Tees In A Pod: Cash in on the Holidays with Great Designs!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Cash in on the Holidays with Great Designs!

Designing for the holidays can be tough but also very rewarding. When you are first starting out and you want to make a buck off the holidays such as Christmas, Halloween, or Valentines day, it is important to have a clear idea of what your goals are. Three keys to designing for the holidays is timing, volume, and originality. If you follow these three things I feel you will be the Hallmark of tshirt designers.

The first very important thing to keep in mind when making holiday designs, is timing. By timing I mean you have to stay ahead of the holiday curve by getting your designs done a few months before the actual holiday hits. For example, if you are more of a Christmas person I would bypass designing for Halloween. For Christmas, start creating designs and merchandise as soon as August or September rolls around. Sounds too soon? Well think about this; when making quality Christmas designs, it serves you well to get those designs done by at least October. In doing so people will then have a whole two months to browse your online store, and the longer time you have to dangle your Christmas designs in front of potential buyers the better. If you decide to procrastinate and wait till late November to put up your designs you are losing out on sales! I guarantee your competition is going to have their Christmas designs from previous years out there for all to see, maybe even for the whole year so its important to prepare early.

Trick Couples Halloween Costume by CowPieCreek

The next important factor in becoming a Holiday bonus baby is volume. If you have an idea for a cute witch Halloween shirt, find as many variations of the design as possible. You could choose to design a witch on a broom looking wicked and ugly, or a witch on a broom that looks like the good witch. You could have the witch actually using the broom to clean and saying, "I may be a witch, but I'm a tidy witch" The more variations of the same design the better. People have many different tastes and styles and the more choices you have for the holidays the more you are going to sell. The same goes for the number of different designs. So once again, using the Halloween example, do some Jack-O-Lantern designs and some ghost designs etc. and make sure to create spin offs of those designs as well. Now do you see why in the first paragraph you want to give yourself some extra time to prepare for each holiday? You have a lot of designing to do, but it is going to pay off.

St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun by babyboutique

The third factor in having a very happy holiday online shop is originality. In the world of t-shirt and merchandise designs there are a lot of copycats out there who take others work and make it their own. Don't be one of these people. Yes you could do OK and sell a little bit, but to be a big time seller you want designs that represent your personality and have never been seen. People love hip, fresh, never before seen designs and that is what you are going to give them. For example instead of doing a St. Patrick's Day shirt that says, "Kiss me I'm Irish" mix it up and put a shamrock on there that says, "Kiss me, I'll shamrock your world." Just keep pumping out original designs and soon your shop will be the place to go to for new holiday gear.

I shared with you guys these three ideas because I really want your online shop to be as successful as it can be. By preparing early for the holidays your designs are going to be seen by more people for a longer period of time. Cranking out many different holiday designs and putting some variations on each design, is going to give your customers a great selection for them to buy as gifts for friends and family. Combine a multitude of designs with some never before seen original concepts and your store is going to be a merchandise printing t-shirt selling machine. As always, if you have any questions about holiday designing or any other t-shirt design related questions, feel free to ask us questions on the blog, our fan page, or twitter. We're here to help and make your online selling dreams come true.

Written By: Tim Fox, Soge Shirts - Funny T-shirts