T-shirt question/idea

Here's a few tips for anyone comtemplating t-shirts, especially if they're going to try selling them:

1) A cool design that doesn't rely on an inside joke will sell well.

2) Cost is everything, and most screen printers will try to make such a profit off you that you can't turn a profit. Shop around. The setup fees should cost about $100-$150 for one color + $20-50 for each additional color. The shirts themselves shouldn't cost much more than $5 a piece. Ask around with family and friends to see if anybody know a good, cheap screen printer. My wife's cousin runs a screen printing company and gave us a screaming deal on our shirts. His website is www.metalfabtrophy.com

3) When you get a good deal on the shirts you can sell them cheaper and still turn a profit.

4) If you have a good design you can wear your shirt around town and people will ask you about it and want to buy one. Half the shirts I've sold are to people who have no clue what the 24 Hours of Lemons is.

5) Don't make too many shirts. We bought 100 and I'm still hoping we can sell all of ours.

6) Don't underestimate the value of a good design. Especially if little kids like it, or if their parents think they'd like it.

We used cafepress for ours.  Makes the shirts a bit expensive and we probably didn't sell as much as we could have, but people can just go online and buy whenever in whatever size they want which means no cash outlay for us and pure profit when they do.  I paid for part of the new shirts and mugs for this year from our modest profits over the past year.  Works for me.

If you're really cash-strapped, you can make stencils and spray-paint your shirts. Works great, and it turns out spray paint survives the clothes washer!

You can do multiple colors with stencils, too!

The more I think of it the more I like the baseball card idea. I still plan to do tee-shirts, but maybe bb cards, too.

H.K. Phooey's company did the Baksheesh! T-shirts and they came out beautifully.