Buying clothing, personalising and selling on

[Neil_M]

Good Evening

My wife is looking to start up a small business selling personalised items.

I just wanted to ask for some advice about personalised clothing. What are the rules around buying items of clothes (e.g. plain white t-shirt) from Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s etc printing some text or image (her own designs) and selling on?

Thanks
Neil

 

[anonuk]

You’d be better off signing up to a wholesale clothing supplier. Prices will be much better than Tesco etc and a lot of the brands have tear out labels to make them look more professional.

There’s no rules as such but I’d advise against using tshirt transfers if she’s selling them. What sort of equipment are you planning on using to print the text/images?

 

[MBE2017]

Not my industry, but I would argue there are rules, particularly regarding text and images. If truly her own work she should be fine, but in today’s world she has to be careful against copyright claims, where another company feel she is infringing on their rights.

Disney is a prime example, even having a character that looks like or is called something similar to theirs could result in action. Just make her aware to be truly original.

 

[paulears]

I used to do it with microphones. I found the product, applied my own labels and did well for a few years. In T-shirts, Fruit of the Loom have been a common source for years. If what she does involves here designs, make sure you do a Disney and continually check others don’t pinch her designs.

 

[Neil_M]

I used to do it with microphones. I found the product, applied my own labels and did well for a few years. In T-shirts, Fruit of the Loom have been a common source for years. If what she does involves here designs, make sure you do a Disney and continually check others don’t pinch her designs.

Thank you

 

[Neil_M]

I used to do it with microphones. I found the product, applied my own labels and did well for a few years. In T-shirts, Fruit of the Loom have been a common source for years. If what she does involves here designs, make sure you do a Disney and continually check others don’t pinch her designs.

Thank you

 

[fkofficial]

Our view of fashion seems to disagree somewhat haha. It's art as I see it. I am the artist and my canvas is the object. I often think clothing is a form of speech. For the designer and the customer, really. I don't know if it looked like I was just a child watching someone saying "i'm doing it too" seeing someone doing it, but that's not the case. We've been worrying about it and wr know that we're taking a chance. Sorry, I was just trying to get this out of the way.

Thank you for this advice. Do you have any ideas about where to manufacture handbags? How much was it going to cost? Where will I find quality supplies? I feel like you have a lot of experience and I can learn from you. Feel free to tell me the details.

 

[Laurence - North Exchange]

Have a look around for print on demand t-shirts. They will print the graphic on a t-shirt and ship it to the customer for you.

Obviously they're going to take a bigger cut, but there are often no minimum order Q's. Besides time and money promoting the idea (often the hardest part), there's very little risk involved. Assuming you aren't infringing on any copyright etc

 

[Neil Speirs]

Hi Neil, I've been in this industry for over 20 years and happy to advise if required.

Main UK garment suppliers are BTC, Pencarrie, Raliwise & Prestige but most will require a fair amount of trade info from you before opening a new account.

No real rules around selling personalised garments except for common sense copyright laws.

Printing choices are:

DTG: Direct to garment machine which is hugely expensive (10-15k) but allows full colour printing on low volume and dark coloured garments.

Sublimation: Full colour printing on white poly t-shirts

Vinyl: Single or layered coloured garment vinyl heat pressed on any colour garments.

Full colour transfers: Can be a bit of a minefield with end quality and set up equipment.

Screen printing: Mainly for the big boys who offer bulk printing.


AVOID fleabay cheap chinese equipment & all in one packages!

Feel free to contact me direct if I can help I will

Neil

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Good Evening

My wife is looking to start up a small business selling personalised items.

I just wanted to ask for some advice about personalised clothing. What are the rules around buying items of clothes (e.g. plain white t-shirt) from Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s etc printing some text or image (her own designs) and selling on?

Thanks
Neil

I started selling personalised clothing when *Jim at The Magic Touch was still wearing shorts and trading from a single shop in St.Albans. *anyone in the trade will know

Since then the industry has changed considerably so that nowadays anybody can put a design up on a bucket site and sell one or two pieces. It's also much cheaper and easier to set up and produce something in house and lots of people have tried and failed.
What you can't do easily is sell enough to make it worthwhile unless you have a very niche or desirable design/product.

Sorry to sound so negative but the key to success, in my humble opinion, is the validity of the product. Sourcing garments and printing is the easy part.

 

[Neil Speirs]

I started selling personalised clothing when *Jim at The Magic Touch was still wearing shorts and trading from a single shop in St.Albans. *anyone in the trade will know

Since then the industry has changed considerably so that nowadays anybody can put a design up on a bucket site and sell one or two pieces. It's also much cheaper and easier to set up and produce something in house and lots of people have tried and failed.
What you can't do easily is sell enough to make it worthwhile unless you have a very niche or desirable design/product.

Sorry to sound so negative but the key to success, in my humble opinion, is the validity of the product. Sourcing garments and printing is the easy part.

Not so much negative but truthful !!!

As said unless your wife has something really special to bring to the market it may be worth looking in other business directions. I'm on quite a few personalised facebook forums (sublimation, engraving, digital printing etc) and it's just constant posts by new members asking the same "how do I set up?" question.........everybody and their gran will be knocking out personalised products shortly.

Another major issue nowadays is how do you market your products?

Amazon...Absolute nightmare to set up and even harder to follow their unwritten rules if you fall foul and have your account suspended. Plus your always waiting for some other seller to come piggyback your listings and steal all your sales..

Facebook...You need to build up your own audience & unless your willing to spend loads of cash on facebook adds hardly no ones gonna see your posts...

ebay...That bubble burst years ago when they tried to become another Amazon and turned their backs on the small original sellers to chase the big boy box shifters ...

etsy...Was great in the beginning but unless your willing to sell your products for less than true worth just to be able to compete with other sellers then forget it...

craft fairs, festivals, shops etc... Covid seems to have killed them for the foreseeable future :-(

 

[JamesWebbuk]

Hello,

I have created a couple of designs and thought i'd try them as t-shirts. My suggestion would be to try a company like teemill.com who will deal with everything for you. You can have a limited account for free. It would give your wife a start without any real financial investment.

James

 

[Kevinpeter01]

Start small and work your way up.
This is something I wish I had realised from the beginning. You should be enthusiastic when launching a clothes line or other new venture (if you aren't, the new venture may not be for you). When you're starting a company, it's easy to get caught up in the hype and want to build an empire before you've sold a single thing. I began my clothing line with around 15 pieces. This might seem insignificant in comparison to the tens of thousands of items that major stores stock, but if I were to do it again, I would start with two or three. Many popular clothing companies, in my experience, began with only one t-shirt with a very simple style.