color
    5. Title your shirt
    6. Choose a category
    7. Click “Continue”
    8. Your product is complete!
  3. Use a customizable template
    1. Click “Choose Customizable Template”
    2. Scroll down until you see one you like and click on it.
    3. Enter your text.
    4. Click Continue.
    5. Choose a style, model, and color
    6. Title your shirt
    7. Choose a category
    8. Click Continue
    9. Your shirt is ready!

You can check out your products at any time by clicking on “Dashboard”, then “My Tshirtgang”, then “My Products”.

Your goal at this point is to get 10 or so products on your site.  They don’t have to be great, there just needs to be some content on there.  For example: funny shirts, parodies, generic images are all good.  Don’t infringe on on commercial or sports copyrights (sports team logos, for example).  Google (or other marketplaces) may well frown on that when we go to get your Google advertising account approved!

Read on to learn about other ways to get products on your site.

Experienced with Software such as Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.net?

If so, awesome!  All you need to know is the format in which the Tshirtgang print shop expects your images.  On the Tshirtgang “Create a Product” page above, click on “(See Design Guide)”. This page will give you the format in which Tshirtgang expects your image.

No Graphics Design Experience? Learn Paint.net

You could learn Photoshop or GIMP also but they’re more complicated.  If you’re a Mac user, Paint.net won’t work.  You’ll need to learn GIMP or Photoshop. They are more feature rich and you can do more things, but they’re a little harder to learn.  Also, Photoshop is not free.

You can get Paint.net here: Download Paint.net

Outsource Your Graphic Design Work

Use https://www.graphicteecoach.com/productsandservices to get low cost designs done for you by staff who have experience in how to create product for TSG, title it, and upload it to your account.  If you have signed up for Graphic Tee Coach’s Shop Set Up Service, you already have a TSDS account and you already have a free hour of graphic design services included.  Take advantage of this offer!

If you signed up for Shop Setup, your TSDS account credentials will be the same as your GTC and TSG login and password.

T-shirt Titling and Descriptions

Soon we are going to be talking about how to come up with ideas for t-shirts that will sell.  But first I want to talk about something critical to your success; that is the way you title your shirts.  We’ll talk a lot about keywords. Using the old 90/10 rule as a good rough estimate, doing this right will separate you from 90% of your competition. You don’t want to be another person who thinks he or she has great t-shirt ideas, then sells nothing.  If that happens to you, you plain and simple haven’t followed my guidance! So let’s talk about titles:

Keywords

This is the most important consideration in your titles.  Let me show you a bad title and a good title. Let’s look at an example.  If you’re a football fan, you may have seen this t-shirt before:

Let’s say you were to make your own version of a shirt like this.  You could title it:

  1. Clown T Shirt
  2. Funny Goodell Clown T Shirt
  3. Funny Roger Goodell as a Clown Matt Patricia Inspired Football Fan T Shirt

Which one do you think would result in more people finding your shirt?  If you said “a” or “b”, then tsk, tsk. Of course it is “c”. Now, it’s possible that Roger Goodell or Matt Patricia wouldn’t like you mentioning them in your title.  I’m not going to pretend to know what is allowed or what isn’t, I’m only telling you which title has more relevant keywords in it that is going to move you up the Google rank.  Think of clever ways to get more keywords associated with current events into your titles. (Much more on the current events thing later…)

So, titles should be have very relevant keywords to the story around the t-shirt.  Think about it this way. If you saw someone wearing that shirt and you desperately wanted it, what would your Google search look like?  You might search for “Buy Roger Goodell clown shirt seen on Matt Patricia”. Or you may search for, “Funny Roger Goodell clown shirt”. You get the idea?  Think about what you would search for, then make sure you get those keywords into your title.

You’ll want some good catch-all keywords in there too.  In the above example, “Funny” and “T Shirt” are the catch-alls.  Another example less related to the above shirt is “Gift”. Let’s say you have designed a t-shirt that posterizes and unbelievable dunk in basketball.  And let’s say it would appeal to Denver Nuggets fans. You could call it, “World’s Best Slam Dunk Essential Denver Basketball Fan Gift T Shirt”. So, when mom or dad are shopping for their basketball fan kid, and they’re searching for “gift for Denver Nuggets basketball fan”, your shirt has a good chance of coming up.  You’re matching keywords.

Spelling and Grammar

It’s important to get the spelling and grammar correct in your titles.  Again, when people search for a shirt like yours, if you’ve spelled a keyword incorrectly, that’s going to hurt your rank.  Here are a few tips:

  1. Spell every word correctly
  2. Use the correct case… title case.  E.g. “Cool USA Independence Day Gift T Shirt”, not, “cool usa Independence Day gift t shirt”.
  3. Use “T Shirt” instead of “Tee shirt” or “T-shirt”.  From my experience it gets ranked better.
  4. Keep your titles to around 72 characters or fewer.
  5. The title should make sense.  For example, “Funny Guitar Player T Shirt”, not, “Funny Fun Cool Interesting Guitar Guitarist Stringed Instrument Shirt”.  Lots of keywords are good, but be clever about it. Keep the title reading like something a buyer would understand… and hence purchase!

T-shirt Inventory

In terms of sales longevity, there are two kinds of shirts you can put on your site.  Slow-and-steady, long-term sellers… and hot sellers. Let’s start with a couple of examples I pulled off Google.  

Long Term Seller Hot (Short-Term) Seller

Now, the long term seller simply states, “I’d rather be playing football”.  Someone could buy that today, tomorrow, and as long as football exists. In the second example, it’s a rather amusing image of Johnny Football disguised so nobody would notice him in Vegas.  That story is old and dead. It may have sold like crazy when the story came out, but it would have quickly fizzled. The good thing about the one on the right is that it might have made someone a lot of money in a short period of time.  The one on the left might be making someone a small amount of money over a long period of time. Which is better? Both. Here’s why:

You need the long term sellers or you’ll constantly be trying to come up with hot sellers.  That can get taxing. There are days when you’d rather just watch TV, put the tee business on hold, but still have sales coming in.  Thank you long term sellers! There are other times when you just dropped the tranny in your car and you have to replace it. Time to think about some hot sellers!  What you want is a mix. To throw a rough estimate out there, you might need 500 long-term sellers to sell like a single hot seller over the course of a year. That may seem daunting, but not really.  Come up with 1-2 long term sellers a day and you have 500 shirts on your site in a year. But you should be setting your sights higher than that. I’d suggest to come up with at least 5 long-term seller ideas a day.  If you come up with even one or two hot sellers a month you’ll be doing alright. This is a good time to remind you about T Shirt Design Services.  If you don’t have the time or knowledge to make 5 shirts a day, then take advantage of the low cost service.  You need to get shirts on your site!

Here are a couple more examples.  Try to figure out the difference. BTW, the hot seller on the right would have been a hot seller at two different points in history:

Long Term SellerHot Seller

Much more to come on how to come up with ideas for both long-term and hot sellers…

Sources for T-shirt Ideas

I will give you several sources for t-shirt ideas.  I encourage you to pick just one of them for now and use the others once you’re more skilled at spotting ideas.  Oh, by the way, today I’m focusing more on sports related t-shirts. Your sports knowledge is what can give you ideas for very hot selling shirts.  However, I strongly suggest that you don’t make a “sports only” site. You will come across many great t-shirt ideas that have nothing to do with sports.  Having these on your site will benefit you for many reasons.

So, how do we come up with a winning t-shirt idea/design?  Here is the key concept that I want you to understand: You must create t-shirts that are in demand!

Okay, so you think you have some ideas for what will sell?  You’ve got this stockpile of ideas of funny shirts that you know people will buy?  Forget it… you don’t. Blunt, I know, but you’ll thank me later. Well… maybe that was a little harsh.  Some of your ideas are probably good. But, I’m here to show you how to sell t-shirts… not come up with creative, funny t-shirts.  Your creative, funny t-shirt ideas may well sell… but not until you understand how to sell t-shirts online.  Here are the keys:

  1. Figure out what is in demand.  You probably already have an idea about supply.  You have some good ideas of t-shirts that you think people will like.  But you need to *know* what they will buy. Not *think*. You need to know what’s in demand.
  2. Match your shirt designs to the demand.

Let me give you an off-the-cuff example.  Let’s pretend that it snows today in Honolulu.  It get a little chilly and a few flakes fall down.  That would be *big* news. That big news just created t-shirt demand that didn’t exist before the snow.  Examples of text you might see on “in-demand” shirts:

  1. I Survived the Honolulu Blizzard 2018
  2. Property of the Honolulu Cross-country Ski Team

Here’s the idea… people buy shirts based on current events and things that tug at emotions. Things people are passionate about.  Snow in Honolulu is big news and people who live there would be talking about it, coming together as a community over it… it would be emotional.

Do you know what people are *really* emotional about?  Sports! If you’re a Texas football fan and Texas wins the national championship, would you buy a t-shirt?  Damn right you would. Current event + passion. Have you bought a t-shirt proudly supporting your favorite band or singer when they came to town?  Of course.

So, here’s what we’re looking for… t-shirt ideas that are associated with current events *and* trigger emotion.

Now, as I mentioned before, you need long-term sellers and hot sellers.  But, while you’re getting started, you’ll want to spend more time focusing on the hot sellers.  Why? Because hot sellers are based on popular current events. And, you’ll create shirt titles with keywords associated with those popular events.  That will drive traffic to your site. That will improve your Google rank. That will cause people to eventually find your shirts that aren’t based on current events.

Get it?  While getting started it’s more important to be thinking about getting traffic to your store than it is to be thinking about having lots of really great product.  That said, you’ll need some “filler” product so that when a shopper comes to your site they see that you have some stuff for sale. You wouldn’t walk into a bricks and mortar store that had one item hanging for sale.  Same applies here. So you’ll need to load up a bunch of product in the short term. By the way, you can do this yourself of course, but a good way to do that is to go to http://www.tshirtdesignservices.com and create a design request asking for… say… 20 funny, unique shirts.  Your design request instructions could be, “Do a google search for funniest shirts of all time and make me 20 similar but unique shirts. Stick to designs that are quick and easy to do”.  Or, “design me 20 funny shirts for sports fans”. That’ll get you 20 good filler shirts (some of which will eventually sell) onto your site quickly. The other good thing is that the designers there know what “templates” tend to sell.  They’ll give you designs that they know have been purchased before.

Then you can focus on the current event based shirts that you absolutely need to get traffic to your store and start making real money!

Coming next… how to find those hot, current-event based ideas that will drive traffic to your site.

Twitter

Okay, you’re ready to find those hot, current event-based designs.  Let’s start getting traffic to your site. If you don’t have a Twitter account, create one.  In fact, even if you do have one, you may want to create one using your new store name and email address.  That will help to give your store some SEO juice down the road. Once you have an account, you’ll want to log in and make sure your settings have you seeing US trends on your home page.  That’s the first thing to look at. It’s Sunday morning and I just took a screenshot and inserted it below. Take a look and read below to see what do do next:

Using Twitter Trends

There’s a lot of political material today, but we’re talking about sports at the moment!  So, let’s say you’re a Bama fan, for example. First thing you want to do is see if #crimsontide, #rolltide, #bama, #nicksaban, #tuscaloosa or something to that effect is trending on Twitter.  If it is, you have a potential source of hot material. If not, you can still do a Twitter search for any of those hashtags and see what some of the top posts are. You’re familiar with your team so you will know what other hashtags make sense to search for – quarterback’s name, various player’s names, coaches, etc.  In the above sample, it’s winter so we’re seeing no football trending. However, a Washington Caps hockey player, Devante Smith-Pelly is trending. By clicking on the trend and reading the underlying tweets, we can see that apparently some Chicago fans directed some racial remarks toward him.

We’ve got a social problem, but that’s not why we’re here.  We’ve got t-shirt material. Here are some tips for how to extract a t-shirt idea from this:

  1. Pick keywords out of the new associated with the incident: “devant smith-pelly, racist, taunts, hockey, chicago”.  Read more top tweets and you can find more. The idea is to figure out what are the top words that people are talking about.  I.e. keywords. I will repeat this concept throughout these lessons: You must associate your shirts with keywords that allow google searches to find you.  Match the titles of your shirts with things that are popular on Twitter (and other social media accounts and Google).
  2. What shirt idea makes sense from this topic?  Okay, so you’ve got your hot keywords… things that people are talking about.  Now, how can this become a t-shirt? Here’s an idea off the top of my head. You’ll be coming up with your own similar ideas as you move on through the lessons.  How about something like this? Does it meet the current event + emotion test?

Do a google image search for anti-racism t-shirts and you’ll come up with your own ideas.  Anyway, that’s just one idea. Did an athlete or coach make a quote about this incident? Quote t-shirts can be good.  How about an “end racism in Chicago” shirt? With a little reading, thought, and Google searching, you can probably come up with three or four decent ideas from this one story.  With some practise, you’ll be seeing a trend like this, doing some reading/thinking/searching, and come up with these ideas in as little as a couple of minutes.

So, staying with trends, notice at the top of the Twitter page you see that I’m looking at the Top tweets.  Look to the right and you’ll see Photos.  Click on “Photos” and you’ll see many images and photos associated with a Twitter topic.  If you start to see popular or repeating photos you may be able to alter them into a t-shirt.  Maybe put a silhouette of an image above a quote associated with the image.

Twitter Searches

So, trends are good.  But, even if something is not trending it can still be popular within a niche.  Back to sports. Let’s say you’re a bobsleigh fan. Okay, you’re probably not, but the TV is on in the background and Olympic bobsleigh is on right now.  Let’s do a Twitter search for #bobsleigh:

Hebrew word of the day for bobsleigh?  Sure! That’s a t-shirt idea. In fact I scrolled down and saw this image repeating a few times, which suggests people like it.  If they like the image, they may will like it on a t-shirt. Come up with your own idea based on this. Let’s say an image of a bobsleigh with the Hebrew word for it underneath.  Do it in Israel team colors.

Now, of course, you can do this search for any sport, any team, any athlete… anything popular.  Stick to what you know and you’ll have better ideas about what people would buy. You probably own shirts and you know why you bought them.  You already know what to do. You just need to browse through these tweets to be inspired.

Spend some time getting to know and understand Twitter.  Twitter taps into the pulse of country in terms of what is popular now.  Think about this for a second… in the past if you wanted to sell t-shirts you’d come up with an idea, get a few silk-screened, list them for sale by advertising or put them on a rack in a store.  If someone buys, great. If nobody does, you just spent a lot of money for no return. You were creating a supply and hoping for a demand. With Twitter, it’s the reverse. You’re looking into what’s popular (demand) and designing a related image to put on a shirt that is not printed until somebody buys it (supply).  You are meeting the demand as it happens in near real-time. This is one of the big reasons why this t-shirt business works. Popularity sells. So, all those ideas you had about cool shirts? Forget about those for a while. You want to start selling fast. Make shirts based on popular trends.

Instagram

Instagram is one of my favorites… t-shirt ideas paradise!  The reason I love it is because it’s filled with images… and more importantly, it’s filled with images in order of popularity!  This makes your job easier.

First things first, you’ll want to create an Instagram account if you don’t have one.  Again, probably use your gmail account associated with your t-shirt store to keep the SEO juice flowing.

Here’s the Instagram / T-shirt Success formula:

Trending Topic + Top Instagram Post = Great T Shirt Idea

So, to figure out the “Trending” variable you’ll want to combine Instagram with something else.  Since you’ve already learned about how to user Twitter to find trending topics, that’s a good start.  But, as a sports fan, I’ll give you another. Sports news. For example, http://bleacherreport.com/trending. Bleacher Report gives you trending stories in the sports world.  Great!

Now, you know what’s popular in the world of sports. (By the way, if you’re a die-hard sports fan, you probably already know something that’s trending and/or popular with the teams you follow).  Now, combine this with Instagram.

Example.  I just checked Bleacher Report and the most trending story is Fergie’s brutalization of the national anthem at the basketball all star game.  

So, let’s go over to Instagram and look at #Fergie. I hate to be mean, but there is funny material here.

The idea is pretty simple.  Look at the “Top” images on instagram and see if you can pull a t-shirt idea out of one or more of them.  The Roseanne one is too funny! Be creative. Don’t copy images, but come up with a creative rendition. Or, as I will continue to mention, use http://www.tshirtdesignservices.com.  They’re experienced at coming up with shirt designs from Instagram posts.

 

To reiterate: Find what’s trending (Twitter, sports sites, something you heard on TV), look at the comparable hashtag on Instagram, look for top posts that would be a good t-shirt (funny, repeating, popular images).

Sports News and TV Shows

TV is one of my favorites!  I guess I have a lot of favorites.  Well, that’s good news for you. There are many sources of inspiration for great selling t-shirts.  Some of my best ideas have come from watching TV. I know this is not what your mom told you… but I’m telling you… watching TV can make you plenty of money in the t-shirt business.  You just need to take a break from watching to make some designs or have them made for you over at http://www.tshirtdesignservices.com.

Here’s how it works.  You watch TV and you watch for things that would make good shirts:

  1. Quotes
  2. Shirts people are wearing
  3. Signs people are holding up

My technique is to pause the show and take a photo.  Or if I can’t pause it, I take a photo fast before it’s gone.  Some of my best sellers have come from sitting in a sports bar, watching a show, and snapping a photo of the screen.  Let me repeat that… it’s important… I have made quite a bit of money by sitting in a bar watching sports.  There are people who will tell you that sitting in a bar watching sports is a waste of time and your life.  I am not one of those people. Just don’t drink and drive! Anyway, lectures aside, here are some actual photos I’ve taken while watching TV:

Snapped while watching a tennis match featuring a Canadian tennis player.

From a movie or something. 

While watching golf, of course.

  

If you’re a football fan you’ll recognize this show.  Tons of t-shirt fodder!  Watch TV… but with “t-shirt eye”… and make money!

If something is prominently displayed on a popular TV or news broadcast, and it touches on current events and has ties to a passionate fan, you’ve got a winning shirt.  And, here’s the best part… it’s like you bought a TV advertising spot for your product… but you didn’t have to spend $100,000 to do it!

Start Selling Your Products

Okay, you understand what dropshipping is all about.  You have created some products.  You understand what types of products sell.  Now it’s time to actually start selling and earning income.  That’s why you’re here!  As I mentioned at the beginning of the primer, there are many ways to sell tees online.  I want to start you out with the easiest.  It’s not the easiest to set up, but it’s the easiest to manage.  This is important.  You don’t want to be wasting time managing your store… you want your time to be invested in researching product ideas and creating products.  So, I’m going to get you set up with your own store/domain (that is: www.mypersonalizedtshirtshop.com).

Set Up a Free Hosted TSG Commerce Store

There are many reasons I use Tshirtgang, but probably the biggest is that along with dropshipping your products, they offer you store hosting for free.  This takes a great deal of upfront cost out of the process and also simplifies it significantly.  For example, if you were to set up a Shopify store, you’d need to integrate it with a dropshipper.  This integration is already done with a TSG Commerce (Tshirtgang) store.  So, let’s get it set up!  There are two ways to do it – you can do it yourself, or I’ll do it for you.  Read on:

Graphic Tee Coach’s Complete Store Set Up Service

This service will cost you $49.95.  It will save you many, many hours of time.  It will also save you much headache.  I recommend this service not because I make a great deal of money from it… I do not.  It’s the minimum I can charge to have my staff go through the set up process.  I recommend this service because I want to get you selling fast.  I don’t want you mired in the details of getting everything set up… and worse, quitting because it’s too confusing, difficult, or time-consuming.  Click here to learn more about the set up service:

Set My Store Up Now!

DIY Store Set Up

If you’re a die hard and want to do it yourself, so be it.  The first thing you’ll want to do is log into your Tshirtgang account, click on the “My Tshirtgang” menu, then “My Store”.  Follow the instructions from there.

Important: At any time you can stop and choose the Graphic Tee Coach Shop Set Up Service.  We’ll pick up where you left off.

Ready-to-Go Checklist

If you used my service, then you’re ready to go a couple of days after your store is set up.  You’ll be given all the information you need.  If you set up yourself, you’re ready to go once your store is set up and you can collect payment.  Either way, here is a quick list of things to check and how to check them.

After Store Set Up Complete: Make Sure my Messages are not Going to Your Promotions or Spam Folder

As you read my articles you’ll understand about “hot sellers” versus “long-term sellers”.  I will be sending you email messages with important, time-sensitive information associated with topics that generate t-shirt purchases.  You don’t want to miss these.  (Note that premium members receive premium hot-seller tips… often daily).  So, make sure my mail is going into your inbox, not getting lost.  Simply add “steve@graphicteecoach.com” to your contacts to ensure you get my time-sensitive selling tips!

After Store Set Up Complete: Make Sure Your Checkout Page is Working

To do this, simply browser to your store (http://insertyourdomainnamehere.com).  Click on a product and go through the checkout as if you are a customer.  If all works well, you’ll purchase your own product.  You can always refund your own purchase in PayPal later if you want.  Or, complete the whole order process so you can experience a purchase from your store exactly like your customer would.  Here’s what will happen when you make your test purchase:

  1. You browse to your store and place a product in the shopping cart.
  2. Pay with your credit card… not your PayPal balance… otherwise you’ll be trying to buy and sell with the same PayPal account.
  3. Now the payment will be processed and a few things will happen:
    • The money from the test purchase will go into your PayPal account (less PayPal’s fees)
    • Your order will go to Tshirtgang where it’s awaiting your approval.
  4. After the payment is processed, log into your Tshirtgang account and click on the “Shopping Cart” menu.  I’ve highlighted the parts you’ll be interested in below
    • You can view the order by clicking on the order number.
    • You can delete the order by clicking on the trash can.
    • You can edit the order by clicking on the pencil.
    • You can place the order by clicking on the PayPal button.  Note*: This will actually trigger Tshirtgang to process your purchase, print, package, and ship the order!  If you do this you’ll actually receive a t-shirt in the mail.  Also you’ll see that your PayPal balance is the difference between what you paid for your test purchase from your store and what you paid Tshirtgang to dropship the order (usually around $9-10).

Now it’s time to promote your products… more on that to come!