This evening I’m reading through the newest issue of Business 2.0. On page 34 there is a short article about online sales of t-shirts and other branded merchandise. The article mentions CollegeHumor.com, Cafepress, BoingBoing.net, and others, and bringing in substantial sales through t-shirts.

One interesting fact the article mentions — 1,000 new shops are started on Cafepress.. every day.

The question is: with so much competition how do you get a chunk of the online t-shirt sales pie?

Here is what I would do: first, start small. I’d be concerned more with customers and sales than with profit. There was a very comprehensive article in the last issue of Millionaire Blueprints about Joseph Tantillo who has been very successful selling fraternity merchandise online. When he started he was just breaking even on sales — later on when he had momentum he purchased expensive equipment and got the suppliers which allowed him to make a nice profit.

I would advertise on niche websites for a few hundred dollars a month each. Think niches — if you don’t have one, how do you know what audience you are trying to reach?

Next I would closely watch who is buying what shirts. Find out which designs sell and make more similar ones. Perhaps 90% of males that came from site X buy a certain design. Create custom landing pages based on those metrics.

Its not easy to make money online. If you don’t want to surpass everyone else it is hard to even be noticed.