It’s around a year back, for the first time when I visited Threadless – a great tees website (or you can call it as online shop). One day I came to know about Twitter Tees (If you wonder what’s Twitter Tees, then I must say “It’s a project by Threadless where they print tweets highly voted by the community and sell for $18”). There are thousands apps are built on Twitter, and Twitter Tees is also one from the good ones. So, from here I came to know about this. I impressed by the great design of the website, the quality of the designs they print on the tshirts (which seems to be a good quality tshirt from the photo) and they way the show their tees – a guy or girl wearing the tee and a great photo!
After seeing Threadless and those tshirts anyone will love to have one or all (any number between one and all is also welcome). So did I. I wanted to buy one form them. Then I started converting dollars to Indian Rupees to know how much a tee will cost. Normally all Threadless tees cost $18 and those are on sales cost $12 (Now, when I am writing this, there is a holiday sale, when all tees cost $10). If you leave in India, then the normal shipping costs $9 (This will deliver your tee in 1-3 weeks, if you need it in 5-10 business days, then it will cost you $13). So in total, $18 for tee and $9 for shipping comes to $27. And in INR, it’s around Rs 1300. Tell me what can you buy in Rs 1300 in India? One or two branded shirt or jeans or trousers or two or three tshirts (depending upon the brand and the sale, if any). Tell me what will you buy in Rs 1300 in the comment form below. Then I dropped the idea of buying a Threadless tee.
I stopped buying a Theadless tee, but I wanted to know how can I get these in a reasonable price in India. At that time I knew two or three of the services which was printing photos on tshirts. After some browsing I came to know some other services, with some tshirts available for sale, take your customized print order, have bulk order option etc. But not a single service did touch my heart yet. Not only the tshirt, they also print your designs on teddy, key chain, mouse pad etc. Still they don’t have the attraction which will make me to spend some money on them.
Then the business idea came to my mind. In India, you will definitely get more customers as compared to US. Yes, we have so much population, and due to this huge population we are loosing many things, then why should not we get some profit from it? If you will have a beautiful website with awesome designs and a reasonable price then you will definitely need to reprint to keep your stock to fulfill the demand of the public. To keep price low and the quality of the tshirt high, you need to be placed near to a place where you can get tshirts (raw material, you say) at a cheaper price and the shipping for raw material will be low. For example Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. You need to also invest some good amount of money on the designs. Remember, Threadless spends $1.5 millions per year on the designs. And of course, promotion and good customer support is a must.
I am unable to grab this business due to my location on the globe. That’s why I shared my idea here. You can grab the idea and build a great business, if you execute the idea well. I do believe that all Idea are stupid unless they are executed well. And a well executed simple idea will be considered as a great idea. So if you are executing my idea and need more help, please email me: feedback [at] debiprasad.net. I have many other tips on this idea, which will bring you success. I also can help you building a good website, something like Threadless, for your business.
I was thinking to write more, but to write about seven hundred words took me around 2 hours. One dayI will write about available tshirt online shops in India. I have some other business idea, which I am unable to execute. I will share those under this category: Entrepreneur. If you want to share any one your idea, you are welcome. Also, let me know what do you think on this. Wish you a great new year, 2010.
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