Interview with Marc Katz – Past, Present & Future of CustomInk
What makes one custom t-shirt company shoot up the Google rankings? CustomInk CEO Marc Katz knows a thing or two about taking a company to the big time. So we took some time to pick his brain about CustomInk’s rise to success, effective business strategies, and the future of the custom apparel industry.
T-Shirt Talk: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Marc! We’ve read many stories about CustomInk’s Golden Rule business strategy, entrepreneurial stories of you and your father, and the fact that your reviews are 100% unfiltered. But we don’t want to just keep talking about the same thing everyone else does – we want to gain new insights into CustomInk’s success, strategy, and vision for the future of both the business and the industry in general. Sound good?
Marc Katz: (laughing) Sure! Talking about new things is good.
TST: It seems like everyone knows who CustomInk is. How did this happen? How did you go from such a small company at such a bad time for dotcoms to sitting on a throne at the top of a profitable t-shirt industry?
MK: Well, not everybody knows about CustomInk. I would certainly like them to, though! I think that you’ve got to have an end of the yarn to pull on to begin with – for us, that was paid search back in the day when you could do search engine marketing on goto.com for 25 cents a click. Then, Google Adwords started, and so on.
TST: Was that important in keeping CustomInk visible?
MK: I’ve really got to say that from the very beginning, we really went nuts about each customer’s satisfaction, not with the intent to build a large customer base, but simply to overwhelmingly delight people individually. When we combined that with a decent flow of early customers, it had a multiplying effect. It generated repeat and referral customers, and fed a strong organic search presence.
TST: What about now? Has that model remained the same?
MK: Yes. These days, about two thirds of our business comes from repeats and referrals. However, from our market analyses, we still think that we’ve got a long way to go.
TST: Who are these customers and what do they order?
MK: We’re really about the group and occasion customer. We do print single items, and it’s healthy, but our bread and butter is bulk. Doing bulk is very different than one-offs. Bulk orders are closely tied to our focus on service – we want groups to be emotionally invested in their experience. Custom t-shirts aren’t a cheap promo, they’re very sentimental. Hopefully that customer is going to love that shirt for 20 years.
TST: Is that a conservative estimate? (laughing)
MK: (laughing) Well, I have a few 20 year old shirts that I could never throw away, to be honest! Having that shirt means that I was part of something – it’s a reminder, a bond.
TST: There have been some big changes to the custom t-shirt industry since you started – the most shining example is direct to garment printing. How has DTG printing affected CustomInk?
MK: DTG has been very important – we use DTG for all of our singles, and some of our bulk when we think that it will give the best result. We’re still doing more screen printing. The quality is really the key for screen printing.
TST: DTG seemed to level the playing field a bit, at least for bigger companies like yourself, Cafepress, and Zazzle. How did you deal with your bigger competition?
MK: From very early on, we felt that Cafepress and Zazzle were focused on a different opportunity than we were – they were far more directed towards individual consumers who often bought pre-existing designs that could be printed on demand, as opposed to creating a custom design for themselves.
Additionally, we were doing bulk orders for the first few years, exclusively, and these days, bulk orders still make up most of our business.
TST: So doing bulk is what set you apart from your competition? Did you see a measurable impact in brand awareness from doing bulk rather than individual orders?
MK: Well, it was easy early on to think that our bulk model would lead to a more viral spread of our brand, but it didn’t quite work that way. People don’t seem to just talk about shirts, no matter how much you want them to.
The practical operating difference between CustomInk and Cafepress or Zazzle – especially Zazzle – is that when you read their copy, they tout about how automated their business process is. Your order goes from screen, to printer, to shipping, “automagically.” With CustomInk, it’s a personal process – every single order gets personal attention.
TST: How much personal attention? How do you afford that with your volume?
MK: The economics do work on an order by order basis. Not every order is a money-maker, but overall, providing that level of service doesn’t lose us money. However, building the original infrastructure – the website, the general operating overhead -lost us money for a while. We covered that with seed financing, but when the bubble burst, the venture financing that we had imagined never came to fruition. It was quite a while before we realized that we didn’t need it. The whole time that we were getting the business working, we were scraping together seed investors here and there to pay the bills and finance our losses, and we were looking for a bigger VC round, unsuccessfully.
We reached a point a year and half into the business where we realized that it wasn’t going to happen – but if we just stayed the course, we could pay our own way. Then, tragically, 9/11 happened – that set things back quite a bit actually, and the ensuing winter was very lean. We saw business drop almost 40% immediately, off of already small numbers. We didn’t have a great understanding of the seasonality of the market at that point – it took 5-6 months to recover. In mid 2002, we turned the corner to profitability. It was really a matter of tactics, not strategy, at that point – we just got really good at paid search marketing very early on before it was fashionable and still inexpensive.
TST: Since internet marketing has been one of your greatest advantages, you must have been concerned about brand identity. Not that long ago, you guys finally made the jump to a complete branding set with Inky, your logo, custom fonts, and redesigns of your website and design tool. What took so long and how effective has branding been for you?
MK: I feel like what branding really came down to was a decision and a concerted effort to take what the company was all about internally and on a one to one basis and project that outwardly. Previously CustomInk came off generic – we had a distinctive internal identity, but that wasn’t represented to the world. After a decade of getting the process down and earning trust one customer at a time, we finally told everyone who we were through our branding.
TST: Now that you are at the top of your industry — how is CustomInk going to lead the custom apparel industry?
MK: We are focused on custom t-shirts and complimentary items, as opposed to customizing every product possible. There is something special and powerful about t-shirts in particular, so that’s where our focus is. That’s where feel we need to take leadership responsibility. In general terms, we believe that we’re going to lead the way in raising the bar on what the market can expect from the industry – quality, design, speed, etc. The more fundamental thing is that we want to change people’s perception of custom apparel – we want to engage them in the idea that custom t-shirts are not just ordinary garments.
TST: I think that your customer photo contest really shows that people care about t-shirts. It’s almost strange that people are not just willing but ecstatic and excited to share their CustomInk experience.
MK: We have tens of thousands of pictures that customers send in – what does it mean? Apparently, it’s human nature to put on a shirt and then stand in a group and take a picture – maybe that goes back to cave men painting their bodies to identify with each other (laughing). Our slogan — “T-shirts Unite” — conveys that. We want to get the public to identify and appreciate that, and it’s fascinating to see how overwhelmingly positive their response is.
TST: There are many new online apparel companies that are struggling for visibility against larger competitors such as yourselves. What advice do you have for emerging businesses in this industry?
MK: Don’t bother competing with us. (laughing) I guess I would say, if you do a great job for your customers, even if you’re small, you’ll have a business. Substance counts for everything.
I always reached out to people who were further down the road building the kind of company that I wanted to have – I found that almost always, those people aren’t just willing, but are eager to give back to another entrepreneur. I try to do that now – I’ll get contacted by entrepreneurs who are looking for some input, or guidance, or just a sounding board and I’m happy to do it. There’s a pay it forward mentality among entrepreneurs. The best advice is to try to get out there and share your ideas and bounce them off people who are further along than you.
TST: What about for companies that are specifically interested in t-shirts, like yourselves?
MK: In terms of advice specific to custom t-shirts and not just custom apparel, I guess I would say that people should really try to carve out a specific niche, unless they think they have some better way of doing the whole shebang – in which case, please call me. We have a lot of imitators now doing what we do. Some of them are good businesses, but unfortunately now there are so many turnkey online design apps and sites available for white label that I don’t think just launching another site without support and content to back it up is very smart.
Obviously we wouldn’t mind not having the competition or the noise – but that’s just the reality of it.
TST: Where do you see the print-on-demand category headed?
I think there is the potential for convergence among companies – you’ve got companies that have really come at the on-demand printing business from different angles and mediums (direct vs. marketplace, or apparel v. paper). As these markets mature, I wonder how much convergence there will be – I really do wonder, not rhetorically. Ten years from now, are Cafepress and Vistaprint going to be the same thing, and just competitors? Are they going to converge?
TST: I really appreciate your insights into both your own company, the t-shirt industry. Any last words before we wrap up here?
MK: Our customer reviews… they truly are uncensored. Honesty and transparency is key. It keeps us honest, and attracts the right kind of people to the company, too. We don’t want someone who is a slacker, and a slacker doesn’t want to be somewhere where a customer can comment on their bad service. Unfortunately, there is some cynicism – a lot of people look at our uncensored reviews and just don’t believe it. But it really is real. Really.
TST: Marc, thank you so much for being so open, candid, & honest with us today. We wish you and the CustomInk success in all your endeavors.
MK: Thank you. Likewise!
Interview with Jake Nickell on Threadless Partnerships – T-Shirt Talk Exclusive
Two weeks ago on T-Shirt Talk, we wrote an op-ed piece called, “Does Partnering with GAP Diminish Threadless’ Cool Factor?” which covered Threadless‘ recent partnership with GAP. In the article, we addressed a range of concerns, such as the nature of the partnership, artist royalties, and brand continuity. We wanted to tie all the loose questions and concerns together that we had found on blogs, forums, and Threadless community comments into one cohesive article that presented the partnership from all angles – the good, and the (potential) bad.
Our research payed off – shortly after publishing our article, Threadless Founder and CCO (Chief Community Officer) Jake Nickell published a heartfelt blog post, “Why Does Threadless Exist?” which addressed some of the issues that our article had underlined as questionable in terms of the benefit to Threadless and its community. We were pleasantly surprised when, the same day, Threadless contacted us and asked us if we would like to do a little quid pro quo with Jake Nickell himself – a Q and A session regarding partnerships, growth, the community, and how Threadless is avoiding growing pains (and stretch marks.)
Of course, we jumped at the opportunity to talk to Jake, both as the founder of Threadless to answer our questions, and as an ambitious entrepreneur who might just be able to teach us a thing or two about running your own business, satisfying a community, and learning how to accept and integrate partnerships.
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We gave Jake a ring from our quaint, naturally lit office last week on a rainy Wednesday afternoon – after some “Can you hear me now?” we finally got to talking.
T-Shirt Talk: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Jake! Did you read our article?
Jake Nickell: Of course. You guys were pretty thorough – it made me think. Did you read my blog post, “Why Threadless Exists?”
TST: Yes – we were glad that your blog post followed our article so closely – good timing! To start things off, we wanted to focus in on partnerships. How has Threadless handled the partnership process? What was it like at first, as opposed to now?
JN: At first, we weren’t really seeking out partnerships, since we were doing everything ourselves. Once Threadless got moving, we started to get too many partnership requests. It was hard to develop a good vetting process, let alone handle the inbound requests.
Partnerships are really something that we’ve been trying to figure out since we started the “Loves” campaign – our first series of “real” partnerships. When we launched Loves, the design community loved it! They were happy to design something for someone else, like a band, or for the chance to win something awesome, like a trip.
As we kept growing, we started to gain more exciting partnerships – they just seemed to land on our doorstep every single day.
TST: So most early partners came to you first?
JN: Overwhelmingly.
TST: When did you start making larger partnerships?
JN: We first got approached by a company (which was far larger than GAP, actually) in 2004 – it took us 8 years to figure out how to make something of that scale work. GAP is really our first “big retail” partnership. When it finally all came together, it made perfect sense, though.
TST: What was the biggest concern from the community about partnering with a corporation the size of GAP?
JN: Honestly, I thought there would be a bigger backlash – the most negative feedback that we’ve been getting from consumers and the community has been something along the lines of, “GAP clothes are made in sweatshops!” which as we all know is a decade old PR issue Gap had that they have long since rectified. GAP’s Threadless tees are made by us in factories we’ve approved.
GAP pays us wholesale for Threadless shirts – we manufacture them, not GAP. We have a manufacturing partner in the Dominican Republic, which we visit regularly to make sure that everything meets our ethical standards.
TST: Have there been concerns about partnerships degrading the continuity of the Threadless brand?
JN: You know, in 2007 Harvard did a case study on Threadless – in fact, if you go to Harvard Business School, there is an entire class that teaches you about the Threadless business model. One of the key questions that they ask is, “Should they go big retail? Why?”
One of our main answers for partnering with large distributors is variety – we’ve always tried to use variety with Threadless by itself, but there is only so far that we can go.
TST: You’re saying big partnerships are really an extension of the existing “curated crowd-sourcing” model – a way to provide more channels for the wide variety of art you’re getting from a growing community?
JN: Yes, that’s really why we wanted to explore partnerships in the first place – to filter different styles of art to their corresponding demographics, and interests into their correct markets.
Consumers don’t want to see the same things everywhere. Threadless consumers, for example, want to see “Threadless style” art on t-shirts on our website. Retail consumers, however, might want to see something a bit different on an iPhone case, or a thermos. GAP consumers are going to want to see something a little less “avant-garde,” something more relatable to the simplicity of GAP.
Of course, in the end, the artists want their artwork everywhere possible. Partnerships have always been about the artists – and so far, they have been 100% positive about all of it. We presented GAP about 100 designs for the first run of shirts – we notified all the designers, and not a single one said no.
GAP ended up using 26 of those designs for the first offering, and we’re reviewing designs for the next offering now.
TST: How often can we expect rotation of Threadless offerings inside GAP?
JN: We’re not completely solid about how many shirts and how often yet – we’ve talked to GAP about weekly / monthly rotation, but it’s hard for a big retailer to change stock that often.
TST: Since only a small percentage of designs get selected and distributed at a time, how is Threadless making it worth it for artists?
JN: I want Threadless to have a serious impact on the way art is consumed – we want to give credit to the artists, and tell stories about where the art and the artist come from. You know, Lego was doing something cool where you could submit lego models and get featured on the back of the packaging – we thought this was a really novel idea, personalizing products to the artists, instead of just the brands. Sometimes the artist’s story gets lost in the marketing – the brand stories, the advertising fabrications that surround the reality of the thing, which is that an artist, not a brand, spent time and energy into producing it in the first place.
Threadless’ goal is to make sure that every artist, both online and at retail, gets their personal story told and receives unique exposure and promotion.
TST: There has been concern that the “flat prize” for getting your design selected isn’t fair or sensible in every situation – has Threadless considered a more robust royalty system for artists to receive compensation?
JN: Yes. We’re working on a royalty system right now, the only challenge we have to overcome is that we don’t yet have the tech infrastructure for it. We understand that sometimes royalties will return a greater profit to artists, whereas other times a flat prize makes more sense – in the end, we want to be able to offer both methods for different situations.
For instance, a thermos sold at Target might seem like it would be huge for everyone – however, the individual profits end up being pretty small when you split up the percentages. This is an example of where you would want to offer a flat prize as opposed to royalties.
Financially, any partnership gets complicated with a third hand in the pot – everybody’s gotta get paid.
TST: You’ve really offered a lot of insight into your partnerships and how you are keeping your community happy. Thanks for answering all of our questions! We don’t want to take up your whole afternoon, but before we let you, we just wanted to ask you two more questions.
JN: Of course. I’ve got a lunch coming up soon, so good timing.
TST: We’ve heard that Threadless is getting into Print on Demand – how is this integral to Threadless as a business, and how does it fit into the vision / mission of the company?
JN: We never want to be a Zazzle or a Cafepress.
Threadless will always have a strong level of curation and community involvement – so long as the quality of the actual products is the same, POD makes business sense. With our POD, the quality is 100%. Additionally, one of the reasons we looked at POD in the first place was international distribution – we realized that if we can utilize POD, we don’t have to have duplicative inventory all over the place.
Besides, T-Shirt warehouses are expensive, and bad for the environment.
TST: Smart! Speaking of smarts, we have one more question for you: As someone who didn’t finish college themselves, do you think that experience is more valuable than education?
JN: If you’re going to be a doctor, you should probably go to college. As an entrepreneur or artist – you should go the experience route. I have a friend who is using a variety of internships to build what he is calling his “personal MBA program” – for the next year, he’s going to be interning at different companies for a month at a time in leadership and executive positions, and learn about business by spending a year doing that. Instead of paying for college tuition, he just has to pay for his living expenses – which compared to college are much cheaper.
Myself, I was working full time in my sophomore year of college when I started Threadless – I dropped out in my junior year to do freelance web consulting with my company, SkinnyCorp. It still took another 4 years before Threadless started making money.
Looking back at my life, from going to school full time and then winding down to part time, I realized that I was learning skills that I wanted to have, but then using them for something completely different than I intended. When i started Threadless, my project at SkinnyCorp was to build an commerce website for dvd’s (deepdiscount.com, which I think is still up and running). The client got charged $250,000 for this site, and I was the sole developer. So, I ended up making $45,000 in a short 3 months. That’s how i made the jump to freelance work – which, then, made me realize that I could sell anything that I wanted online, and profit from that.
At the time, I was a part of this international forum for design called Dreamless.org. I posted a thread on the forum, which basically said “Post your artwork in this thread and I’ll make things out of it.” I printed about two dozen shirts at first – then, I decided to start Threadless. In fact, the name Threadless is a reference the original thread I posted on Dreamless, asking people for their artwork.
TST: Thank you for the inspirational illustrations – they really show how you can “think for yourself.” You’ve really given us some great insights today – Jake, thank you so much for your time.
JN: You’re welcome – thank you!
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As the founder of a massive, cool company like Threadless, you might not expect Jake Nickell to be so down to earth, honest, and enthusiastic. But he is. You really get a sense of the love and dedication that goes into Threadless talking to Jake – not to mention the practicality of Threadless business decisions, and the level of direct involvement that they share with their community. In so many words, Jake Nickell delivered a very focused answer to our original question, “Does Partnering with GAP Diminish Threadless Cool Factor?”
His answer is a resounding, “Nope.”
Does partnering with Gap diminish Threadless’ cool factor?
Upon hearing the announcement of the GAP + Threadless partnership, we just had to ask: Does partnering with Gap diminish Threadless’ cool factor?
The recent announcement of Gap’s partnership with Threadless has sparked much debate among both the t-shirt design community & consumers looking to cash in on cool apparel – but consumers are concerned if the partnership may tarnish the authenticity that made Threadless so cool.
So, is what’s being marketed as an opportunity for artists to start “Making Great Together” really so great?
GAP’s Call to Action for T-Shirt Artists
GAP’s “Gap + Threadless” ad video features quotes from selected Threadless artists explaining how to “Make Great Together,” the marketing slogan for the new partnership.The video provides quotes from the artists that address some of the big concerns that t-shirt artists (or any artists, for that matter) commonly face – finding a broad audience, feeling important, and being part of a huge movement that advocates art and working together. It concludes by offering hope for aspiring designers with the slogan, “Your Design Could Be Next.” Gap goes on to explain on their website:
“It doesn’t matter what corner of the Internet you live in. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an art nobody or an art somebody. Anyone can make an iconic tee, even you, so get going!”
GAP isn’t just pulling designs from the Threadless community – they’re also providing an alluring incentive for anyone in their audience to submit T-Shirt designs. But a key question remains:
Does GAP’s use of Threadless’ crowdsourcing model for t-shirt design pay off for artists as well as consumers?
Crowdsourcing has proven itself as an effective means to both engage audiences & also provide cheap product volume for companies to choose from. That all seems well and fine, but several concerns emerge as you pore deeper into the subject. For example, GAP is offering artists who’s designs are selected $2000 cash, a $500 Gap GiftCard, & a $500 Threadless gift certificate (which can be redeemed for $200 in cash). All in all, that’s a $3000 dollar deal for the artist, which seems pretty handsome considering that it’s for just one design. The issue, though, is the ethical implication of how relatively low the pay/time ratio is for artists. For example, if an artist spends 10 hours creating a masterful t-shirt design, he has a chance to make $300 per hour. However, there’s absolutely no guarantee that a design with so much time put into it will be selected for print by GAP. Conversely, if an artist spends 1 hour creating 10 decent t-shirt designs, he gains a much higher chance of being selected just based on volume alone.
Consider, though, that the value and impact of the work received from crowdsourcing can be all over the map – most user generated t-shirt designs won’t be up to par, and only a select few will be stellar and interesting enough to get hand picked for GAP. GAP only picked 15 Threadless artists for their first offering of tees (16 men’s tees, only 10 women’s – the demographic lines are clearly drawn), and we don’t know when they will select the next batch. These numbers are incredibly small compared to the number of designs that GAP receives from Threadless – which is great for GAP, but not so great for the artist. In the end, an artist may spend countless hours designing and submitting art for t-shirts in the hopes of being featured in the GAP + Threadless product line, and never get compensated for any of it.
Art Peck, President of GAP North America, remarked:
“We’ve always admired Threadless’ democratic approach in sourcing ideas from its community and then letting the community vote for the designs they want to wear. We share the same belief that great ideas can come from anywhere, and we can’t wait to give artists another way to get their designs out into the world by selling them in our stores.”
Granted, that’s the nature of the crowdsourcing game – GAP gets infinite marketing resources, essentially for free. Threadless, however, may become quickly polluted on the back and front ends with an overabundance of so-so designs, ballooning themselves out of their niche of high quality art due to rapid inflation in the volume of submitted designs, making them less distinguishable from sellers in a lower class. Threadless alludes to this issue in a blog post revealing the partnership with GAP, when they said:
“One of the things we’ve struggled with is finding designs for partners. It’s an extremely manual process. We’ve had nearly 400,000 designs submitted to Threadless in the past but we really don’t have a very good way to search through them to find designs for partners. Well, now you can help by tagging your designs! For the best chance at getting your design selected for a partnership, we need you to tell us more about the content, concept and appeal of your design.”
Potentially, GAP’s crowdsourcing might not be so cool for Threadless, as both a community and a destination for high quality t-shirt design.
There is concern that the GAP + Threadless partnership may stray from what made Threadless great originally.
Consumers, artists, and some in the Threadless community are concerned that partnering an independent, highly artistic community like Threadless with a corporate conglomerate like GAP is contrary to Threadless’ original mission, which is what attracted so many people to the brand in the first place.Defending the GAP + Threadless partnership, and all Threadless partnerships for that matter, Threadless Co-Founder Jack Nickell explained his view of this “dissonance” and the companies’ future on his blog. He said,
“What I really wanted to discuss… is Threadless partnerships more broadly. The fact that, now, when you submit a design to Threadless, it’s not just to become a Threadless tee. We are working with many partners, Gap is just one, to find opportunities for many more of the designs submitted.
Some of these you’ve seen like Griffin, Dell, Thermos, etc. Others are future partnerships in the works and let me tell you, there are a LOT of them! Some are t-shirt based like Gap but others aren’t. We’re a design community first, it just so happens we’ve mostly been printing designs on tees.
…keep in mind that when you submit a design in the future, it may not just be Threadless.com where or what you could see it end up on – we’re looking for all sorts of opportunities to get your work out into the world. Over time you will also see us make submitting ideas for things other than tees an easier process.”
Jack clears any confusion about users designs being sold without their permission by adding,
“P.S. In case it’s not crystal clear, we always contact you about an opportunity before we give your design to a partner.”
Threadless’ PR rep Bethany Allen added:
“Our goals have not changed. We exist to give the creative minds of the world more opportunities to make and sell great art… we’ve been doing partnerships to further this goal for years. We’ll never be content with status quo, so much to do!”
If they haven’t already, Threadless would do well to ask themselves, regarding the continuity and impact of their brand,
“Are we spreading ourselves too thin? Are we becoming just another national brand to be lost among the infinite list of existing brands? Are we going to lose our hardcore, niche market community base by expanding too quickly?”
Understandably, Threadless is a growing company that has risen quickly in popularity, over the last few years in particular. Maybe Threadless wants out of their niche, in order to grow. Maybe they want to become a nationally recognized brand, breaking the shackles of their small but dedicated (& still growing) community. But, if Threadless begins to appear in other large retailers besides GAP, they may lose much of the impact that their neat little corner of the internet once fostered for them.
The Price of Partnership
A small but key issue regarding the GAP + Threadless partnership is price. Typically, Threadless tees sell for around $15 to $30, with more expensive options usually going to the highest, most detailed, quality art. Users are free to set their own prices, so the value judgement is ultimately up to the artist, not Threadless.GAP, however, has priced all of their GAP + Threadless options at a stark $29.95, regardless of the design – a small margin above Threadless own pricing, but an exceptionally meaningful one to consumers & artists alike, considering that Threadless shirts have never been available in physical retail marketplaces, except for Threadless HQ and a single outpost in New York. Consumers & artists have begun voicing some concern for the higher profit margins of mass-produced GAP tees vs. lower priced, independently printed Threadless tees. Threadless community member Tracerbullet explains their consumer stance in a comment on the announcement blog post:
“Very cool, but $30? blech. i’ll admire these from afar.”
User Jennifer.Fujimoto added fuel to the consumer fire concerning GAP’s pricing of Threadless prints when she said:
“I am also disappointed that the same designs are not available in Men’s and Women’s. This is something that I’ve always loved about threadless shirts. And the prices are so high! I might have shelled out the bucks for the super awesome lucky no. 7 shirt, but I probably won’t since I don’t like the way that men’s shirts fit (me).”
There exists a conflict between Threadless buyers and designers, as well. Threadless buyers want exclusivity; they want to be trend setters instead of trend followers. Threadless designers (like any designers) are looking for exposure and distribution. Considering that only 0.6% of designs actually get printed by Threadless, the bar has already been set high for designers to clear the hurdle of exposure. Partnering with a huge retailer like GAP seemingly provides a solution to help designers get selected more often, or at least get more compensation for their submissions. However, if GAP + Threadless gets designers to “work” for free, it may cheapen the entire industry, as noted by Threadless community member martiandrivein. Regarding compensation, many in the Threadless community (& design community at large) agree that designers should be compensated based on a percent of sales instead of receiving a one time payment of flat prize money.
Threadless’ PR Guru Bethany Allen speaks out about compensation, saying:
“It’s the same compensation as Threadless.com T-shirts… $2,000 in cash, $500 Threadless gift certificate, and $500 in cash each time your design is reprinted.”
In the end, designers may end up feeling exploited by receiving little compensation compared to the massive corporate margins GAP will take in from selling the designs. If Threadless wants to ensure that their community of designers feels “taken care of,” as well as loosen resistance to expand into future partnerships, they may want to adopt a model that actually profits the creators of the product – the artists & their designs – instead of just providing artists with a free lunch ($3000 disappears quick) while providing huge profits for a massive distributor like GAP.
Threadless CEO Thomas Ryan also comments:
“This partnership with Gap enables us to not only print more artists’ designs, but also allows us to provide great exposure for these independent artists.”
However, having designs in a GAP store is obviously a huge advantage for only a very small percentage of Threadless artists to receive an enormous amount of exposure. Adhesive Hippo, another Threadless community member, provided a neutral defense for GAP’s use of Threadless designs when they said:
“To me it just seems like it’s a way for designers to get more exposure. It’s not like GAP is anything special, design wise, GAP just likes TL shirts and now the designers can say one of their clients was GAP.”
The GAP + Threadless partnership is definitely going to be profitable – most U.S. consumers haven’t been exposed to something along the lines of Threadless quality “art apparel” before – but there may be a price to pay concerning the mental health of the Threadless design community, not to mention the watchful eye of discerning consumers.
GAP’s motive for partnering with Threadless isn’t just about supporting artists – it’s about staying fresh to stay afloat.
In the past few years, GAP has seen the start of a slow landslide financially, beginning with their stock. GAP’s stock, which used to be a sure seller, has become more of a discount aisle offering, with last year’s income falling 17% along with a 4% drop in store comps.
GAP has been stripping itself of unnecessary fluff, becoming a store mainly for “basics” items and accessories to cut spending on what’s trending. However, the GAP + Threadless partnership shows a renewed interest in expanding GAP’s horizons into a new demand market – apparel as art.Partnering with Threadless in February gave GAP a way to beat the analysts in their projections of a 1.4% decrease in sales – same-store sales actually increased by 4% last month, the tail end of which included GAP’s Threadless offerings.
GAP is doing well to make their brand stand apart from the competition by adding new offerings which may well serve as a basis to reinvent the GAP brand. However, in doing so, GAP’s partnership with Threadless may prove to favor GAP by providing large profit gains reaped from Threadless’ high quality niche of artists and designers, while only offering Threadless exposure and volume at the cost diminishing their brand image.
Source: InvestorPlace
So… does GAP + Threadless diminish Threadless cool factor or not?
Honestly, at this early stage in the game, it’s hard to deduce a clear answer. What is clear is that both consumers & the Threadless community seem generally positive about the move; people are exicted to get into Gap retail stores to pay $30 for a shirt they could have purchased from Threadless directly for $20. That’s the power of retail at work.Threadless definitely benefits from this partnership by receiving a huge opportunity to exponentially increase volume, exposure, and revenue. However, it is wise to keep in mind that there are a number of concerns for all parties involved in this partnership; for consumers, for artists, and in particularly for Threadless themselves, in regards to the continuity of their brand, and the happiness of their niche market community of designers and buyers.What has become absolutely clear is that GAP takes away the big (& quite possibly the biggest) benefit out of everyone involved in the partnership by increasing their already massive (although historically low) corporate revenue.
Threadless has shown confidence in their decision to partner with GAP; only time will tell who gains the most from the deal, and if Threadless will indeed “lose their cool” in the process.
More T-Shirt Site Plagiarism: Shirt Magic vs. CustomInk
There is no doubt that “custom t-shirts”, “t-shirts” and variations of these words are highly competitive industries. It is clear that many businesses are willing to do whatever it takes to get an edge. Some choose black hat seo link building while others just choose to copy others text and/or t-shirt designs. On custom t-shirt talk we have reported a few other incidents including Nerdy Shirts blatantly copying Busted Tees as well as other legal battles between Customized Girl and Custom Glam Girl. I discovered this yesterday when checking out Shirt Magic. As you can see below on their homepage they posted the following text
Opps, we goofed. We mistakenly used some designs and text from Customink.com, another t-shirt company. We appologize and have take corrective action
They ACTUALLY link to Customink Oh and Shirt Magic “appologized”, rather than “apologized” to make it even funnier.
What do you think about this type of forced public humiliation punishment of Shirt Magic rather than legal action on behalf of Custom Ink? What should be done when someone copies your t-shirt designs or site text?
Zazzle Pro-Sellers PR Interview Questions
The following email was sent to Zazzle pro-sellers for “press” opportunities or was it? It looks more like a Zazzle trying to understand their pro-seller demographics than them really trying to help out their sellers. What do you think?
• Give us a brief bio! Tell us a little about yourself and your artwork!
• Do you do art/design for a living? If not, what is your day job?
• How did you originally hear about Zazzle and when did you join our Seller community?
• What is your inspiration for your designs?
• What was the first product you ever sold on Zazzle, and how long did it take you to make that first sale?
• What is your inspiration for your designs?
• How many products do you currently have for sale on Zazzle?
• What advice would you give to artists and designers just getting started on Zazzle?
• What is your favorite Zazzle product to design, and why?
• What do you use the money that you earn from Zazzle for?
• Do you have any fun stories about being a seller on Zazzle?
• How do you promote your Zazzle store and products?
• When you’re not creating art, what are your other hobbies?
• Are there any artists you look up to when it comes to designing?
Rumplo out of Business? Where have you gone?!
Rumplo.com has been down for many many days with no sign of life. Does anyone know what happened to them? They had a great website, fantastic t-shirts and a growing following. Their last tweet was “Hi everyone. We’re aware of the image issue with newly posted T-Shirts and we’re working on it. Thanks for your patience! 11:09 AM Jun 1st via web” Not sure if they have been online anytime since that last tweet or not.
What do you know?
Is American Apparel Going Out of Business?
The Guardian published a disturbingly amusing article on American Apparel that begins with discussions of the founder Dov Charney and oral sex, masturbation, illegal immigrant labor, sexual harassment, socks worn in strange places, and boardroom underwear.
American Apparel has almost become a household name and one of the few remaining American made clothing companies. The company has been praised for great fashionable clothing and offering fair wages, healthcare, and free international phone calls during work hours. As with many companies in today’s economy they are facing lower sales and increased debt. American Apparel’s shares are at an all time low and the company is losing almost $30 million a year.
With the founder Dov Charney’s almost lunatic actions would it surprise you if American Apparel went bankrupt or will these antics just bring more press and sales? Seriously, this article has some hilarious quotes so go read it yourself and don’t forget to read some of the comments, those are quite amusing.
Trademark Battle: CustomizedGirl.com vs. CustomGlamGirl.com
CustomGlamGirl.com battles it out with ERetailing’s CustomizedGirl.com. CustomGlamGirl.com who also owns Takeouttees.com filed seven trademark infringement claims (E’Stephenie Inc. v. E Retailing Associates, LLC, et al. 1:04-cv-01235-LJM-WTL.). The claims include unfair competition, copyright interference with prospective economic advantage and unjust enrichment but all were rejected. Thee were no trademarks for CustomGlamGirl.com in the state of Indiana or federal system and no evidence for the widely used terms “custom,” “glam,” and “girl” . These battles actually begain in 2004 fairly close after CustomizedGirl.com opened around March 2004 (CustomGlamGirl.com opened around March 2003 a year prior)
You probably have seen them both advertising in US weekly and it was confusing about who was who. Their websites even looked similar and customized girl even tried to take advantage of the confusion somewhat by creating a page dedicated to comparing the sites. In the end though, the courts found no issue with the similarities in the branding of the two sites.
You can read more about the case at lifestyletom.
Major Competition to Cafepress and Zazzle Coming Soon
Hello, We need a clone of cafepress.com or zazzle.com with exact features. Please review the website before bidding. Please let us know if you already developed a similar website for someone before and have script available for sale… (Budget: $250-750, Jobs: ASP, Flash, PHP, SQL, Website Design)
A Google alert for Cafepress brought up this project on GetaFreelancer.com that has 15 bids with an average bid of $ 727.
I can’t decide which programmer I would choose if I was the project creator. Maybe this guy….
Hi, we are very interested.we have gone through wit the requirements you pasted in your description. We can easily do it with our expertise. we will provide your project with required language. we will provide you regular updates during progress, if we get this…. And also if you have any query please let us know. We are available for you all the time. Let’s work together. Regards Meena
or maybe if you like a programmer who is brief.
Demo will be provided within 30 days. Please feel free to leave me a message if you’ve any question. Thanks
but then again I am always looking for a true developer:
I can Provide this Service tou you. If you want to cooperate with a true developer, please give me a sign.Please Contact me on PMB. Thank you.
Watch out Cafepress and Zazzle, Shirtauctions is going to be a major player sooner than you think! with JUST $750!
Artist/Graphic Designer wanted…
I have no intention of ever paying you and I want to use you and then abdondon you and steal all your hard work .. and claim it as my own and then never ever ever pay you.. I am no better than a common street thug and will outsource anything that I want produced if I am not able to find an American to do the job. I will commonly ask you to steal art and you will get left holding the bag if anyone ever questions you about it etc.. Please submit your art for my T-Shirts that I sell and profit from.. I want ideas that you put your blood sweat and tears into that take you literally hours to complete .. please keep in mind I have NO intention of ever paying you and I will make the empty promise of “Sharing the profits”..
No, this isn’t my advertisement! I found this on Craigslist.org and almost peed my pants.
