Seven Delights Of Selling T-Shirts Online: The Pleasures Of Starting A Print-On-Demand T-Shirt Shop

Some businesses are downright enjoyable, especially if you don't have to put much money on the line. For sheer delight, I'm not sure anything can beat a print-on-demand (POD) T-shirt shop. At a POD web site, you put up your designs in an online "store" of your own, and when someone chooses one of them to have printed on a T-shirt, you get a markup over the printing cost. Your online T-shirt store offers many delights when it is new:

The first delight is getting an e-mail from the POD site when you've made a sale. You put up your first design and wait, and wait... The very first e-mail arriving unexpectedly in your in-box has a special thrill. And even though the subsequent ones can never match the first, getting a couple of e-mails can make a bad day feel whole lot more cheerful.

The second delight is feeling a connection to the people who have bought your designs. You go to your account at the POD site and you see a list of transactions. You look at people's names in the state they live in and you wonder how they chose your design and what it means to them. But you won't know, you'll probably never know. Still, you feel close.

The third delight is receiving a check from the POD company. You set your options so that they'll send you a check every time your earnings are at least $25. When the first check comes in the mail, you go out and blow it all celebrating.

The fourth delight is encountering someone who is wearing one of your designs. The first time I saw a woman wearing one of my designs, we were in the same restaurant. I couldn't keep from glancing back at it again and again, beaming.

The fifth delight is telling people that you are a web entrepreneur and saying, "Guess how much it's costing me." You tell them, "Nada." You've supplied the computer, the Internet connection, and the time, so that's free. It doesn't cost you a thing to set up your shop at a POD site. Actually though, it helps if you start your shop already knowing how to -- tee shirt start-ups can be frustrating if you are feeling your way around in the dark -- so you spend a few dollars here and there on books to make your life easier, so you may be honest and just say, "pocket change."

The sixth delight is picking up a blend of new skills. You have to combine right and left brain activities. You need to use an image editor and reflect on how the design looks. You need to find keywords so you'll know what people are looking for. You need to write advertising and promotional pieces, stretching both your prose and your empathy. It's an added benefit that these are all marketable skills.

The seventh delight is actually accomplishing something. While between gigs -- as I frequently am -- searching for opportunities online, it's all too easy to get bummed out, to start feeling hopeless and worthless, and to start getting really good at Freecell. At those times it's satisfying to create a new design and put it online -- proving those bummed-out feelings are wrong.

These are seven of the delights of opening an online, print-on-demand T-shirt shop.

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If you think you might like to enjoy these delights yourself, please visit Thomas Christopher's site http://how-to-shirts.com/ and get Chapter One free of his book on starting print-on-demand shops, "All Income, No Costs: Sell Your T-Shirts On The Web." Prof. Thomas Christopher resigned tenure to become an author, lecturer, and consultant on topics ranging from computer languages to human wordplay. He loves T-shirts for their succinct wit.