When I began my art business I was mostly a printmaker and painter, without fail I would paint a lovely design and the usual response was: I WANT THAT ON A SHIRT OR HAT! Art on apparel is an amazing way to get your work to a wider audience. A lot of folks, especially the 18-27 age range, aren’t always looking to buy art for their walls but they are more than willing to buy a rad sweat shirt or t-shirt. For me, I love the idea of having my art walking around in the wild on one of my customers, that’s amazing! But the idea of investing in an inventory that I could sit on for a long time was not my cup of tea. So I started researching ways I could offer apparel without dropping $800 on a shirt inventory, and I discovered:

DROP SHIPPING

*Custom embroidered hats from Printful from my recent hunting inspired collection*

What is drop shipping?

Drop shipping is a delightful e-commerce tool. Essentially you utilize a third party manufacturer to take care of creation, inventory, and shipping of your products for you. There are lots of drop shippers for e-commerce stores selling fashion and products, but I’m here to talk about fully customizable apparel for your business. The best drop shippers for fully customizable goods are Printify and Printful. I personally use and love Printful, and if you click on the link you can get $5 off your first order!

Now both of these distributors have plug-ins for your website so that everything is automated, you customer can order from your store and that order automatically goes to the distributor and they get started. Everything is MADE TO ORDER, which means that there is no waste or excess! A shirt is only printed if it is wanted/ordered. As someone constantly seeking to create a more sustainable business this is stellar. I took a break from drop shipping to explore other options of sustainable art apparel by screen printing on thrifted only items. It was fun, but I found it was extremely difficult to anticipate what folks would want, and some may like an item but it is in the wrong size. In the end I found myself with a pile of clothes that I was unsure would sell and felt very wasteful. I think that the made to order process is still the best for creating the least amount of waste.

Pros of Drop Shipping

No scary upfront investments, you only pay for what gets ordered
You can offer a wider selection of items for your customers
No waste or excess items are left in the ether or in your stockroom
Gives you more time and freedom to put in other aspects of your business as you don’t have to stress about production or shipping
Fully customizable goods, including shipping labels to add that personal touch

Cons of Drop Shipping

Prices, since you pay for individual items you aren’t getting a bulk discount, so your profit margin may be smaller, or you have to charge more to meet that profit and may eliminate certain brackets of your customer base.
Control, if you’re like me you have control issues. There is a part of me that hates that I can’t include a personal thank you note in each order.
Double Shipping, something to keep in mind if you offer other goods on your site, I offer prints and stickers on my site, inventory that I have on hand. So if someone orders a shirt and a print, they pay for one shipping cost, when there is actually the cost of shipping form the third party as well as me sending the print. (A cost/time thing to stay on top of)’
Explaining made to order, I constantly have folks ask if I have a hat or shirt on hand they could buy, the answer is yes, but not on ME they need to order from my website. The concept of having but not having can be confusing for people sometimes, and the added step of making an instant gratification population order online can sometimes deter customers. My advice, have a QR code handy so they can quickly get to your site, and explain the perk of no excess!

What Drop Shipper should you use?

As I mentioned there are tons of drop shippers for goods, but not a lot for fully customizable apparel. The two best in my opinion are Printify and Printful.

Printify offers easy integration, and quality products at decent prices. I found that Printify’s design printing size to be more limited.

Printful also offers easy website integration, quality products, good prices and perks as a business. You get two discounted orders a month for mockups, and the more business you do the more perks they give you.

*My honey Drew modeling my latest hunting inspired collection of hats and sweatshirts.*

Tips for Marketing with Drop Shipping

Both drop shipping options provide amazing mockup of the goods including ones on models as references for your site. I like to use the plain goods mockups for my storefront but I like to create my own marketing. I always order some samples of my products so that I can:

A) Double check print quality and placement

B) Get my own cohesive, branded content

C) Have the goods for myself or others at a discount, I often gift the goods to those that volunteer to model for me or I use it as a giveaway item for promotion.

By touching each product I offer in my store, it makes me feel a bit more connected to the process as well as more knowledgable to my customers when they have questions.

So if you’ve considered offering apparel, but don’t want the stress of high overhead, drop shipping is for you! It’s low stake, easy to use, and may be the right step for your business. Whether you want to offer your design work on apparel or branded merch for your business, if you want my advice? JUST DO IT!

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or jokes drop them in the comments below!

And as always,

Stay Wild!

Art Business Tip: How to Successfully Sell Apparel Without an Inventory