Ryan Chartrand
Competing in the online T-shirt market has become increasingly difficult as more sites pop up by the day. Having a business model that stands out from the rest is crucial, especially with custom products giant CafePress.com leading the niche.
Cal Poly graduate Mike Sobczyk thinks he has the answer.
Sobczyk’s new custom T-shirt Web site ShirtADay.com adds a new twist to the market by utilizing the “one-a-day” concept made famous by woot.com.
Each day, ShirtADay, originally one of Sobczyk’s senior project ideas, features a different custom shirt made by either the site’s staff or someone from the ShirtADay community. As more people order the shirt, the more its cost goes down.
So, a shirt that costs $13 in the morning might only cost $10 by midnight. Anyone who bought the shirt for $13, however, is refunded $3 as a reward for convincing others to buy the shirt as well.
Sobczyk, a management information systems graduate, decided to take the company online for a variety of reasons.
“I wanted to start something without having a lot of startup cost,” Sobczyk said.
With Web hosting costs decreasing by the year, Sobczyk decided to pay $4-a-month rather than put time and commitment into paying a lease in a store setting.
“And the whole concept behind this was that we don’t print our shirts until after we’ve collected orders, so there’s essentially no inventory,” Sobczyk said. “I have no risk of not selling an item.”
ShirtADay doesn’t even have its own shirt printer. Thanks to a contract set up with the printer they outsource their printing to, ShirtADay is able to save money and still offer cheap prices.
“The prices decrease the more shirts that we order each day, which is driving our pricing model,” Sobczyk said. “I’m hoping it’s that pricing structure that is going to help us stick out and help us get repeat customers.”
So far, it seems to be working. ShirtADay receives about 1,500 unique visitors a day, only a few months after the launch of the site.
“The numbers are still small, but about 1 percent of those turns into a sale. Most sites are lucky to get .01 percent,” Sobczyk said.
One of the consequences that comes with the “one-a-day” concept is that customers can’t buy old shirts. If the current day’s shirt does not appeal to them, they’re left with a “better luck next time” sign.
Sobczyk has considered making a catalog of shirts, but is also aware of the consequences involved with an inventory system.
“The problem there is that if you have an inventory, you have to get what sizes people are going to buy, what colors they’ll want, get the money up front and hopefully sell them all off,” Sobczyk said.
Through a recently added clearance page, customers can currently buy the leftovers of 15 shirts from previous days.
“We will also start repeating designs and probably move toward having a rerun of one of the more popular shirts every Sunday, which will get people to check on a regular basis,” Sobczyk said.
Working 60 hours a week for both ShirtADay and a local accounting firm, Sobczyk would prefer to spend all of his time selling T-shirts.
“We’re not to the point where we can quit our day jobs as we’re still trying to gain a lot of new customers,” Sobczyk said. “The hope down the line is that we can do this full time.”
As the popularity of online clothing sites continues to grow, however, Sobczyk and his competition could soon watch their hopes become a reality.
“People want to feel like they have a say in what they’re going to buy, and even if they’re just voting, they feel like they created that and made it popular.” Sobczyk said. “They want to wear something different than what you can just buy in a regular store.”
ShirtADay isn’t all about Sobczyk’s designs. The site opens up the creative process to the public, allowing users to submit their own shirt designs. If ShirtADay decides to sell their design, the user will even get a percentage of the profits.
“I think also what people enjoy and what I enjoy is having people ask me, ‘Oh, that’s cool, where’d you get that? I’ve never seen that before,’ and it makes you feel kind of special because you know you’re better than that guy for buying the shirt,” he said.
And with a ShirtADay shirt that says “I’m the 14-year-old girl you talked to on MySpace last night,” ShirtADay customers could very well feel much cooler than “that guy.”