Personalized children’s apparel is an attractive market that isn’t as saturated as graphic tees for adults leaving plenty of room for growth. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends are eager to offer a unique gift to the newest member of the community. The events that mark the journey of a child into adulthood provide plenty of opportunity for repeat sales and even referral business from community mommy groups and neighbors that notice on your children’s wear designs.
Experiment with different design styles to see which get the most attention. Some popular trends in infant and toddler designs include monograms, slogans, and family status identification like “Big Sister” in text or “My Little Brother is a Cat” in text. Even if you find many instances of your idea already for sale, you can stand apart from the competition with your choice of fonts or combinations of fonts and artistic style.
Typography is the visual representation of your text. There is a ton of opportunity when you play with typography in your design. Although for certain t-shirt or onesie designs plainly formatted words work well.
When designing infant and toddler wear or anything that is intended for children 12 years of age or under, it’s the law that the products you print the design on have a Children’s Product Certificate (CPC). This is the portion of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) governing products intended for children. Fortunately, if you’re using the children’s products we feature on our t-shirt printing website, you don’t need to worry about this since our baby apparel products have already been vetted and cleared.
Coming up with outstanding designs is just part of the process. Once you have your garments printed, it’s time to test the market to see if everyone else is just as impressed. Fortunately, you don’t have to print a lot of samples simply to test the viability of the design. Our no minimum required toddler t-shirts and infant onesies are ideal for test printing. We currently carry Rabbit Skins infant and toddler tees plus bodysuits. We offer youth size no minimum required products as well including Hanes, Augusta, and Rabbit Skins.
What’s the difference between these products and products that require six or more in the order? The apparel items featured on our t-shirt printing website are comprised of many different blends of fabric. Some are suitable for both screen printing and digital printing but some are only suitable for screen printing at our facility. Digital printing, perfect for single orders or test prints require apparel made from 100% cotton.
If you believe through your market testing that you’ve come up with a winning design for large scale production, our bulk pricing on screen printed apparel is very advantageous for your profitability. Selling uniquely designed garments online is one way to gain a lot of exposure but taking on the building and maintenance of a website might not be your thing. Here are some alternative options to marketing and selling your design without the hassle of building your own website.
The Etsy marketplace is ideal for uniquely made items. The makeup of Etsy’s traffic is 86% women and since women account for 85% of all consumer purchases, this is a fantastic market. A tremendous amount of the referral traffic Etsy receives is from Pinterest, so make sure to pin your designs and include a generous description of the product in the pin.
Artfire is another indie style marketplace that puts buyers and sellers together. You are able to create an account and sell your decorated apparel as long as it’s your custom design and does not include any licensed imagery. If you are using any licensed imagery there is a commercial option as well.
eBay isn’t just for used stuff, anyone can create and sell on eBay. The beauty of using a site like this is you don’t have to drive traffic yourself. There is a lot of competition of course, so you’re design, presentation, and of course garment pricing needs to be competitive.
Another advantage to using already established online marketplaces is you may be less susceptible to swings in search engine placement. Obviously you can test an established online marketplace and create your own website to see which channel is more profitable.
Partnering with local businesses to display your offerings is another way to generate sales of your designed baby apparel. Independently owned and operated businesses are recommended because they don’t have to go through corporate approval to feature your works. Expect to pay a commission on sales or a small rental space fee. Baby apparel compliments some types of businesses more than others.
When soliciting for a place to feature your clothing, think about the type of foot traffic the business attracts and ask yourself if this is your target audience. Here are some recommendations:
- Coffee Houses
- Flower Shops
- Yoga Studios
- Beauty and Hair Salons