selling T shirts

Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

October 21, 2020 By Trey LaRocca 29 Comments

There are a lot of people who are looking to make money online, but there are so many money making scams out there. As a result, you may be pretty skeptical of any popular “side-hustle” ideas floating around the internet. This isn’t a bad thing, as being skeptical can save you from wasting time and money. This skepticism is especially strong when there is a claim of what initially appears to be too good to be true, such as no upfront costs needed to begin the business. Teespring is one of these companies that almost seems too good to be true.

Is Teespring Legit?

The first question is whether or not Teespring is legit. The company has been around for a few years now, and has even produced a number of millionaires according to Forbes. In order to ascertain if Teespring is legit, it’s important to understand how they make money.

How Teespring Works

Teespring seems rather ingenious by making it a win-win situation for all. Instead of creating a design, paying a T-Shirt company to create the T-Shirts and then hoping you can sell all of them to make a profit, Teespring has you create a T-Shirt and set a goal of how many T-Shirts you will sell. The more you think you will sell, the more money you’ll make if you reach the goal. If you don’t reach the stated goal, then the T-Shirts are never produced and no money ever changes hands.

This is how Teespring is able to not charge an upfront fee. If you don’t hit the stated sales goal, they don’t have to produce the shirts. If you do reach the stated sales goal, a profit for you and the company have already been factored in. So, they produce the shirts, and are guaranteed a profit.

Is Teespring Safe?

There is little initial financial risk to using Teespring, so the company is pretty safe. Since you don’t need to give any upfront money when using Teespring, you aren’t risking losing your hard-earned cash. The real investment is your time. If you create campaigns that don’t reach their sales goals, you don’t earn anything. With that said, there are some unique problems with Teespring that you may consider “unsafe”.

Quality Issues With Teespring

Many content creators, businesses, and independent users lean on Teespring to make shirts. While only having 3.5 stars on Trustpilot, most negative reviews seem to be website-quality-related, or complaints about the time it takes to receive materials. While these issues can be worrisome, it doesn’t exactly implicate Teespring as a “scam”. It does, however, suggest you may want to shop around and see if there are other companies that can meet your needs.

In addition to their mediocre Trustpilot score, Teespring currently isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau. In fact, the BBB reports similar findings to Trustpilot, in that Teespring receives a high volume of customer complaints. The BB notes two primary issues of note: Customers finding it difficult to remove personalized artwork from the site, and the same late delivery problems found on Trustpilot reviews.

Qualitative Risks of Using Teespring

As mentioned above, there are a couple of risks involved with using Teespring. They don’t make it a “scam”, but they are definitively noteworthy. The most widely reported risk is blown deadlines. It seems pretty well-covered that Teespring struggles to get materials out on time for a significant subset of their customers. So, if you need your materials to make it to you on-time, you will probably want to explore other options.

Another risk reported by the BBB is the possibility of not being able to remove your art from the website. If you are a design-based business, your intellectual property is invaluable. As a result, you may need to think twice about using a company that may not surrender it when you ask. AS the BBB states, it is vital to examine the Terms of Service before you make your purchase to ensure your IP is protected.

Monetary Risks of Using Teespring

Other notable risks are costs you may incur when creating and trying to sell the T-shirts. If you pay someone to design a logo or other image (you don’t have to, you can do this on your own), you may lose these costs if you don’t ultimately sell the T-shirts you have set as a goal. The same can be true if you spend money to try and promote the T-shirts. This money is gone and you don’t get anything for your investment in the advertising if you don’t reach the T-shirt sales goal.

You also have a slight risk with the number of T-shirts you think you can sell. The higher you set your goal, the more you will make for each shirt sold. The problem is, if you don’t reach the goal, you get nothing. For example, if you set a goal of 50 shirts and sell only 49, the shirts are never produced and you get nothing. If, however, your set the goal at 10 T-shirts and sell 49, you would get paid a commission for all the sales since you met the goal. Although, that commission would be less than if you had said you could sell 40 T-shirts. Attempting to accurately estimate how many T-shirts you can sell without overestimating is vital.

Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

Teespring is not a scam, it is a legit business. Although, this doesn’t mean it is the best business for you. There are some risks, so it’s important to understand how the company works so you know what you’re getting into, but it’s a legit opportunity to make money without having to pay any upfront costs. If you think you are creative enough to come up with some T-shirt designs which you could sell to others, you may want to check out Teespring as a possible way to make some extra money in your spare time. Just make sure to explore all available options before pulling the trigger.

For how to make a success of selling this business as well as other side businesses check out these articles.

Building Facebook Pages for T-Shirts Sales
How to Mix Investing and Small-Business Ownership
Side Jobs to Grow Your Bank Account

(Image courtesy of Teespring)

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Teespring Audience Intersect to Better Target Ads: Days 4 & 5

March 14, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 3 Comments

better target t-shirt buyers with audience intersecr

One thing I’m quickly learning is that selling T-shirts has a much larger learning curve than I ever imagined. My impression was I would simply come up with some ideas, see if they hit the right note, and if I could find enough which did, I would be able to succeed at the $10,000 in my spare time challenge. I’m quickly finding this isn’t going to be the case.

I spent about 5 hours after work the last two evenings just trying to figure out stuff I assumed a 5 year old could do. Apparently my skill level is well below that of child when it comes to this. My brain was hurting from information overload, but I’ve reached the point where I’ve absorbed enough information that I think I can start testing. The reality is I’m probably at the point where I’m actually dangerous. That is, I think I actually know what I’m doing without having actually done anything to prove I know something. Either way, it’s time to start testing the waters with actual T-shirt designs, do some trials and see if I can get some campaigns to actually work.

What I’ve taken away from the last couple of days of cram courses are three main points I’ll try to incorporate into my campaigns. Since I haven’t actually started, I’m not 100% sure these are correct, but it’s a good starting point, and I can make adjustments as I gain actual campaign experience.

Look for Passions

People aren’t going to buy a T-shirt unless they are passionate about what the T-shirt conveys. The more passionate the topic, the better chance I have of selling to them. Most people are passionate about something, and finding what that is, then creating a T-shirt which expresses that passion is one of my primary goals.

Make it Personal

People like to wear T-shirts that represent who they are. Finding a way to make designs personal so the person looks at it says, “this is me” I think will greatly improve my chance of selling the design. Some of the most successful T-shirt designs target who people think they are (Grandpa, Grandma, nurse, firefighter, soldier, etc.) The first big hit for the college student who made over $80,000 in a year was high school seniors, something all kids who are in the last year of high school proudly identify themselves as.

Targeting is Essential

One thing that is clear is targeting the correct audience is essential to the success of any T-shirt design. If the audience is too general, the advertising budget will be wasted on people who don’t have the passion needed to purchase the T-shirt. The same is true if the T-shirt design doesn’t resonate with those you put it in front of. For these reasons, it’s important for me to know my audience and have a plan to target them.

Remember when I wrote I would start by listing on Teechip, but anyone doing this would still need a Teespring account? The reason for this is audience targeting. One of the things I learned which I think will be extremely beneficial is you can use Facebook ads to find an audience, but when you use the Facebook ad tool, if you place in two topics, the search is a “this or that” search. That is if I want to target an audience of teachers who like ballet, a search on Facebook of those two topics would send ads to teachers OR to those who like ballet, not teachers who also like ballet. To do that, you need to download a tool.

The tool is called Audience Intersect and can only be used with the Google’s Chrome browser. This tool is sponsored by Teespring, so in order to download it, you need a Teespring account. The good news is you can use it to target audiences no matter which T-shirt company you use. Downloading this and installing it will give you a button in your Facebook ad area which will allow you to combine interests, so the ads you purchase can be targeted toward exactly who you want to see them.

With this information in mind, I will begin launching some campaigns, while explaining the reasoning behind how I came to decide on that specific design. I’m not expecting a whole lot from these first campaigns, but I hope they teach me some good lessons that I can use to continually refine the campaigns I launch.

Teespring Audience Intersect to Better Target Ads: Days 4 & 5

March 14, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 3 Comments

Look for Passions

Make it Personal

Targeting is Essential

Teechip Is a Better Option than Teespring for Beginners: Day 3

March 11, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 28 Comments

In trying to get my first campaign together for the $10,000 in my spare time challenge, I ran across a mention of a newer T-shirt website which is similar to Teespring, but has some advantages for those just beginning to try to make money in this market. I spent some time checking it out, and as a beginner with a limited budget, I think I will be starting my first campaigns on Teechip rather than on Teespring (but you’ll still need to create a Teespring account which I’ll explain in an upcoming article).

There are some inherent financial risks for beginners who try to make money with Teespring. One of the biggest is in order for a campaign to go through (Teespring calls it “tipping a campaign”) so the T-shirts are actually sold, you have to meet the T-shirt quantity goal you set. For example, if I set my goal at 50 T-shirts, but only 25 are purchased, the campaign fails to “tip,” and the T-shirts are never made. While I don’t lose any money on the actual cost of the T-shirts, any money I spent on advertising and artwork is lost. The logical reaction to this is to set up quantity goals which require only a few T-shirts to be sold so the campaign “tips” and the T-shirts are produced.

While this sounds good, it comes at an earnings price. The fewer T-shirts I initially set as a goal, the less amount I’ll profit on each T-shirt sold. For example, if I were to set a goal of selling 10 T-shirts (3 color design) at $20 each, and I tipped that campaign, I would receive $6 for each shirt sold. If, however, I set a goal of 50 T-shirts, I would receive a profit of $10.85 for each sold if the campaign succeeded. A small initial goal means less profit for me. If I set a 10 T-shirt goal, but actually sold 50 T-shirts, I would earn $300 ($6 profit x 50 T-shirts). If I had set my initial goal at 50 T-shirts, and I sold 50, I would earn $542.50 ($10.85 profit x 50 T-shirts). That’s a $242.50 difference in earnings determined solely on making a good estimate of how many T-shirts will be sold.

The problem, of course, is if I set the initial goal at 50 T-shirts, but only sold 25 (or even 49), I would get $0 because the campaign wouldn’t tip, and the T-shirts wouldn’t get produced. In this case, I would lose money due to the artwork I paid for and the advertising I did to try and reach the goal.

As you can see above, it’s a sort of strategy game of picking the highest number of T-shirts you think you can sell without going over that number. For those who have a lot of experience, and who have done lot of campaigns, making this estimates is a bit easier. For someone completely new to this as I am, I have no idea, and my ignorance could end up costing me a lot of money as I try to learn better. The solution to this major Teespring issue for beginners has been solved with Teechip.

(Note: Basically for both websites, the goal number you set has little meaning when it comes to your shirts being printed, and it’s simply a tool for you to see how much you will earn if you meet it.)

While there are a number of small differences between the two sites, one is Teechip doesn’t require you to meet a goal in order to print the T-shirts. Teespring also doesn’t require you to meet your stated goal, but will only print shirts if enough are sold to be profitable. This is usually three, but can be as many as five depending on the product. With Teechip, even if only a single person buys a T-shirt, it will be printed, sent and you will earn some money.

Both websites also will credit volume discounts if you go beyond the goal number you set. Teespring initally only offered 75% of the volume discount if you underestimated the number of T-shirts you’d sell, but changed that to 100% at the end of last year. The company says this 100% bonus is “likely permanent.” This means with both sites, the more T-shirts you sell, the bigger profit you get from each one sold.

What this basically means for a beginner like me is I can reduce my financial risk a bit as I test whether or not I can make money from this. I don’t eliminate the risk completely, but there is less financial risk with Teechip than Teespring for beginners, since it begins paying as soon as the first T-shirt is sold.

Another difference is that Teechip pays higher margins per T-shirt than Teespring. This means when selling a T-shirt for the same amount, I will keep more money from Teechip than I will from Teespring. When beginning with a limited budget, getting paid from the first sale and the higher margins can mean I can launch more test T-shirt designs, therefore giving me a better chance to succeed since I have more opportunities to test with the same amount of money.

Below is a comparison of what I will earn from a 3 color design from both Teechip and Teespring:

# of T-shirts Sold	Teespring Profit	Teechip Profit
1	$0.00	$7.10
2	$0.00	$14.19
3	$0.00 – $5.25	$27.02
5	$26.25	$45.02
10	$60.00	$99.81
25	$240.00	$299.05
50	$542.50	$667.39

As you can see from the above table, for someone just starting out who may have a large number of campaigns which only sell a few T-shirts, Teechip makes a whole lot more sense from a financial perspective. With them, even if a campaign “fails” and I only get a few T-shirt sales, I will still end up breaking even (or even making a small amount) rather than getting nothing to a little as I would from Teespring. For example, if I have twenty of my planned fifty campaigns sell 3 T-shirts, and I pay $10 for artwork and $15 for advertising, the difference becomes clear. For those twenty campaigns I would have made a modest $40.40 with Teechip on those campaigns. With Teespring, those same twenty campaigns would leave me at -$395.00, and that’s assuming all the campaigns paid $5.25.

Also, if I do launch a campaign which does far better than I could anticipate and sells a lot of T-shirts, I get volume margins with Teechip whereas I would be making a much smaller set amount per T-shirt with Teespring. From a financial perspective with a limited budget and while I’m still learning, it makes financial sense to begin with Teechip where I will likely have a large number of campaigns where only 1 to 3 shirts are sold.

The major risk with Teechip is it’s a much newer and less established company than Teespring. While Teespring has established itself as company which will be around, there’s a larger risk of Teechip not being able to survive the competition in the long run. Still, this added risk seems to be worth it for the benefit of extending my budget so I can test more campaigns in these early stages so that I can hopefully reach my $10,000 goal in 100 days. Once I feel more comfortable in my understanding of how these campaigns work, I’ll reevaluate which of the two is a better choice.

Update: This article has been significantly changed with updated information emailed to me by Teespring which I misunderstood. Like I have said from the beginning, I’m going into this challenge with no head start on how this entire process works, and I’m learning along the way. While this will mean that I stumble through the learning process and make these types of mistakes, I hope it also shows what you would expect to have to go through if you, too, decide to attempt to make money as in this challenge. When I do make mistakes like I originally did in this article, I’ll do my best to correct the information as soon as I realize it’s wrong.