So you’re thinking of starting your own business selling t-shirts online? Selling t-shirts can be a flexible and lucrative way to earn a living and if you are passionate about t-shirts, it might seem like an ideal opportunity to turn a hobby into an income stream. To help get your business started and hopefully see it flourish and thrive, there are a few things you need to consider.

Whether you are looking to design and sell your own customised t-shirts online or are planning to act as a reseller for established designers, it is important to get the right set-up from the start. Changing the format and look of your business or brand once you have started selling your t-shirts online can be extremely difficult, so take some time to research the options and decide what will work best for you.

The most traditional and also the most time-consuming way to sell t-shirts online is by creating your own website, managing your own payment processing and arranging your printing and shipping. Selling t-shirts this way gives you full control over all the aspects of your business and may have the potential for making a good profit, but there are also more risks and resources required and you will need to be organised to make sure you can keep track of everything.

Arranging your own printing and stock and selling it through an online shop or auction site such as eBay, and this means you can spend less time worrying about payment processing and designing a site and more time managing the logistics of supply and demand. You might also have more time to spend on marketing your t-shirts online and through other mediums such as Facebook and Twitter and building your brand.

The simplest way to start selling t-shirts online may be through a t-shirt fulfilment service. There are a number of these and they allow you to design your t-shirts online and have them printed to order and dispatched direct to your customers. Many of them also take care of your content management, customer databases and payment processing, to help make the process of selling t-shirts online run even more smoothly for you. You simply have to design your site and take care of the marketing. Many of these sites are free to join and they have the added bonus of having no overheads and keeping no inventory. The main disadvantages include a lack of control over the day-to-day running of your business and the fact that they often take a fairly significant percentage of your profits from the sale of your t-shirts online.

Whatever option you decide on when selling t-shirts online, make sure you also spend some time identifying your target market. Will your customers be in Australia or overseas? Will you be selling to both sexes or men’s t-shirts only? Will you be targeting the high-end designer-t-shirt market or the mass market?

Make sure you also work out a basic plan to manage your business. Marketing is one of the most important aspects of any successful business, so it is well worth deciding on a strategy to increase customer awareness of your online store and help you grow your business right from the start.