According to a poll conducted on a popular t-shirt forum, most people just use the generic plastic bags or whatever mailer their product will fit in. It’s no surprise that barely anybody uses unusual packaging or customization to set their product apart. It’s simply overlooked.

In the beginning you might have no choice but to opt for the most basic, least expensive t-shirt packaging options. This is fully understandable, as not every start-up t-shirt business has hundreds and thousands of dollars at their disposal. But you should at least have plans to improve your t-shirt packaging, along with the rest of your branding, as your budget increases.

Look around at your competition, and favorite brands to see what their t-shirt packaging is like so you can keep up with them. In addition to the exterior packaging, don’t forget the interior items such as hang tags, free stickers, posters, postcards and other freebies. Keep in mind that presentation does a whole lot for selling to your customers. It’s fun and cool, and your shop could definitely use the individuality a unique package gives. Remember, impressive t-shirt packaging can go a long way!

BONUS TIP: Read our book LAUNCH A KICK-ASS T-SHIRT BRAND for in depth advice and tips like these. Tons of useful information you can’t afford to miss!

Let’s take a look at some of the common price ranges for t-shirts.

There’s the $10-$15 range: This is usually found in new brands who plan on going with the ‘cheap shirts’ approach or brands who have been around for a while and can afford huge bulk orders that allow them to sell their t-shirts for low costs and still get a good profit.

The $16-$24 range: The unofficial average price range for the majority of t-shirt brands. Most brands you come across will have their tees at this price range whether they’re new or have been around for a while. Great profit margin if you can afford huge orders, good enough margin if you place small wholesale orders.

The $25-$30 range: These tees usually come off as higher quality than the average tees and often involve designs that feature various print locations, multiple print techniques and all over prints. Many streetwear labels, rookies and vets alike, go with this range.

The $31-$60 range: Upscale labels often pull off this price range. These tees are often associated with luxury, affluence and sophistication and also have more complex production processes…or the brand is so popular the name sells itself. The labels are also often endorsed by and marketed towards celebs, which allows the retail price to be so high.

When choosing a price range for your brand, keep in mind these key factors to each range. See which range your brand could best be defined as or which you’d like for your brand to be sold for. Be realistic too. Some newbies make the mistake of trying to create expensive upscale labels without offering high quality t-shirts or having any celebrity backing.

A good thing to do is check the pricing of competitors. Do yours match up? Are they lower or higher? Try to keep your pricing in the same range as brands in the same niche as yours. You might be thinking ‘I’ll sell my tees cheaper than my competition so that people prefer mine!” This isn’t always the case. Only offer cheaper prices if you can still promise equal or better quality. Otherwise you’ll just come off as a knock-off, wannabe brand. The ‘CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP!’ approach isn’t necessarily the best route to take.

The pricing mentioned above is referring to online or retail pricing. Now let’s take a look at wholesale pricing.

Typically, retailers will take your product and sell it for 2x as much as they bought it for. If your retail price is $20 your wholesale price should be $10. This is what the price ranges above would look like as wholesale prices:

$10-$15 retail=$5-7.5 wholesale

$16-$24 retail=$8-$12 wholesale

$25-$30 retail=$12.5-$15 wholesale

$31-$60 retail=$15.5-$30 wholesale

Are you ready to offer your t-shirts for these wholesale prices? Will you still be able to profit? Here’s a rule you should try to go by. Production cost x 2 = Wholesale price.
Wholesale price x 2 = retail price.

Keep these things in mind when deciding on the pricing for your t-shirts. As with many business journeys you may find that not all this pricing stuff is the same everywhere or that your particular situation requires you to price differently. Now let’s play some Plinko!

What goes into your line sheet? A number of things:

Images of all the t-shirts your line consists of. Line sheets are usually seasonal, so you’d only show the t-shirts you’ve created for the upcoming season. Most line sheets show drawn/ computer generated depictions of the t-shirt line, not photographs, because this makes the design clearer. A photo may badly represent your t-shirt designs if the camera happened to suck. Show all important views of your t-shirt. For example, if you have graphics on the front and back, show both sides. If there are small details in your graphic show a close up of the detail. Represent your designs the best that you can.

Style names and numbers. You can use a mix of numbers, a mix of letters, or a combination of both. Make your styles number easy to remember, for you and the buyer. Coming up with style numbers can be tricky, but using a formula can make it easy. Some companies use a number from 1-9 to represent things like fabric, color, design, and size, and put them in a select order.

Prices. List the wholesale prices of your t-shirts. Remember, your wholesale price is usually doubled by the retailer to come up with the retail price. Make your wholesale price half of what you expect the t-shirts to retail for. It should be easy to find the prices for your t-shirts, so design the layout of the sheet correspondingly.

Color and fabric information. List what kind of fabric each t-shirt is made of and the quality of the fabric, etc. An example is ‘Made of 100% ringspun cotton.’ Also show the colors each shirt is available in. If a design is available in more than one color, show the design on each color t-shirt.

Season. The season of the collection needs to be clearly stated. Summer, Winter, Spring, or Fall.

Delivery dates and order cut off dates. You must also state delivery dates and order cut-off dates. This info needs to be at the top of the line sheet. Order cut-off date, start ship and complete ship dates are included here.

Order minimums List your order minimum, which is basically the smallest number of t-shirts a retailer can purchase from you. You can list a minimum per t-shirt design as well as a minimum total order. For example, 5 pcs per design, $250 per total order.

Company and/or sales rep contact information. This is really important. List this clearly in an easy to find place or you probably won’t be getting any call backs.

Order form. Include an order form listing each style name/number as well as prices in an orderly fashion. Make space to allow the retailer to mark off size and amount, as well as shipping info. Take a look at other companies’ catalogs to see an example of this. Make the order process as easy and painless as possible.

This should give you a start. Use these pointers and you’ll be on your way to making an excellent line sheet or catalog.

When it comes to branding your clothing line it is necessary to show your logo as much as possible. Within your t-shirt design, on the shirt label, on your website and promotional material, and if you happen to make it to retail, on hang tags. Your hang tag is your opportunity to brand each t-shirt.

Hang tags are must haves for brick and mortar retail. Pretty much every tee in every store has a hang tag, so it’s only right that yours does, too. A hang tag can add perceived value to your line, especially one that is well designed, and includes useful information.

So what goes on your hang tag? Some things you should consider are your brand name, logo, and website if you have one. Look at other brands’ hang tags to get ideas.

Let’s take a look at some interesting hang tags.

Once you’ve come up with a great hang tag idea and design, start searching for companies that produce hangtags. You might run into companies with high minimums and costly unit prices or set up fees, but as with anything in this business, just keep at it and you’ll find a problem to your solution. To give you a head start we found a few good custom label printing shops.

NW TAG

JAKPRINTS

PS PRINT

Also, consider getting your hang tag made with a unique die cut shape. It further brands your t-shirt line and makes it stand out in a crowd of thousands. Anything that sets your label apart or gives it a professional touch will undoubtedly help you make the sale.