Sup Reddit,
Long time lurker here haha. My name is Daniel and for the past week I decided to jump the gun and start a business (take a look). For the longest time I have always wanted to jump into streetwear because it was something I was passionate about. I want to share my adventure with you guys just as some of you had shared with me. Please note the steps I have taken does not guarantee success, this is just what I did.
PART ONE: where the hell do I start?
Starting off my journey, I was looking at a variety of options. I did not know where to host my business. Should I have done something local or online? Wait wait hold up, before that do I even have a design? No. That was the first thing I had to do. Design. A logo is essential for a brand. It is something that represents the business and something that is recognized. I had already decided for my brand name to be hinkaku (japanese for dignity). To accompany the name, I designed a sakura flower (using photoshop) like a badge. A badge is to be something worn, which I thought would have been perfect for apparel. However, it would suck to have just one design to sell, so I came up with three more for an opening launch. You can see them here.
PART TWO: choosing the platform
Transitioning from part one, I have finished my designs, but now I needed a supplier. Here were my two choices:
- Printful
- Local
The pros of choosing printful:
- They are a fulfillment service which means they handle shipping and printing, I just have to manage the designs and marketing.
The cons of choosing printful:
- Shipping rates are soooooooooo expensive. $8 to ship to Canada for one tee(all my buds are in canada and I know for SURE they will not pay $8 to ship...)
The pros of going local:
- You can see the process and physically check the quality.
- The one I had in mind had cheaper prices than printful (usd to cad conversion is bad) and the prints were heavenly
The cons of going local:
- Gotta buy in bulk (12 shirts were the minimum $180~ CAD). I did not have that type of money. ( I am a student)
- You have to do the shipping
It took me a while to decide, but after receiving only 5 pre orders (from friends), I knew I would not meet the required twelve threshold for my local printer. I decided to use printful and shopify.
PART THREE: Shopify free trial
Signing up with shopify, you are able to receive a 14-day free trial, and an additional 7 days (there should be an email asking if you want a 7 day extension). The printful integration with shopify is very well done. All I have to do is position my graphic, add a description and set my profits. Printful will automatically push the products to shopify. That simplifies so much for me. I don’t have to handle inventory or anything. Moving on, I had to design the site. This was by far the most fun I had so far. Shopify’s template builder is really simple to use and lets you focus on designing. No coding required! I played around with all the free templates and found that narrative suited me the best. I used burst by shopify for a few images, but also provided some of my own (backgrounds). Use the 21 days to carefully craft the site and make it look good, focus on making everything perfect and an enjoyable experience for the customer. Some of the addons I used were: BEST currency converter, Quick announcement bar by hextom, and printful. You can check out the site I built here.
PART FOUR: Launch day!
Yes I was nervous. Everything I have done previously was for this moment. There was something magical about opening a store haha. Anyhow, I was quick to realize there would be absolute 0 sales because no one would know about my site! This was when I knew I had forgot something important… I did not advertise beforehand. Now I was a sitting duck with no sales. My shop was open but nobody came in. Luckily, I was still in my free trial period, BUT this was still precious time lost. I made an instagram account and facebook page and started posting some content with hashtags relevant to my product/ audience. This was alright though, although I still had 0 sales going through, I reached out to the friends that have previously pre-ordered about my opening and offered them a best buddy discount. This was done using Printful’s sample order (5 items per order 3 times a month and FREE SHIPPING). Your friends will be your first local sales. Shoutout to my friends that supported me I thank you so much. Anyways, the problem still arose though, where do I get traffic for my site?
PART FIVE: Advertising
I am a complete n00b here so this is a lesson to learn for everyone and myself haha. This was my first time learning how to advertise so after reading some articles, I decided to use instagram to spread the word. The first advertising was just to spread awareness that my site exists (first post on my instagram). I went for impressions and picked up some attention. I got a couple followers, a couple likes, a couple visits to my site, but no sales. 0 sales meant that the advertising money I spent ($6 cad) was down the drain. No return no nothing. My money just disappeared like that. I felt pretty sad, so I decided to whip up a promotion this time thinking that could work. My second advertisement (second post on instagram) featured free shipping for the united states (used carousel ad type to showcase the products). I personally thought it looked pretty great, but upon launching the ad, again I was met with defeat. Again, some more followers, likes, and visits, but no sales. This was another $6 down the drain. Advertising was defeat for me. Though I heard it takes time to learn how to advertise, I treat this as a learning experience.
In Summary for Week One
- 0.68 in profits after operation costs (still in the green my dudes)
- 7 followers on instagram
- 6 local sales
- 125 visits to my store
- 0 online sales
To those who read to the end, thank you.
I have had so much fun so far and am looking to improve. Got any advice? Share it with us :D
There are many ways to climb a mountain, this is just one. I may or may not reach the top, but regardless it is the journey that counts.
Daniel
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