Getting your designs on the Spreadshirt platform is a simple process, and their platform is one of the most intuitive ones around. You can upload your designs in any of the following:.
Uploading in vector-based image formats. Each and every design you upload needs to be approved by someone at Spreadshirt. This typically takes 3 or 4 days — a common source of criticism for the platform. Should you find this unacceptable, setting up your own shirt shop on a dedicated eCommerce platform like Shopify and sourcing products from a B2B print-on-demand company such as Printify is the way to go. Baby shirts, duffel bags, iPhone cases and enamel mugs are just a few of the things you can slap your design on.
However, their product selection falls short to the likes of Redbubble and Society6 who are less clothing-centric and add things like shower curtains, coffee tables and stationery to the mix.
If any of your designs end up being successful on the Spreadshirt marketplace, it is possible that Spreadshirt will handpick your designs to be placed on apparel in any of the following marketplaces:.
This has the potential to give you a significant boost in exposure and income. By the way, it's not at all uncommon for POD platforms to list qualified designs in other websites. However, Spreadshirt just does a better job when it comes to getting products listed on European marketplaces. Many designers are perfectly happy to share their profits, but you might not be.
They take care of all the business operations and are a great set-it-and-forget-it platform to sell your art. However, it locks you into the Spreadshirt ecosystem and the base price of products will always be determined by them.
Yes, you can! I love Spreadshirt and Zazzle. I've earned from both without even putting much effort into design. I have had a favorable experience with Spreadshirt. When I devoted time and focus to my designs and created stuff that I myself would buy, I saw orders come through.
And vice versa. Sales would definitely trail off if I stopped uploading designs. Interestingly enough, when I read the contents of the e-mail that the CEO sent you, I thought it came across pretty tame and did not interpret any part of it as taking a direct shot.
She may have made an error with some assumptions based on the number of designs in your site at that time, so I can understand your displeasure with her response. For me, at least, I have always seen Spreadshirt's potential as a long-term play and secondary source of income. I think Spreadshirt could be a primary source of income for someone with an illustration background, but that person would also need to think of their shop as a full-time job. If anything, that response you got from the CEO made me not want to use Spreadshirt.
What a rude response. So who really owns the designs after you upload? It sounds like spreadshirt takes your design and adds them to their marketplace to make more money for spreadshirt.
Is there a trademark or copyright check for the design on their website? Does spreadshirt care about intellectual property? Does spreadshirt have their own design team on staff to add to their market place? Are all shops truly owned by real people or some of the shops possibly owned by Spreadshirts?
I was considering working with Spreadshirt, Yet I'm not so sure yet, as I should consider their competitors. You'r so correct with your retorts from Spreadshirts CEO.
You've saved me much time and aggravation. Mega Kuddos! Wow HubPages have changed alot since I last logged in. Anyways I'm glad people are still commenting on this post. I haven't kept up with all the changes and I do admit alot can change in the 7 years I've posted this.
I think if you have a good brand, specifically, a popular youtube channel and promote your shirts there, you can supplement your income with very little work. I've noticed more channels promoting their brand on youtube and started hearing more about Spreadshirt again which got me nostalgic about this article I posted.
It's pretty interesting seeing the comments supporting spreadshirt linking their shops and it's dead so there's that. Take it for what it's worth I guess. I agree with the comments about treating SS like an intro to business which is a shame I guess. I personally know some talented artists who might look at SS as a good idea but pour countless hours into it and not getting their ROI. It could definitely be a hit on their ego and talent.
Making money online now, whether it's Spreadshirt, YouTube, Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, even this platform HubPages and it's sister sites seems like a big race to the bottom. I've tried lots of things, even mined Bitcoins haha. Anyways, I guess I'm writing this because it reminded me of my younger self who was always looking for a way to be my own boss and now that I'm a little older and wiser, I guess I miss my younger self.
To those who are still using SS, please keep this article alive and keep posting your experiences. I have no ill feelings toward SS as a company, not because they bought me out or anything. But because I wrote this post to help people and I wish my readers pay it forward with their own experiences.
Just read all the posts on here. Out of all the ones that were saying how great spread shirt is and posted links to there shop or website there are not many links working now And the links that are sill active have not been updated for a few years. At first they told me I did not have the sales to meet the threshold for payment. I sent them an invoice proving I did have the sales. Next they told me I didn't have a price marked for "Design Price" on the product.
I was then told because the products did not include "Design Price" at the time of purchase I would not be compensated for my product. Even then, Spreadshirt made money from my creation so therefor I am due my cut. I feel that Spreadshirt makes their commission structure and payment plan confusing for a reason and that reason is to keep designers payments.
I agree, it is a waste of time. Even more a waste of time if you aren't a designer. I started a shop just for some money support for my youtube channel and I haven't gotten a penny after many months of promoting. It really isn't spreadshirt's fault in my case. My channel just isn't popular enough to sell my stuff to anybody. But that doesn't make it any less a waste of time. Unless you have a huge following that would kill to buy your stuff. Don't waste your time with it.
I've made a couple of hundred quid over the past few months on SpreadShirt, with under designs on there. So it is possible to gain a trickle income.
For me though, the biggest 'pain point' in using SpreadShirt is their appalling website. Every time I have to upload a few designs to SpreadShirt, I end up wanting to headbutt walls in sheer frustration.
From the "Sorry about the delays I've also run into problems with their trigger-happy legal team banning designs I've created myself, for the most spurious of reasons. Another pain point, when you've spent many hours working on a design.
All in all SpreadShirt is a complete mess and I long for the day when something better comes along and I can abandon it for good. Unfortunately though, most of the competition seems just as bad or even worse [I wouldn't have thought that was possible, but never underestimate the ability of coders to produce atrocious applications they have obviously never had to use themselves].
Thanks for this great article. I was looking for a way to earn some money but the way u put it, i understand you. It does not seem to be worth it. What i wanted to know is if you had to promote your shirts as a designer and use facebook ad campaigns and send traffic to your designs in the marketplace to get sales. That is a waste and time consuming. Or is that sort of promotion only at the shop level? I think you have a few valid points but most of it is just bitching.
If its Direct to Garment machine where you can do one-off then its differnt but still anintricate process. Your irgnorance on the topic is staggering. I have a few issues I see with spreadhshirt but most are riduclous. I personally love Spreadshirt.. I make sales everyday without any advertising except for posting some stuff to Pinterest. I am a stay at home mom with two kids so posting 5 images per day is plenty for me.
From what I see, Spreadshirt actually gets more traffic than Zazzle or Cafepress. The only thing I wish would change is their payout.. Monthly payout would be nice instead of quarterly. This article made me mile, because i have seen the ups and downs too with spreadshirt. Had my shop I believe for a year now and we've been getting sales now and again not consistent.
But hey this is a introduction to the business world. Whatever reason you set up your shop for you are not going explode on the scene with everyone buying your stuff straight away. You have to find your niche, like you said and get the demand. Apologies in advance for my poor grammar at times. However, I can give you a few hints! First of all, you're worried about search optimisation. Create your own buzz take advantage of social media.
You need to have a fan base, the majority of you starting spreadshirt are just designers. Like myself I had to realise that my designs can't sell my brand by itself.
Who do I think I am nike or adidas? So as I was saying search optimisation frightens people. But through creating social buzz via Twitter, Instagram and especially Facebook you will get people visiting. Now my brand is top search on google so it isn't impossible!
My spreadshirt shop is top of the list. Yes sales are progressing slowly. But its progression so far is good! For now anyway!
No upfront costs or liabilities and profit I have made has gone to my first batch of snapbacks my brand sells on our official store website.
So spreadshirt is playing its part, I'm still trying to make it more effective with trial and error. Bare in mind i actually spend no less than a 30 minutes every so often on spreadshirt.
I don't waste much time uploading designs etc. Mainly check shitty discount offers to see what they do! For me spreadshirt is just helping me get my brand to a running start. Give yourself a objective. How long can I see myself using spreadshirt? A wise person told me to take my time and don't spend till you've guaranteed the sale! Look at all avenues! For a long time i never understood this as I wasn't business driven at first, I was just a designer.
But what I can say is just because you've started something which seems so hard to achieve. Well at least you haven't invested a lot of money on a new project and now have become ridden in debt! During that time we worked our socks off attracting our niche and branding ourselves creating that buzz. Meanwhile my friend had the funds to start his label up straight away and he invests in unique clothing you know them pattern tops everyone likes.
He sells well for a couple of months before Versace do the same thing. Now he pays more for his apparel and production is slow because he sometimes doesn't have enough funds. However, he also lacks demand as he hasn't built a fan base. To this day he is still at the same place he left off because he only knew one way of selling and thought one dimensional.
He didn't have a plan B or C. If you can invest comfortably into your brand do it. But invest knowing your limits! After one year me and my business partner had done research.
Also shared experiences with family, friends and genuine people who have experience and wise words of wisdom. We now had a rough idea of how we are going to execute this project.
Because of the amount of effort on social media and i mean a lot. We are getting buzz. We got people asking about the release of closing! This was because it was a year in the making! Leave them thirsty! It will be the best drink they ever had that they remember it and come back for more! We don't use premium account on spreadshirt as it is a waste of money and we would recommend never to upload anything on the market unless thats something you would prefer to do.
But if you are a new brand starting out don't do this! Also take pride in you're website! Its not pretty on spreadshirt, yes we know! But add a little description of the design.
Don't leave boxes blank! Customers need to be inspired and you need to be in there after thoughts! Print on spreadshirt official tops! They print vector and digital direct the best and they are cheaper so more commission. Take it from someone who has seen all quality of tops and prints from spreadshirt.
If you have a vector design or any design for that matter please don't make small fine detail designs. They seem to struggle a lot with it and sometimes purposely leave out intricate if its too hard for them. Or miss place your design on the tee, which can look so awful. Lucky enough I have seen these faults and not my customers.
Look I'm not promoting spreadshirt and please don't take my experience as spreadshirt being great, because it isn't fabulous, but remember your goal and your outcome. Remember what you want to achieve from it! Plan ahead definitely don't rely on spreadshirt. I'm not. Please I can't stress enough if you starting your own BRAND and you using spreadshirt you must work on promotion and channeling people to your link.
Its the only way to get your shop noticed to be honest! Hey man, I have found this all very informative and learned a lot. I hope the author did as well.
BTW, I make money. More designs and cheaper prices or "GTFO" as the kids say. Ok I'm reporting back after typing my online shop link into google and finding this article again haha.
We have talents and we want to convert them to cash.. You guys may live in great countries and have jobs, and sell designs just as a side job to make extra money. Ppl like me suffer. That's why we go to selling designs on the net. But if SS is not gd enough, and cafepress is not gd enough, and zazzle is not gd enough, then what is? How the hell can designers make a gd living? We are gifted we should be kings and queens of our professions, not treated like dirt by websites and bosses like I saw in the post of Set's All Set.
If everybody treated everybody well in this domain we will be gd. Im not only talking about tshirt. The guy above wants a beautiful house and a nice car well he has the right! He has the right! But gosh.. That's the problem, we are not appreciated we are not awarded well, the cash that should be ours goes to companies and their bosses.
Now you'll tell me "go make your own website and sell" well no cuz this is called shattering. Let's say u got in a website and signed up and started uploading designs.. You guys happy with that? None of you want to be a Richard Waterson a fat bunny with no work and spends all the time sleeping and eating and watching tv on a couch. Successful designers share your stories and experiences so every new designer gets benefits from it and start a successful career, I'm talking about the designers' community every desinger is gifted and has the right to be appreciated.
Selling shit IRL is tough. You need location like a kiosk at the mall or some shit like that. That costs money too. Starting your own clothing brand is also a tough venture and judging from your last paragraph, I wouldn't suggest it.
Don't take my word for it though :P. I never had to pay it but my faint memory tells me yes. You can have nice things in life, you just have to work for it. Some people have to work harder than others but that's a different subject more politics. I can't make your dreams come true. You have to do it yourself. You and me are in the same boat. Hate my job though I don't think I'm lazy.
You'd have a better chance in the US of A if your dad was rich. I'm getting off topic so I'll leave it at that. Good luck Wolfberry.
You are the man. I've got roughly 30 designs uploaded and traffic to my shop increases every month. I think it's worth it tbh. Do you think buying your own T-shirts from SS and selling them at a market or in the real world be more beneficial than selling on an online shop?
Would it be better to make a brand than a just making random designs? I have noticed that most selling brands have some sort of animal on them - Drunken Monkey, Crocodile, Pinguin etc lol.
Basically I just want to own a supercar, have a nice awesome house with a jacuzzi, play pc games and let the money roll on in. GTA 5 is launching tonight, seems like it may be a possibility that I will never want to go back to my day job but I am going to have to have some sort of income, can you make this happen for me Set's All Set?
And if not by selling T-shirts, how am I going to accomplish this in the most easiest way because I hate working, extremely lazy and get easily bored. The Lottery just don't seem to be happening for me, its the worst! Can anyone recommend a similar site where the base price of the products is lower?
Available to the UK. No need to argue a strawman. When you paid for a product like I did , you have a right to criticize it all you want. It's not whining. If you complain about a coffee that was made wrong at a shop, are you whining? Apparently used by whiny children. I would say spreadshirt was worth it. Their marketplace sells the stuff for me. People are so quick to whine and complain that things aren't easy and they don't hold your hand like a little child. You know how I make so much money?
I work at it. I put in the hours. I didn't just whine and give up when I didn't sell anything in the first month. A big hifi to you. Infact people like you are needed for giving honest reviews and user experience to others and myself too. I recently opened a shop and that's when i searched about the image quality and stuff which is how i came across your article. Thank you so much for this article! Here is one of my numerous bad experiences as a SS designer in France.
I created a design over a year ago featuring a scooter bike Lambretta like and when I submitted it to their Market Place, the keyword 'scooter' was rejected. What could I replace it with? A scooter is a scooter, isn't it? And although it appears to be a common noun — being the same in several languages: English, French and obviously German — which can be found in any common dictionary, I asked SS why they would not accept it.
In France, we have a pop rock group named Telephone, and guess what? You can find tons of pictures using the keyword 'telephone' without any problem on SS. What would anyone enter if they were looking for a design representing a scooter then??
So I argued this with them and eventually, I had to call the lawyer of Scooter's record company, who were totally stunned by such stupidy from SS not to allow scooter as a keyword, to get an authorisation from them! Which I got, but it was a real stupid thing as scooter is a common noun, and the design itself was only artwork, no text, not even carrying the word scooter, not even in the name of the design itself. I have scrolled through the market place a couple of times and you can find a large number of designs featuring the Beatles not sure everyone got an authorisation there or the name Lennon for instance, and obviously, those managed to go through!
I just use rasterized images that have been scaled up to about x resolution, that seems to be good enough quality, yet to use a vector image. It's been my main seller. So you can make money, you just need to be smart, you don't need to waste hours on designs, just make them good enough quality or high enough resolution that they look okay scaled up on a t-shirt. I have to agree with Set.
I can't say I'm doing great but it's not doing so bad yet. Though I am limited by shipping demands as alot of customers always ask about shipping to the philippines, which is where most of my potential buyers may be located. GoodLuck to all of SS shopkeepers,designers and partners FYI I would start looking into putting up some Christmas stuff.
I guess I should have posted my spreadhirt link so if you want to look go ahead if you don't okay. I actually just found spreadshirt and literally found some good ways to make money, however its only been three days.
I have not yet made any sales not exactly sure why that is except I have found that these POD's are absolutely saturated and for good reason millions of people have terrific Ideas for apparel the problem always seems to lay with the admins and the way won't allow you to set up your shop without their logos, even with a free shop they should still let you set up your shop the way you see fit; without their slogans or designs mucking up your store, I never bother with premium shops unless I can see that the basic shop will pay for itself and most people feel the same way I do, I have marketed my shop like no other and yet in 3 days time still no visitors no sales nothing, I have made blogs,videos, and even business cards, Frankly if these basic shops can't even bring in traffic why would anyone think a premium shop would?
I understand where a lot of your comments have come from and we're all entitled to our option - hey, we all have our own unique experiences and I respect yours.
It's always good to get an indepth review - I found this as I didn't know the difference between having a store and using the market place. The hardest bit is getting your designs noticed. Although I haven't sold much, i've always been happy with the quality - I've had the same designs printed at SS and also Zazzle and SS has always been the best results.
All my designs are a bit specific though and are generally only for people from New Zealand - check it out if you can and let me know what you think.
Blegit, for a moment, I marked your comment as spam but then I approved it as it seems to be an alternative. I don't believe that you make over 6gs with that site. Prove it. Ben, thanks for your valuable experience. Managing a website is not as easy as people think and I completely feel your pain in what you had to go through.
It just goes to show you who they really care about. It feels almost like a betrayal. You put in work and make them money but they treat you like the dirt they walk on. I agree that SS is very hard to work with and doesn't really leave room for a profit margin. My advice to you all is open up a bigcartel. You are free to do and upload anything you want at no cost to you. Millions of people search and shop bigcartel daily.
You can check their webstats to see that. The only thing is you have to design and print your own shirts. But if you really want to be a designer then, that is the route to go any how.
Good Luck I hope this info helped. Great article. I noticed that you speculated what the SS experience would have been like buying designs in and then selling through a shop. I did this and thought you may be interested in how I got on. I opened a sports themed shop, bought a domain name and skinned the SS shop with nice graphics etc.
I made sales and quite quickly, mostly from Google searches, but overall the experience was fouled by SS since they would randomly pull designs I had bought in from the marketplace without warning leaving gaping holes in my shop.
I realise they have to comply with copyright, but it was the lack of even an automated email to warn me of the holes about to appear in the site that irritated me.
Thanks for the reply. Even if i disagree with what you say on SOME points, i enjoyed the article none the less. The many different views have given me perspective and a starting place as I venture into the murky waters. No doubt you have helped many such as myself; and if this is the act of a toddler or narcissist--well, we should all think about becoming call-it-like-it-is toddlers and I love to help people narcissist.
Thanks for the comment. I can assure you I am not a toddler but you are free to have your opinion. I actually thought about closing down this article because I no longer post on hubpages but I come here from time to time to moderate comments. I didn't know the CEO replies that often but wouldn't not knowing that make me "ignorant" and not an "idiot?
In that same respect, would the CEO be labeled ignorant for not knowing about my dozen designs? Either way, I'm over it. Really, I am! Believe me, I am no narcissist. My main goal of this article was no to get revenge or anything, but to share my experience with others and save them some trouble. I'm not forcing people away from spreadshirt. In fact, I encourage success.
The ratio to which people fail and give up is way higher than the success. There must be a reason for that. Just like you, I was looking for a way to make money online. Not passively, but actively and I turned to spreadshirt. Not because it's not fair, but because it's borderline scam IMO. Where does that money go? If they are imposing a production fee, why would they work so hard to promote their designer shop?
Who are their customers? The designers? I think that trying to milk money off the designers and not your core customers is bad business and it shows a lack of focus and long term goal.
I'm not speaking as a toddler. I'm speaking from experience. Take for example Hubpages. That's it. They don't try to up-sell you anything. They know that without you, the author, they wouldn't be in business. So they don't promote any "upgrade account" scams. They also offer lots of help for beginners to write better content, and in turn, make more money.
In contrast, Spreadshirt when I was there made it difficult to upload designs which can be rejected due to improper formatting or technical limitations of the plotting machine. Then they impose an upload limit. You can remove the upload limit if you pay. Then they give you a shop with their ads on it. You can get rid of it, if you pay. They offer no help, and their emails takes days to respond. Their marketplace is littered with design spam so you not only have to fight spreadshirt to get started, but you also have to fight design spammers just to get visible.
Their staff doesn't seem to follow any consistent guideline. I upload a design to get it rejected, then upload the same design and got it accepted. The CEO claims that they priced the same product you have on your shop more expensive because they don't want to "compete" with you.
It's funny that they say that because there is no competition. They are a huge site dominating the search engines. No way are people going to find your shop in google over the main spreadshirt site. That was a nice way of saying, "We can afford to set our prices higher because we can. I don't mean to come off as a petty narcissist or anything. I've helped a lot of people with this article regardless if they don't like me or my attitude.
It's hard enough to communicate clearly in real life much less, the Internet. I try to be direct in my writing. Every time you sell an item, your account will be credited. In the U. Payment can be issued via direct deposit or PayPal. Spreadshirt serves an international customer base and makes sure your designs are available for purchase in other countries like Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and more.
Spreadshirt provides excellent customer service to both sellers and customers. You can view answers to common questions via their Help Center online. Or, you can call customer service directly during regular business hours from Monday to Friday. You can also email customer service with questions at [email protected] and expect a response within 3 to 5 business days.
Spreadshirt has a 4. Most people report having a positive experience with their customer service team and being able to resolve situations quickly. Spreadshirt makes it simple to create one design and sell it multiple ways with adult and children-sized t-shirts, coffee mugs, baby onesies, and more.
The fact that you can use their marketplace with a built-in customer base is a key benefit as well. Spreadshirt would be best for anyone looking to start selling their creative designs and prints with few start-up costs and minimal logistics.
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