Kerry Egeler created Shirt School to help you bring home the bacon with an online t-shirt and apparel business.
It’s print on demand (POD), so you won’t have to order a bunch of inventory or mess with shipping or anything like that.
Just make a simple Shopify store; come up with some designs; use social media to get people to your store; and when someone buys, your POD company will fulfill the order and ship it straight to their door – for a reasonable fee.
Pocket any extra or reinvest into paid ads to scale.
Make thousands of sales with Kerry’s simple step-by-step system. The Shirt School Master Course will show you how.
Cost is $995 or four monthly installments of $297.
Included with that are live weekly coaching and Q&A calls with Kerry; access to the private Shirt School VIP Community; the T-Shirt Idea Bank; a tools pack; a Facebook and Instagram Ads For Apparel Course; Kerry’s personal swipe file; an Etsy training with Josh Stover; a comprehensive sales tax training; and some case studies if you pay in full.
Pros: Kerry appears to be a genuine dude who practices what he preaches. The business model is quick and easy to launch with minimal initial investment. Plus, you get to flex your creativity and build a business you can take pride in.
Cons: T-shirt stores are a dime a dozen – good luck being the dime that shines brighter than the rest. Also, attracting free traffic to your store will be no walk in the park. Paid ads could be a more viable option, but the real question is whether there’s enough profit per sale to stay in the black.
Let’s see if Kerr Bear can alleviate my concerns.
Here’s how he suggests getting your first 10 t-shirt (or apparel) sales.
First and foremost, you want a simple, niched down store. MVP: Minimum Viable Product – that’s all we’re going for here. Everyone likes to overcomplicate it, but the truth is, fancy, custom themes and a million Shopify apps won’t sell your product for you.
Keep it simple, make your store easy to navigate, and let the product do the talking. You can always jazz things up later.
The second thing you need to make your first 10 print on demand shirt sales? Emotion-based designs.
“Your designs are way more important than your actual store,” Kerry says.
“You could have a really really great design – a design that really speaks to people – inside of a crappy-looking store, and you will still make sales. I’ve seen it time and time again. This is maybe the most important thing you need to make sales.”
“But what do I mean by emotion-based designs? It has to trigger an emotion for your ideal customer instantly. They have to feel happy, feel sad, feel excited, feel pride, feel anger,” Kerry continues. “Something. They have to feel something.”
“And it needs to happen right away. They have to be able to get it and know what it’s about right away.”
“One of the easiest things you can do is make funny designs that make people laugh. This is probably the most effective designs, are the ones that just make people laugh.”
“But I think also making them feel inspired or sentimental – nostalgia – those are also really really powerful.”
Last but not least, you need one clear marketing strategy.
Don’t try to do it all in the beginning. TikTok, Facebook ads, putting your designs on Etsy, blogging, influencer marketing.
Don’t be a jack of all trades and master of none – focus on one traffic source and own it before moving on to the next.
One’s plenty enough to get you to your first 10, 20, 100 sales.
Okay, after hearing those tips, I’ll admit, my skepticism is waning. I can see this working despite the fierce competition and slim profit margins.
Well done, Kerry.