Turn Down The Hustle: Empowering Online T-Shirt Sellers
Are you a t-shirt maker or a seller of handmade products? Are you trying to turn your creative passion into a thriving business while balancing your 9-5 job? You're in the right place!
I'm Amy, and I've been where you are. I know what it's like to have a million ideas but limited time in the day. That's why I created the "Turn Down The Hustle" podcast – a weekly show designed to help busy creatives like you.
Join me as we dive into practical tips and actionable insights. We'll cover marketing strategies that work specifically for t-shirt makers and simple techniques to enhance your craft. But that's not all – we'll also have honest conversations about the real challenges of being a creative entrepreneur.
So, grab a cup of coffee and hit play. Listen to "Turn Down The Hustle" while you're fulfilling orders or taking a well-deserved break. Together, we'll navigate this entrepreneurial journey and find harmony between creativity and business.
For more information, show-notes & to join a community of t-shirt makers like you -- visit: www.sunkissedva.com/podcast
Turn Down The Hustle: Empowering Online T-Shirt Sellers
23 | Fill In Your Weekly Run Gaps with a Standing Offer (Pt. II)
In this episode, I'm talking about the perfect blend of product offerings—from those reliable standing offers to the thrill of weekly runs. I'll share with you the strategic magic behind a well-stocked virtual shelf, where your customers find new treasures without ever feeling the sting of 'sold out' signs. I delve into the art of creating urgency while keeping the shop lights on, using a blend of in-demand products and savvy inventory management. Plus, get insider tips on curating products that not only fly off the shelves but also keep your buyers returning for more.
Ready to transform your sales with a sprinkle of fun? I'll take you behind the scenes of my ‘Tee Party’ strategy, a layered approach that fuses customer engagement with sales-boosting techniques. Imagine hosting events that give your audience a reason to celebrate with you time and again, creating a community buzz that turns casual shoppers into loyal fans. And with my Product Drop Organizer spreadsheet, you'll have a master plan to navigate the flurry of activities without breaking a sweat. It's time to elevate your business game, and this episode is the playbook you need to turn every offer into an opportunity.
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Welcome back to Turn Down the Hustle. This is actually part two of talking about what to offer your audience. So in part one we talked all about weekly runs and 10 reasons why your business needs weekly runs. We go through all of the details of the bonuses of weekly runs. If you haven't heard that one, I recommend hitting pause on this one. Go back, listen to that episode prior, meet me back here and we will continue on with part two. So let's quickly recap what exactly is a weekly run.
Speaker 1:A weekly run is a set of 20 products. I recommend doing themed products. If you need more ideas, check out my product drop organizer. We are going to run one theme each week, 20 products. I recommend dropping this weekly theme on Tuesdays, offering it all week and closing it on Sundays.
Speaker 1:It works great for many people. It keeps them focused. It allows them to keep new and fresh things coming to their audience. Them focused. It allows them to keep new and fresh things coming to their audience. But what are people buying on Monday? Right? So we have a new theme dropping on Tuesdays. They're closing on Sundays. But what if someone goes to your website on Monday and it's locked or there's nothing to buy? We don't want that. If you found my website and you're ready to shop or you're in that frame of mind, I want to make sure that you have something there to buy, and that's why, in this episode, part two, we're talking about standing offers. We want our weekly runs and our standing offers to work together, and at the end of this episode, I'm going to give you a third piece to your product offerings.
Speaker 2:Let's dive in by working smarter, not harder, so you can spend more time with your why, people and passions that matter most in your life. So throw on your favorite graphic tee and turn up the heat. Press, because it's time to turn down the hustle. Here's your host digital marketer, cold brew lover, t-shirt maker, freckled hype girl and owner of Sunkist Virtual Assistant, amy.
Speaker 1:So the biggest benefit of standing offers is what I already talked about in the intro. Your audience can shop any time. We want to make sure that if they are leaning on your website or found your business, you have something to offer them. Not to mention what if you want to take a week off, is that such a crime as a creative entrepreneur? To us sometimes it is, I know. Or what happens if you get behind? We've all been there. You risk an entire week of not having something to offer your customers. Drop the ball on your weekly runs. Then it's not the end of the world because you still have that standing offer available.
Speaker 1:Now it's possible that over time, your standing offer is going to be maybe just that standing, maybe stagnant, I guess you could say. And so if you're finding that your standing offer, which you have on your website, isn't really selling, that's where I would look to either destash it, put it on a quick clearance sale, or work to get rid of those prints so you can make room for new listings for your standing offer, so they're not sorting through hundreds of product pages when you know that they're not selling. Well, Now, when it comes to what kind of product should be in your standing offer comes to what kind of product should be in your standing offer. Let's jump into that next. The first thing you can fill your standing offer with is extras. Now be careful on this advice you can't go overboard with it. But when I would place my weekly run with a vendor, my technique was to always order an extra print of the designs that I thought were going to be really popular or the designs that sold really well for me that week. So any designs that I sold more than three of of those 20 designs in my weekly run. It told me, hey, this is a favorite and just because somebody didn't order it this week, there's a chance that maybe they would want to order it later. So I've already tested this print on my market and it has shown that it was received well.
Speaker 1:But also why I liked ordering an extra here and there on my screen print orders is because, if I made a mistake, we've all been there, we have ruined the one print that we needed and then now you don't have any extras if you can't print at home. So having that one extra on hand especially if it was an order where somebody I know it's time sensitive or I do not have any slip in my turnaround time. That extra print just gave me that extra piece of mind. Once I listed this print on my site, I did not have it available as an unlimited stock. I actually only annotated the exact stock I had available, so I wasn't putting a bind where then I had to place another screen print order just to fulfill this item. I could just sell what I had on hand.
Speaker 1:However, be mindful whenever you go to list these extras on your website and be mindful of how soon you maybe put this at a lower rate, Because if a customer the prior week just ordered that print at a full price rate and you said you need to order by Sunday, you're not going to get this again, or at least at a minimum you can put. I cannot guarantee this print to be available again, and next week if it's a steep discounted price, you know perception, so just keep that in mind and whenever you are doing your weekly runs, do not guarantee which prints will be available or that you plan to order extra of, because humans need a deadline. If you want them to make a decision, there needs to be a deadline and that's what your weekly run creates. So if you even flirt with the idea that maybe this print will be available next week, why would they order it now? They can just wait. Just keep that in mind with extras.
Speaker 1:So what other products or designs should you be offering in your standing offer? We talked about any extras, but also think about those designs that are unlimited stock. Some vendors offer prints like screen prints, DTF or clear film that does not run out of stock often, or they are really good about restocking. These are vendors that you want to annotate and keep note of, so you know if there are ones that guarantee a restock or once it's gone, it's gone. That's going to change how you offer these designs. These vendors or these designs would make perfect standing offers to list on your site. So, unlike the extra screen print listing example I talked about prior, where you included a quantity for those extras for vendors that you know will restock or you can get that design again, I do not recommend listing a quantity. Just leave it as unlimited. Or if you want to create a sense of urgency, then yeah, you can test out maybe listing only three available and see how your audience responds.
Speaker 1:The unlimited stock gets tricky, though, because when you start running your weekly runs. You need to be mindful of your cutoff time and material orders so you can place your order every Monday, like you do your weekly runs. But it could start to affect your turnaround time if a customer orders on Tuesday and then you have to wait a week to order that print where they selected it from your standing offer. Also, you want to avoid placing multiple screen print orders a week. Also, think about not just multiple orders from the same vendor, but what if you have five different vendors listed in your standing offer If they just so happen to pick one item from each of those screen print companies? They don't realize it, but you have it loaded in your backend what the vendor is? Now you could be out five different shipping costs for those prints. So obviously that's less than ideal and counterintuitive. So think about maybe reducing how many different vendors you're offering for that standing offer. If you're not going to be charging your customer additional fees since they ordered from different vendors but again, it's unbeknownst to them. I recommend stocking your standing offers with one to two vendors max.
Speaker 1:The next kind of products to add to a standing offer are those that you can create in-house. I love making bleach teas and vinyl teas. All that I can do in-house. My favorite part of getting an order for either bleach tea or vinyl was that I could create my materials in the same day. So prep either the design with the sublimation printer or my cameo for vinyl, Then I would order the tees and I could receive them the next day with S&S Activewear. This allowed my turnaround time to be significantly shorter. Like I'm talking, significantly shorter than whenever I ran screen prints. If you have created any products in-house and you don't rely on another vendor stock, these mock-ups make great standing offers.
Speaker 1:If you were to ask me one of the business tasks that I just loathe as a creative entrepreneur, for whatever reason, it's taking product photos. Like once you create the item, the finished product, stopping to take a photo of it, like prepping your mock-up, for whatever reason. I just am so excited to package. I love packaging, Get it in there, put their sticker on it, mark it complete and just mark it off as completed order. I am so excited to get orders out of my queue that sometimes I did not slow down to take a product photo. But with standing offers it changed my mindset with that, because if I just take the time to create this mock-up layout of this item, take a very clear picture. Then I can post it on my website and I will never have to take one again, unless I want to showcase it, maybe on a different color, and then, bam, I can resell it over and over again.
Speaker 1:In-house created products make the perfect standing offer. So here's something to consider If you offer either vinyl or sublimation, where you can make the designs in-house, or if you have a DTG or DTF printer, consider making only the things you can create in-house your standing offer. Or you can incorporate, you know, a few screen prints extras into your standing offer as well. But if you think about it that way, you are not going to be relying on anyone else to provide the design. You either have it on hand or you can create it in-house. To provide the design, you either have it on hand or you can create it in-house. So, again, if you have some of those tools printers at your disposable, that's something you can think about when it comes to standing offers.
Speaker 1:The last type of product to include in your standing offer would be seasonal. So if you own a copy of the product, drop organizer, you can take a look at sunkissvacom forward slash PDO Papa, Delta, Oscar that's the military, I mean coming out, Go take a look, learn more about it. But we have set weekly runs in that PDO For Christmas you get a week dedicated to Christmas design. So that's 20. How we are creative entrepreneurs. How could I possibly put every Christmas design I want, narrow it down to only 20 whenever I'm going to offer it to my group? I don't know of anyone that can do that. I know I can't. So for those larger seasonal type themes, you can use your standing offer to help support it. So what you can do is you can run this design or this collection for more than a week and then close it. You can add more mock-ups to the drop and offer it a bit longer, or put again, put those extras towards your standing offer.
Speaker 1:However, though, you have to be careful if you're creating your seasonal drops as a standing offer, because you need to keep an eye on your deadline and you don't want to get stuck with seasonal inventory. The product drop organizer helps guide you through when it's time to desash, when it's time to put something on sale, cut your losses and move on, so you don't get stuck with it. You want to stay ahead of timeline with these calendar events and that will significantly reduce the likelihood of being stuck with this inventory. Also, consider your turnaround time. When do you need to have this item completed so you can still get it to them within time to meet that holiday or season? You don't want to have it offered two days up to the event if you don't have it pre-made and can't ship it to them in time. So you want to make sure you're incorporating that into your calendar. So let's bring this all back together.
Speaker 1:We talked about last episodes about weekly run, so a theme dedicated to the week dropping 20 products on a Tuesday, closing them on Sunday. They got to order within that week if they want in on those 20 designs. But you don't want to only run a weekly run. You want to incorporate a standing offer, a product that's available or collection that's available on your website. So even when those weekly runs close, what are you offering your audience?
Speaker 1:I told you at the beginning of the episode that I had a third strategy for you and that would be tea parties. So while you have your weekly run, going in your main VIP group or selling to your email list that new release collection, you also have your standing offer available for your regular customers or subscribers. But then a third aspect would be running a tea party during the same week, and that is a curated anywhere from 40 to 60 designs. But here's the kicker If you have already built out your weekly run themes, those themes or those products that you've curated now double as your Tea Party category, so you're not having to create them from scratch and trying to generate all of these new mockups. You're starting to create folders on your computer or wherever you save them Google Drive and you can just access them again in the future. Just double check that the stock is still existent. But if you're using in-house creations, those mock-ups that we talked about, it's even easier to build up your library of designs and offers.
Speaker 1:But on the flip side of that, I also think that just running tea parties isn't enough. Think about it from this light. So you just threw a huge tea party. You have raging new fans, new customers. They're loving it. They placed their order, but now they're asking what's next? So then you invite them to what I like to call the after party, which is your VIP group, which where they'll be met with just the same amount of energy, just more people, and from there they're expecting to see what else you have to offer.
Speaker 1:So let's say you didn't have weekly runs. It's kind of a trade-off where they just had this huge tea party. It was a lot of fun. They had all these fresh new designs that were relevant to the either season or holiday coming up. Then they get to your VIP group and it's crickets. There's nothing available, there's nothing new to buy.
Speaker 1:You kind of are losing that momentum. Or, on the flip side, they go to your website and it's locked because you don't have a standing offer and nothing to offer them. So keep that in mind If you're doing all this work to get a tea party going, get a host inviting all their friends and you've made these connections and a great first impression. Your weekly run and your standing offer is going to help you keep that momentum you so desperately need. To sum it all up though, that standing offer, I'd never had to worry if I did happen to miss a weekly run. Week, it did not matter. I still had products on my website. It was still unlocked, available to shop at any time. If you still don't know where to start on these weekly runs or all of these themes that I'm talking about. I'd love for you to check out my product job organizer and get started with it today.
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