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9 Comments

Looking for advice. Launched product, getting no traction.

Rocket Shirt - personal design merchandise

Yesterday launched idea which i was pretty excited about - letting people buy merchandise which has professional YET very personal design on it (custom image and text imported in design template). Plan was to build few sample designs and advertise it via Instagram to see if i gets some attention. Unfortunately it didn’t, but not sure if its product which sux or advertising method or price or all together? Maybe you have some suggestions or advice? Thanks

  1. 3

    I'd say the biggest problem is you only launched yesterday and you're expecting success today.

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    €50 for a shirt 😲Even the top 5 brands sell their shirts way cheaper than that. Customizing is cheap these days.

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    First of all let some native English speaker check your copy. there are mistakes in it and that is bad for trust reasons. Second, you launched it yesterday. What do you expect? 10 orders in the first 24h? You need to rip off your arse now and spread the word about it if you want to see some traction.

  4. 1

    I like the way you explained the product. In particular, I like how you showed the user submitted picture and then have an arrow pointing to the final product of you spicing the picture up and putting it on a shirt. I think could fine tune the explanation a bit (with user research), but overall I like the general approach.

    What are your thoughts on where the demand is coming from? Do you think that everyday people are eager to make these sorts of custom shirts with a spiced up design? Do you think there are a lot of small businesses looking to do this? Corporate people? Schools? I would try to get specific about who exactly you hypothesize to want this sort of product/service, talk to them about their needs, and talk to them about how they view your service.

    Also, is there anyone else that does this? The way I see it, there are lots of ways for people to make custom shirts, but what you offer is that you spruce up the design to make it look better. Does anyone else do that?

  5. 1

    It's really expensive. I'm not sure what other competitors are charging there in Europe but from my experience with custom printing on shirts and posters, that is a really hefty price.

    Are the materials or printing tech or something that makes it worth that much? If so I certainly think that it needs to be clearer. Usually I see most of those more expensive boutiques sell a lot on how premium and amazing their merchandise are.

  6. 1

    Maybe have a wider selection of your designs for people to preview? I'm not (personally) super excited by that Melanie design, but I might be by one of your other designs (everyone has different tastes).

    I'd also be curious if maybe selling a few of your own best designs might not be better - and less labor intensive - than custom designs. For example, if I live in Toronto, maybe an assortment of locally themed shirts would be an easy sell among my circle of friends who also live in Toronto. I see you're in Riga, so a picture of a drunk man passed out on the sidewalk with a "No Rigarets" caption might sell well. (Or it may not! Just an example)

  7. 1

    Hey - is there any particular reason you are highlighting you don't sell Avicii merchandise any longer due to legal reasons? I think mentioning it paints the store in a bad light, because it suggests you were doing something you shouldn't have been and were threatened with legal proceedings unless you stopped it.

    All customers need to know (if they even ask) is that you no longer sell the merchandise.

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      Agree, removed it. Sounds negative indeed. I was willing to be transperent and share reason why i discontinued previous collection.

  8. 1

    First: congrats on launching!
    Second: now is when the hard work ~starts~ continues. No other way about it. From here continue to do 80% marketing and 20% of working on your product. Other ideas/musts: cold email people, tweet, be helpful where your audience is, write useful blog posts, etc. One marketing channel is hardly ever enough. And also not proof of anything (success or failure).
    Sure others will chime in with more suggestions.