

Show HN: ilovethatshirt.com - davismwfl

https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ilovethatshirt.com<p>I want to hear some feedback on why we might not be getting the conversions expected.  We launched using a WordPress setup just to limit our risk on development (e.g. produce an MVP), so I would hope that is not the feedback (but if it is, so be it).  Please be brutal as normal :)  If we suck, we need to hear it.<p>Thanks!
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DigitalSea
I'll give you some brutal honesty.

1\. The design is boring and tacky. You really need to ditch those flames at
the top, flames to me are an immediate warning sign the site you are on is
going to suck.

2\. The designs lack any kind of design to them. I don't get the content of
some of them and I find the shirt that says something along the lines of,
"Popped my cherry" somewhat gross.

3\. The container around the site is too big and the combination of the white
and purple border is a nightmare for my eyes.

4\. The site lacks content, consistency and is all over the place. My eyes
don't know where to focus...

Hopefully that helps. I'm not trying to be rude, but extremely honest.

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davismwfl
I really appreciate it, and don't consider your comments rude at all. And that
is what I wanted/needed to hear.

Basically, content we are lacking and working on, I am concerned about drawing
peoples focus so we need to study that some more. Some of the shirts are
specific to a group of people, and I don't think they will have a mass appeal,
but I hear your comment.

Thanks for taking time

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Andrenid
Personally there's just nothing about the website or the shirt designs that
makes me want to consider it over any of the other sites that have way more
designs, more style options, and are cheaper.

You'll need to either pick a niche, or outdo them in either designs, price, or
variety.

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davismwfl
Ok, we are launching about 20 other designs, but we are new and I know we are
lacking content and design count.

I feel our value to people is we stock almost all of our shirts and we don't
have shipping and handling fees etc. Something we saw when we researched is
other sites started their tees at 15-20 but then tacked on 8-10 shipping. So
we thought instead, just make it flat and get it to people as quick as
possible.

From your comments though, my guess is none of that comes across on the site,
and/or it is not a valid draw? Of course, if no one likes the designs none of
that matters, or if the price point scares people away, again none of it
matters.

I hear you on picking a niche etc, I think that is where we need the content
to fill in. Its good to have this feedback now while we are in the early
stages, I'd rather hear it today and fix it over the next month than have huge
amounts of content that didn't work.

Greatly appreciate you being direct and providing solid feedback.

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hardwaresofton
Hey what would you say your audience is? If you're not looking to stock shirts
to tickle every possible fancy (which sites like donkey tees try and do), then
you'll probably need a niche?

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davismwfl
I think you are right about the niche.

We started off trying to target and launch some of the Halloween Horror Nights
shirts, and hence we rushed to launch a little earlier than I would have
normally liked. But you nailed it, we aren't trying to be a large reseller and
have hundreds of active designs, although I think donkey tees only has a small
resale side now. We were shooting more for a niche of some slightly off color,
but mostly pop culture topics. The idea was to only keep around 40-50 active
designs for order, and to make them a better quality than most others.

I'd say its probably an easier road to be a reseller because you can pick
designs that have a track record of selling and then just compete on price and
service. In our case we are trying to hit a harder target I think, not that
the t-shirt business isn't already crowded as hell anyway. And I think a
couple of people nailed it, we aren't communicating clearly through our design
about what we are doing and why it looks like we are charging more but really
are the same price as others because we don't have shipping charges in the US.

Thanks for taking time.

~~~
hardwaresofton
I'm no expert, but to keep down inventory costs, I would think you'd like to
keep less than 40/50 designs actually in stock (for example, 10 of every
design would make that easily 400/500 shirts, and at maybe $5 a shirt, that
might be more expensive than it needs to be, given that you don't know what
will sell yet)

So maybe you can leverage the social aspect of the internet here to keep your
inventory costs down (with a slight hit to speed of delivery?)

Also, are you guys looking to custom print? Because I could argue that the
money that you were going to spend to purchase inventory could maybe be better
spent with a machine that could quickly produce prototypes for the first, say,
50 orders of a new hot design, and then if it escalates, you can get more
production. What I guess I'm trying to say is that you could be more elastic
with your inventory by sinking your startup cost (or what you were going to
pay to GET those initial quantities of the current designs) with a screen
printing setup that could print modest qualities (allowing you to iterate
faster), and then hook up with bigger printers when necessary

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ibudiallo
Clickable [https://ilovethatshirt.com](https://ilovethatshirt.com)

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bliti
What's the actual business model?

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davismwfl
We started with two goals one to help people replace those old shirts that are
not easy to find anymore and two, provide some pop-culture and slightly off
color shirts (not unlike others), that are unique and custom designs. Not sold
by hundreds of resellers.

Our value proposition beyond custom designs is that we stock almost all our
shirts and you aren't being asked to pay shipping and handling fees etc. We
just do a flat cost for the shirt shipped to you (INTL orders do have an added
shipping fee). Although I see an A/B test lining up over this, given a couple
of comments about cost.

~~~
bliti
If you are experiencing low conversion numbers, then your model might be
incorrect. Have you tried selling the tshirts offline? If people will buy them
from you, then you will have designs that people will buy online.

Another member made this point, but I'll repeat it. The design of the site is
not very usable, and looks outdated. You should look into that, because
tshirts fall inside the fashion industry. Where design is #1.

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davismwfl
So we do sell offline but we target the audiences based on location or an
event etc, and a few of the designs are brand new so we don't have a check
point on those 3 yet.

I think you and the other member(s) are right, conversions are suffering
because of the design. Hence job 1 is to change it. The odd part is looking at
the other t-shirt sites that are popular and doing well their designs seem to
be only so-so, and overall look like they were stamped from a mold. Also most
are not mobile friendly at all, we are at least mostly responsive and
operational on a mobile device too.

This is not to say we made some radically cool design that is better,
obviously, plus we used a template to save time for the initial launch. We
were trying to do some things differently, like not cramming shirt designs
with no whitespace and hiding prices until you get into the details of the
shirt, or in a lot of cases until you go to checkout. I was trying to not do
that but obviously these other sites design must work. And since ours is
lacking a conversion rate I would call successful, we have to adapt.

I also evaluated price again today when I was bouncing around other sites.
Someone else brought that up, which to me is always worth evaluating. Overall
for those sites using the same quality shirts, once you checkout they we are
all within a few dollars of each other, with us being middle of the pack
usually. There are some shirts that are high discount mass produced tees that
you can get for 19 shipped.

I am thinking we are also suffering though because we don't call it out in a
bold way saying shipping is always free in the US. That could make people see
a $18-25 shirt and they mentally do the math of another 6-8 dollars and say
hell no thats way too expensive. So I think we need to figure out a much
clearer way to communicate our value prop on that front.

I always appreciate feedback, and the fact people here are generally direct
and don't load each other with BS .

Thanks again for taking the time.

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bliti
Good luck!

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shellehs
it just like a blog and, nothing more ...

