Running a T-Shirt Contest Site is Hard

T-Shirt contest sites seem to come and go every other week and I think that the main reason is that the people who start them don’t know how tough it is. I suspect that there is a bit of a Field of Dreams mythology around them. You know if you build it they will come. This is definitely not the case. There are many factors to consider if you want your site to be a success. You need an easy to use and easy to understand website. You need good marketing skills. You need money. You need patience. (I’m probably leaving out a few things here but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make.) People think that because the industry leader, Threadless, started out with nothing that they can do it too but those days are over. Threadless was a pioneer in the crowdsourcing business and they had a community before they had t-shirts. Also there was very little competition at that time compared to now when everybody and their dog has a t-shirt store.

Not that long ago I posted a list of t-shirt contest sites and I bet if I went through it today I would find more that have gone and could probably find a few more to add to it. One of the sites that appeared recently was called the T-Shirt Vault which I mentioned. I knew about it but I intentionally didn’t add it to the list because I had my doubts about its success as I mentioned in a previous post.  I have been busy recently and didn’t realize it but it has already gone down. It probably lasted just weeks. Let me quote myself below:

I think the T-Shirt Vault will have a difficult time pulling it off as that is a lot of prize money they have to pay out which means they have to sell a hell of a lot of t-shirts just to cover the cost. I think that they might break even around the 1000 t-shirt mark which is pretty tough for a new unknown brand.

I have heard that the official line is that there were issues with the credit card processor and maybe it’s true but I don’t believe it. Someone on Emptees said they received this explanation:

Hello, I regret to inform you that our credit card processor has decided that our business model is to risky for charge backs since our prize money is so high. We have tried to work it out with them even to the point of allowing them to hold the funds for the 180 day period a customer can submit a charge back. But they will not change their minds. Of course this is horrible news. We have put a lot of time and money into this idea and it was going well.Our first week of sales were great. Almost a thousand shirts sold. The credit card processor will be issuing a refunds to all buyers. I do apologize for us having to cancel sales and issue refunds. It is a problem we could not of foreseen. All of the files you submitted will be deleted.

I think the real reason is that not enough shirts were sold even though they claim 1,000 shirts were sold in the first week. If a 1000 shirts were actually sold in the first week you would find a way to make it work. Again, this is just me being skeptical, I have no proof that they are lying. I have been selling t-shirts through PODs for many years though and have been making decent money with it too but it took me a while to build a regular stream of income. I had to learn SEO, marketing and other tricks to get my stuff noticed and even then the result was not instant. So I doubt that the T-Shirt Vault could have been so successful. (On the other hand they did have better designs and cheaper shirts than I sell in my POD stores.)

Anyway RIP: The T-Shirt Vault. You can read more about how the T-Shirt Vault came apart at Emptees.

Other news that I noticed is that Metal Ink, which was included in my giant list of t-shirt design contests, is up for sale. I’m guessing that this means they were struggling to make sales rather than they have made so many that they want to retire early by selling their profitable business. If they had a really attractive business they wouldn’t have to advertise their own sale on the front page.

“If you do buy them because of this post I would love to get that 5% finders fee.”

Finally I would like to quickly mention Teextile or should I say Teextile 2.0. I have to admit that when they first appeared I was impressed by their glossy website and their ever changing lineup. They even sent a tee over for a review and I definitely have no complaints about that. It came to my attention a while ago that not all was well with them business wise and there were a lot of unhappy people. I think I tweeted (God, I hate that word.) about it too. They went offline for a bit and came back with a new attitude and a new website. Apparently though, the new attitude, like the new website, wasn’t all that different from the old one and they are still having the same issues. I won’t get into detail here because they have been talking about over at BuyTees.net and they know more about it than I do.

But one thing is for sure, if you haven’t even sent a t-shirt and the customer asks for a refund you should make it happen as soon as possible. On a personal note I am not that happy that I lost my Teextile points when they “upgraded” to Teextile 2.0. But I’m not sure they will be around long enough for me to get enough points for a tee or that I’ll be around long enough to receive them.

47 Online Ongoing T-Shirt Contests

There are now tons of websites holding design contests as a way of sourcing designs for t-shirts and this is probably the most comprehensive list you are going to find. So if you are creating some awesome designs you now know tons of places you can submit to.

1. Threadless
   Of course Threadless would have to be at the top of this list as it is often credited as being the first to use this business model. It is also the biggest and probably the most successful of all the t-shirt contest sites.

   Prizes
   $2000 Cash
   $500 Threadless Gift Certificate (can be redeemed for $200 cash)
   $500 in cash each time your design is reprinted
   Up to $22,500 more if you win a “Bestee” in the Threadless Awards
   Alumni Club membership including a Medal of Honor and other goodies

   How often?
   Weekly.

2. Design by Humans
   At just about 2 years old Design by Humans is one of the most talked about tee contest sites and is famous for its large prints.

   Prizes
   Shirt of the Day: $500 cash plus $250 store credit
   Combined with Shirt of the Week/Month and the Rock Star program you could earn up to $8500

   How often?
   Almost daily.

3. Uneetee

   Prizes
   $1500

   How often?
   Weekly

4. laFraise
   Probably the largest t-shirt contest site in Europe. Owned by Spreadshirt they have a lot of resources. Specialize in cartoonish designs. Multilingual web site (German, French and English).

   Prizes
   €1,000

   How often?
   Almost daily.

5. Look- Zippy
   France based site I believe, multilingual (English, German, French and Spanish) and specialize in fair trade organic garments.

   Prize: €300 for 200 shirts, €75 for every 50 more printed
   How often? Monthly

6. Springleap
   South African based contest. Don’t expect to get paid soon. It is about one and a half years since I got runners up there and still haven’t seen a dollar which is probably about all I earned as the runners up prizes were probably the worst prizes ever for a tee contest. A few days ago I received an email saying that they are finally going to pay the winners but I’ll believe it when I see it. My advice: avoid this contest.

   Prize: About $900
   How often? Bi-weekly.

7. Red is White
   The premier Christian tee design contest site.

   Prize: $500 plus royalties after first 250 shirts
   How often? Perhaps monthly.

8. Bang Bang T-Shirts
   British contest site that focuses on pop culture.

   Prize: £100 – £125
   How often? Occasionally.

9. Edo Label
   Japanese contest site with bilingual site (English and Japanese).Prize: 50,000 yen + 10,000 yen  store credit.
10. Code Creations [Disappeared]
11. Shirt.Woot
    They have a Derby (contest) regularly as well as accepting submissions for their daily tee. Famous for $10 t-shirt deals.

    Prize: From $500 (I think)
    How often? Weekly (perhaps)

12. Scribtee
    It’s connected to the ShirtCity POD.

    Prize: $300-$500 plus $50 shopping voucher
    How often? Twice a month.

13. teetonic.com
    British site.  I haven’t notice much activity around here in a while.

    Prize: £100 plus 50p per shirt sold.
    How often? Rarely, if ever.

14. Allmightys
    One of the first contests where the prizes were based on sales.

    Prize: $2 per shirt sold.
    How often? Occasionally.

15. Cameesa
    This site added crowdfunding to crowdsourcing to build what should be a risk free contest site. They don’t print the tees until they are paid for.

    Prize: $200 cash, $50 credit plus $2 per shirt after the first 125 sold.

16. Ink Fruit
    India based site.

    Prize: 5000 rupees (about $100)
    How often? Every 15 days.

17. Monsieur Poulet
    Based in Paris, France, this is a bilingual site in French and English that uses fair trade cotton garments.

    Prize: €2 per shirt sold
    How often? Several times a month.

18. Fair and Bare
    British based site also using Fair Trade cotton.

    Prize: £200 plus residuals
    How often? Occasionally

19. Chimpogo
    British based contest site.

    Prize: £500
    How often? It says every week but I don’t think that is happening. Maybe occasionally.

20. Canvas
    Contest for Christian based designs.

    Prize: Up to $400

21. Ink Hound [Gone quiet]
    Design hats and t-shirts.

    Prize: $2 per shirt
    How often? Weekly.

22. Teextile
    Fairly new site that sells t-shirts for one week only.

    Prize: $4 per shirt for first 500, decreases after that for some reason.
    How often? Weekly.

23. Full Metal T-Shirt
    This site is wild. Like a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and bikers if you could imaging such a thing.

    Prize: $100 cash, $100 credit plus $5 per shirt (or print) sold for one year.
    How often? Weekly.

24. Teepay [On a break]
    British site similar to Cameesa in that the tees won’t be printed unless enough people order them.

    Prize: £2.50 per shirt sold.

25. Tilteed
    Popular t-shirt contest site with Tilteed Limited Edition shirts as well as a regular contest.

    Prize: $500
    How often? Weekly.

26. Goodjoe
    Looking for designs that inspire.

    Prize: $1 per shirt
    How often? Weekly.

27. Scopial
    Another India based site that attracts a lot of great designers.

    Prize: About $400
    How often? Don’t know.

28. bookis.org
    Similar again to Cameesa. This time though the designer can set the profit he wishes to make per shirt. Based on the Chinese idea of “tuangou” where a group of people get together to buy in bulk from the wholesaler.
29. Metal Ink
    Tatoo inspired designs for tees.

    Prize: $700 cash + $300 store credit + residuals

30. ArtyTee
    Not too sure about this one. Seems to be some type of subscription based store

    Prize: $2 per shirt (up to $100)
    How often? Monthly

31. SwishSwosh
    New site from the UK.

    Prize: £1100 + 50p per shirt sold for first place, £101 + 50p per shirt sold for runners up
    How often? Monthly.

32. Syckfits [Disappeared]
33. Badashell

    Prize: $200 + $50 store credit
    How often? On a break.

34. nomoretees [Retired]
35. Camiseteria
    Brazil based website in Portuguese.

    Prize: R$800 in cash, R$800 in store credit

36. BlackEyedT.com [Died.]
37. Is This Chicken? [Not active]
38. Collar Free [Retired]
39. itself
    Turkey based tee contest burst onto the scene about two years ago with a $4000 prize. Selected just a few tees and then no activity. While they appear to be accepting designs and if you dig around you can find a voting area I suspect there is no longer a contest. The last submission was in July. The last tee was chosen about a year ago.
40. Wooshka [No activity]
41. Milk Shop Gang [No activity]
42. Righteous Enterprise [Disappeared]
43. ice cream t-shirts [Be right back. I don't think so.]
44. Tasty Threads
    Never made it out of the gate.
45. Teeple [Retired]
46. tFuse [Reported Attack Site]
47. Caponocca [No Activity]

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Note: These are all just websites that I have come across over the last while or so. I didn’t search the web for t-shirt contests so I am sure there are some that I have missed. On top of that I am sure I have made some mistakes in the details. These things happen.

If you know of any other t-shirt contest sites or can see some mistakes I have made please leave a comment below and I will do my best to rectify the situation.

5 Awesome Astronaut T-Shirts

OK, it’s not a very long list but these are 5 great t-shirts and you don’t need to be a spaceman to wear them.

The first t-shirt will be only available for a very short time at Teextile so if you want it I suggest you order it now.

This is a photo image but equally effective t-shirt design from Japanese t-shirt Giant Graniph. Or maybe it’s just the cute girl.

And talk about cute girls. Design by Humans does have a few of them.

This is a new tee at Threadless featuring some interesting images.

And this is a classic tee from Threadless which is currently out of print but I’m sure it will get a reprint sometime in the future.

If you know of any other cool astronaut t-shirts feel free to link to them in the comments.

New Tees at Teextile

It’s a new week and that means 5 more new t-shirts at Teextile, a new t-shirt contest site that seems to have started off running. Two shirts really caught my eye once you see them you’ll know that I don’t have to explain why I like them.

The social construction t-shirt below is my favorite of the week and one of the best t-shirt designs I have seen in a long time. King of the Jungle? Lions have been done over and over but I still like this one.

You only have one week to get these t-shirts from Teextile and each t-shirt will be on sale for $12 for one day, usually $15.

Review: Teextile T-Shirt

The nice folk at Teextile were kind enough to send us a t-shirt to review and they even let us choose the shirt. Mrs. Retro chose a very cute number by Brazilian designer BrunoMota aka aka ObrunoMota. It is a light blue American Apparel with a perfect print that looks just like it did on the site. BrunoMota’s illustrations are clean and beautiful.

I hope that you don’t fall in love with this shirt and I probably should have mentioned this earlier but it is no longer for sale. Shirts at Teextile are only on sale for one week I believe, which is a big improvement from the original idea of one t-shirt one day. So think of this review as a review of the service provided by Teextile rather than of this particular shirt. The shirt arrived in an A4 sized plastic envelope that is transparent on one side so we could see the t-shirt right away…very cool.

On the inside neck of the t-shirt you will also find the Teextile logo and I love it. Too man of these companies are overdoing it, some even putting their big logos on the outside (Springleap may have been the worst offender) but this is subtle and stylish and adds a little bit to the tee.

Anyway, I would definitely recommend checking out Teextile. They have so far been selling some great designs and this week is no exception. In fact this weeks selection is one of my favorites and if you like the style of this t-shirt you will be happy to know that there is a another BrunoMota t-shirt on sale today. If you buy it today it will be $12 and $15 throughout the week. If you are into robots, Thursday’s tee really rocks.

Teextile’s 2nd Week T-Shirts

Not that long ago I talked about the new t-shirt contest site, Teextile and how they were printing shirts that have not been accepted at other sites and that I hoped that they would be able to find some new work and perhaps some new designers but that hasn’t exactly panned out yet. I can see why they wouldn’t risk it though as they are selling the t-shirts for just one day and it will be much easier to sell t-shirts from established t-shirt designers.

Monday’s T-Shirt is Fox Hole by Kins2 and I really love this shirt. It was previously submitted to Design by Humans and it reminds me of another DBH shirt that I actually own: Attack 77 by aliadotony. I prefer this one though and I think it is interesting to note that Teextile will be able to print very large areas. Sweet.

Tuesday’s shirt uses very vivid colors and while it is a very clever design there is no way I would wear it. Those luminous colors might trigger violent flashbacks to late eighties Ireland and the non-fashion we used to wear in the summer months.  You may have seen this at laFraise when it was up for voting and if you miss it at Teextile you can always head over to Cameesa and support it.

Pixel Monsters and Freaks by Basillo is a pretty sweet piece of retro geek chic. Yeah, just wanted to say that. It is a fun design but there are just too many monsters and freaks for my taste. I think one or two rows would have been better. This was also previously submitted at Threadless, Design by Humans and Chimpogo. I think it will probably turn up somewhere else in the future because regardless of whether I like it or not, it is a pretty sweet design and definitely has appeal.

Thursday’s t-shirt is Wrath by Wotto. Yes, that Wotto. He gets around. In fact I just received my first Wotto t-shirt from TeeFury a short while ago. It was a $5 mystery shirt. I like Wotto and my wife has a great Wotto shirt but the shirt I received from TeeFury is way too bright for my taste. (More about that later.) This shirt was previously submitted to Threadless although it no longer appears to be listed there.

Friday’s t-shirt is Fire Song by zitone. It was known as Canção de fogo when it was submitted to Threadless. It is a pretty design and the type of design that my wife would like if she could actually figure what’s going on it it. I think the artist has talent but this t-shirt doesn’t do anything for me.

Well, I don’t think I will be covering Teextile in quite as much detail as in this post and the previous post in the future. Of course if all of their shirts are totally awesome I might just try but I will try to focus on my favorite of the news tees especially if I haven’t seen the designs at another site already.

5 New Tees from Teextile

Teextile is a new t-shirt competition site a la Threadless. It has a pretty slick design and has attracted some good designers. It seems to have attracted the same designers as all the other sites though which I will illustrate a little bit later. Anyway, in just over eight hours they will release their first shirt and one shirt per day after that. On their home page you can see what the next five shirts will look like. You can also keep reading this post.

Designers get $4 per every shirt sold which is decent enough and they get to keep the rights to their design. This is a growing trend among the new t-shirt contest sites which is attractive for designers. The tees are only on sale for one day though so don’t expect to become rich. You can submit your design to some other sites when you are finished or perhaps sell it yourself on a POD like Cafepress or Zazzle.

The first shirt to go on sale is a pretty decently designed tee but while it doesn’t use the Teextile logo per se, I think it is fair to describe it as a logo tee. I imagine the demand will be pretty low.

Tuesday’s t-shirt is a pretty sweet Rasputin t-shirt by Castle. It’s very dark and a little scary. I think there is a big market for this kind of design. Castle is a well known in the t-shirt contest arena and I recognized this image immediately. It is a reworking of or an alternative version of a shirt previously submitted to Design by Humans. You can compare them below. I’m guessing he had to shrink the print area for Teextile which may not do the all over printing that you can find on DBH.

I admit that I didn’t recognize the following t-shirt but it didn’t even take me a minute to find that it had previously been submitted to laFraise, a European t-shirt contest site that is run by Spreadshirt. The coloring has been changed a little even if the overall design is the same. I like the new coloring more, the red of the LaFraise version reminds me of something that I will probably never discuss on the T-Shirt Review.

Thursday’s shirt is also from a well known designer, BrunoMota (Obrunomota) and he had already submitted this design to Brazillian t-shirt contest site, Camisteria and Threadless. They seem to be identical designs. It is very solid illustration with clean lines.  Is is not something I want on my t-shirt but I think that many would like it.

And the final t-shirt is called “I want to dance too” by RecycledWax and I also remembered seeing it before. It is a very cute design and I had seen it when it was a Design by Humans submission.

Looking at this new site Teextile I’m afraid that I have to say that there is nothing new to report. The same designs from the same popular designers. I hope they can do better than this in the future and I don’t mean any disrespect but it is literally more of the same at the moment. I admit that it is great for those designers to have another source of income but I don’t think it has anything special to offer the customers.

This situation reminds me of another fairly new t-shirt contest site called Ink-Hound. They have a very similar system and they also seem to have nothing new to offer. I followed them for quite a while but it seems like just a few designers win the majority of the prizes and these are designers that are already popular at other sites. 11 out of 22, a cool 50% of the wins are by just 4 designers. I lost interest quickly. I hope this doesn’t happen to Teextile too.

Unscheduled Hiatus

Well, I took a break. Don’t worry. It wasn’t because I was bored of talking about t-shirts. My wife just had our first child and things have gotten pretty hectic.  As you can imagine, I may not be posting as frequently as I did before but once my wife and child are both home from the hospital I may have a teeny bit more time and I will try to keep you posted on what’s happening in the world of t-shirts. I have been keeping an eye out. Here is some of what I have been observing without having time to write about. I hopefully will be able to write in more detail later though.

Artist and designer, Jimiyo, has taken a job with Design by Humans. I hope he continues to submit designs to the various contests in his spare time. His design was recently sold on a shirt.woot tee and I just recently received my very own Jimiyo t-shirt from Uneetee.  More about that later.

Speaking of Design by Humans, they are holding a Quicksilver design contest and the second of the DBH music series. This time it is the more hip than Fleetwood Mac, Kings of Leon. I hope the designs are better than what I have seen of Fleetwood Mac.

Spreadshirt scored €10 million investment capital and have added some cool and cute stuff to their site. I imagine we will see more and more dramatic changes over there now that they have some spare cash. I will probably talk about it at my relatively new site: POD Helper rather than on the T-Shirt Review. More about POD Helper later.

Oh, and T-Shirt Hell didn’t close down after all. It was a prank. Owner, Sunshine Megatron, says it was a strategy to generate income. Read more at T-Shirt Hell be warned, it is not for the faint hearted.

Yet another contest site will be opening up soon called Teextile. Sorry guys. I didn’t have time to check you out. I will keep an eye on you though. I came across another new t-shirt contest site, a Christian one, but I may have lost the link.

They guys at Zero Boutique sent me a couple of tees to review which I received this morning so that is something to look forward to.

I also came across a picture of the love of my life, my darling wife on a t-shirt blog. It was a bit of a surprise. She is wearing Uneetee’s King Leo. Shirts on Sale if you are curious about the mother of my baby. (Edit: The pic was changed and no longer features my wife.)

Well, there was more and I will tell you about it in more detail later.

PS. For people who have emailed me and haven’t gotten a reply I’ll try to get back to you very soon.