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On-demand manufacturing services such as CafePress and SpreadShirt are becoming very popular with bands. While I think there are some benefits in using such a service, I also find it quite distressing.
When a fan purchases something with your band’s logo on it, they’re putting their hard-earned money into your pocket. Doesn’t it say something about the item they’re buying if you as a band also spent your hard-earned money getting it made?
There has been a lot of talk on tribes within the music community as well as achieving those 1,000 fans. Would you want to serve those loyal 1,000 fans just some slop you’re not willing to invest any money into yourself?
If you’re not sure that a particular shirt design is going to sell very well, putting it on a site such as Spreadshirt to test the waters isn’t a bad idea, but the great thing about having to spend money up-front on having shirts printed is that it (usually) inspires more research and planning in what you want to get made. Also, you know your fans well enough to at least have an idea of what they will respond positively to and subsequently buy.
Something to also consider is the amount of money you could actually make through an on-demand store VS. having your merchandise professionally printed in advance.
Spreadshirt’s standard price is $17.40 for an American Apparel t-shirt with something printed on it. This means that you will be charging your customers/fans AT LEAST that much, and more if you want to profit. So, to be fair, let’s say you up the price to $20.00 a shirt so that you can make a sweet $2.60 per shirt that you sell. You tell all your fans via Myspace, PureVolume, and Twitter about your new “Official Merch Store” and they go buy some of your merchandise. If you sell 50 shirts, you’ve just made $130.00. That’s not bad, but it could have been better.
Now, let’s see how this looks if you were to have ordered your own shirts through a screen-printer. We will use JakPrints to get our example figures, but let it be known that there are thousands of other printers (even some in your neighborhood) that could print shirts for you as well.
Let’s say you decide to order 100 black American Apparel shirts through JakPrints with a 2-color print. The shirts are going to run you $6.25 each plus a $30 one-time fee for the 2-colors for a grand total of $655.00. Because we’ve added the set-up fees into our total pricing, we can now divide the grand total ($655.00) by the 100 shirts we’re having made, which tells us that each shirt we print costs us $6.55. Now, let’s look at the profit differences between selling 50 on-demand shirts and selling 50 of the shirts we had printed through JakPrints.
If we also decide to sell the Jakprints shirts for $20.00 per shirt, that’s a profit margin of $13.45! So, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, you stand to make a lot more money on these custom-made shirts than through your Spreadshirt store. Let’s run the numbers just for fun: $20.00 per shirt multiplied by 50 equals $1000.00, which, after taking out the cost of each shirt ($6.55), leaves you with a profit of $672.50. Incase you got a little lost along the way, this means you have already made back the money you invested in having the shirts printed and then taken in an additional $672.50 profit!
| Company | Cost Per Shirt | Profit Per Shirt | Total Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spreadshirt | $0 | $2.60 | $130.00 |
| JakPrints | $6.55 | $13.45 | $655.00 |
On the flipside of this, I personally own a shirt printed by SpreadShirt and it looks good as far as on-demand merchandise goes. Can I still tell that it’s not really a screenprint? Of course. I also understand that not every band has the luxury of having a few hundred dollars to get some shirts printed, but hopefully the comparison chart above shows just how beneficial saving up for the right shirt can work out better in the end. After all, sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
Something else to consider is that you can’t take Spreadshirt shirts on the road unless you front the $17.40 per shirt to get some printed.
Make your fans feel special and encourage them to attend your shows. If you create a tour t-shirt that says “Joe’s Band Winter 2009 Tour” and only produce a limited amount, your fans will be feel special. They have something that’s only attainable by attending your show. In this age of digital 24/7 availability, having something tangible that only a select group of people have is a great feeling!
The overall point here is that before you just create a shop on one of these on-demand sites, really think about your customers/fans. They deserve the absolute best, but so do you, so really crunch the numbers and see which option makes the most sense.
