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[Craig Stern]

I was just setting up a shop on CafePress.com to sell Sinister Design t-shirts, but I want to know if anybody here has had experiences with anyone better (i.e. cheaper, with better options, etc).

I just looked this up, and it lists a few CafePress alternatives. Can anybody recommend any of these?

[bateleur]

Depends what you're trying to achieve. CafePress and the competitors listed in that article are all stupidly expensive. In the same way as publishing a book via lulu.com it's the CafePress people that make all the money and you get very little unless your shirts are really expensive.

...But that may not matter if your main aim is to give your fans a way to buy shirts.

If you want to use t-shirts as a serious source of revenue similar to the way webcomics sometimes do then I'd recommend Custom Drop Shipper. Setting up a VIP account costs money, but once you've done it the individual shirts can actually be profitable without ripping off your customers.

The one downside is they don't do millions of colours. Although they do have ridiculous number of other customisable products.

I've occasionally considered setting up a t-shirt site for indie gaming merchandise generally and then inviting all the various small studios and game creators to submit designs (or let me make designs based on their IPs) and then share profits. Indeed, I might still actually do this if nobody else does. Maybe sometime next year once I've got a game of my own to promote.

[Craig Stern]

Custom Drop Shipper definitely has better prices on some of this stuff, but the fees for drop shipping are pretty high:

Price Options:        Price
1   Free for the first 30 days,Then $19.95 USD for each month
2   Free for the first 30 days,Then $55.95 USD for each 3 months
3   Free for the first 30 days,Then $99.95 USD for each 6 months
4   Free for the first 30 days,Then $179.95 USD for each year

I'd have to be convinced of really high sales before I'd be willing to give $180/year on top of the cost of the shirts a shot.

[MegaIlinx]

You should really find a local struggling screen-printer in your area and work out a deal with them. They might be able to get some shirts for the low as well. Your profile says you live in Chicago, so it shouldn't be too hard to get something worked out. Post something on craigslist or ask around in the city.

[Μarkham]

Local screen printing businesses are cheaper, but you have to buy in bulk.  A family friend owns one, and I think it was $500 for 100 shirts.  Dark colored and black shirts cost a little more, as do lots of colors.

However, while webcomics can make money off selling shirts, my guess is that indie games won't do as well as webcomics have the advantage of a larger dedicated fanbase thanks to the ability to put out more content on a more frequent basis.

[bateleur]

I'd have to be convinced of really high sales before I'd be willing to give $180/year on top of the cost of the shirts a shot.

That's why I was thinking it made sense to sell shirts for lots of games via one site. Because really $180 is pocket change if you're selling a decent number of shirts, but as Markham points out an individual game is unlikely to achieve that.

[Craig Stern]

You should really find a local struggling screen-printer in your area and work out a deal with them. They might be able to get some shirts for the low as well. Your profile says you live in Chicago, so it shouldn't be too hard to get something worked out. Post something on craigslist or ask around in the city.

I had a look, but I didn't find any that offered to process orders and ship out the shirts without any intervention from me. That's kind of important to me, since I want to spend my time working on games, not processing shirt orders. I appreciate the suggestion, though.

I ultimately decided to go with Printfection. You can have a look at the store I set up with them here. (The stock there is subject to change; I'm iffy on the first two shirts.)

[jeb]

I ultimately decided to go with Printfection. You can have a look at the store I set up with them here. (The stock there is subject to change; I'm iffy on the first two shirts.)

Hey, you don't happen to have versions without the big-ass "sinister design" logo on the back? I like the designs, but I don't want to pay $30 to be a walking advertisement post.

[Craig Stern]

I ultimately decided to go with Printfection. You can have a look at the store I set up with them here. (The stock there is subject to change; I'm iffy on the first two shirts.)

Hey, you don't happen to have versions without the big-ass "sinister design" logo on the back? I like the designs, but I don't want to pay $30 to be a walking advertisement post.

Understandable. Printfection doesn't make it easy to resize images, and it picks 10" by 10" by default for all back-of-shirt images, but I think I've found a way around that that won't require me to go shirt-by-shirt clicking resize and waiting for the screen to reload six times apiece. I'm experimenting right now.

[george]

I've occasionally considered setting up a t-shirt site for indie gaming merchandise generally and then inviting all the various small studios and game creators to submit designs (or let me make designs based on their IPs) and then share profits.

Is Attract Mode doing this, or something different (I mean I know they sell not just t-shirts, but I'm not sure how they choose what they sell)?

The main problem I have with CafePress is how expensive they are. Also there is a big difference between a nice shirt and a cheap shirt in fit and feel, it's kind of not worth it in my opinion to sell cheap shirts. Basically I feel like it's almost worth it to do order fulfillment yourself -- how many t-shirts do you think you'll sell?

I've done a run of just 25 shirts at a local screen printer (this is in Seattle), American Apparel with one color and a glow-in-the-dark glaze (they did the photoshop work to make that screen), and it was about $9 a shirt. The shirts themselves were $5 for that size of an order. With shipping that's about $11 for a very nice shirt.

A friend and old housemate of mine frequently would do runs of shirts in our house (printing in the basement and his room), usually about 400-600 shirts. He would charge around $500-700 dollars for this I believe, get them done in couple of days usually. With the cost of the shirts added at that size of an order it probably was a few grand total.

Anyway my point is that while CafePress is convenient, they're stupidly expensive and the product may not be what you want in the end.

[Craig Stern]

Hey, you don't happen to have versions without the big-ass "sinister design" logo on the back? I like the designs, but I don't want to pay $30 to be a walking advertisement post.

Okay, I re-made all the shirts with a much smaller logo. Just out of curiosity, which designs do you like?