Design Selection is Key. As far as designs go, it’s best to offer an extensive catalog of preprint custom t-shirt designs. Online t-shirt customers love to shop and will scroll through design options for as long as it takes to find the one they love. Therefore, offer as many design choices as you can. An advantage to selling decorated tee shirts online is that you can display designs by simply overlaying the image of on top of a custom t-shirt. There’s no need to print a sample to show your customers as is usually required in a store setting.

In terms of the size and display of designs, a standard display that will show up on your home page should contain images that are approximately 175 by 175 pixels. This creates a nice visual for people to see. The average thumbnail on a lot of sites is 150 by 150 pixels, which I think is the minimum size you should use. You don’t want people straining to see what you are selling. Also, clearly marking the types of products you offer is critical.

One thing that you have to remember is you don’t know at what resolution the potential customer is viewing your site in. I happen to view in 1280 x 1024. Many people are still viewing in 600 by 800, which is very small.

You want to keep your page size adequate because you don’t want people to have to scroll from side to side on your page. You want everything front and center on the monitor.

A nice feature that many subscription-based services offer is called thumbnail rollover zoom. When the customer comes in, he rolls over the image with his mouse and it enlarges it, which allows for many more images to be put in a centralized location without making the page to big.

Flat vs. Model Photography. Are far as whether or not shirt or design photos should be shot on models, that’s a budgetary issue. What you see most often today is the custom design portrayed on a blank tee shirt overlay. I think that is fine if they are not printed samples. However, you need to be confident that your printing can match the design that is portrayed to the customer. Otherwise, you risk disappointing the customer.

If you are going to investment in live model photos, you have to be prepared to pay fees. This can get into thousands of dollars depending on the amount of designs that you have. The other issue is you have to create hard samples and most people are not creating hard custom tee shirt samples anymore. With the right templates you can do overlays that are natural and work great from the customer’s point of view. It is a good idea to have some model shots as graphical elements for your home page and other areas of your site.

Limit the Flash. Shoppers are on your website to do one thing – purchase a custom or pre-printed tee shirts. They do not need to see flashing advertisements above, below, to the side or pop out from the product they’re trying to learn about. You want your customers focused on the product so they can view as many options as clearly as possible, which will encourage them to commit to a choice and their purchase.

12/01/2011
Little Falls, New Jersey 07424