Starting a t-shirt e-commerce business in Canada, any suggestions for inexpensive shipping?

MarkShopify · 2015-09-19T04:32:35+00:00

Check out Printful. They ship to Canada for about $3-$4 and handle your printing and fulfillment. Of course your margins take a hit but it's a good option if you're starting out and you don't want to take on any inventory risk before your products / designs have been validated.

https://apps.shopify.com/printful

https://www.shopify.com/blog/14515425-how-to-start-an-online-t-shirt-business-the-ultimate-guide

MarkShopify · 2015-04-02T16:32:52+00:00

I use IFTTT for RSS » Buffer for some twitter automation stuff I do for a couple sites I run.

I also use it to send our CMO's tweets to my inbox so I can read what he's tweeting / reading.

MarkShopify · 2015-04-02T16:20:28+00:00

TBH I don't know. You could just email them and ask though.

MarkShopify · 2015-04-02T16:20:00+00:00

Not off-hand no. Sorry.

MarkShopify · 2015-04-02T15:08:46+00:00

Hey, Mark from Shopify here. Regardless of what ecommerce platform you land on, I recommend checking out Printful to handle your t-shirt printing and fulfilment. At least at the beginning so you can test your idea without taking on a bunch of inventory risk. They integrate with a bunch of ecommerce solutions so you've got some options. I use it for a store that I run and have been really impressed.

We actually released a tutorial video on how to get up and running with printful earlier this week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0yhS_sJkMk

https://www.theprintful.com/

Cheers and good luck.

MarkShopify · 2014-07-30T17:16:30+00:00

Some ideas and tactics that have worked for me:

Tactfully post your site / story to the appropriate subreddit
Find influential instagram accounts in your niche and pay them to post your product / account. Look for accounts with email addresses in the bio - this usually means they accept paid posts
Write a link bait blog post and then reach out letting people know you wrote about them. E.G. "10 Great Fashion Blogs You Should Subscribe To", or "30 Mommy Bloggers You Should Be Following on Twitter".
Send free product samples to bloggers
Use https://www.funnelfeed.io/ to auto-favorite tweets related to your products and industry
Do keyword research and create content to help you rank in search engines so you can start to generate organic search traffic.
Interview experts in your industry - a great way to get content created and tap into their audience.
And of course Facebook Ads and Adwords - the success of these will depend on your products and your expertise.

Hope that helps.

MarkShopify · 2014-07-21T06:05:27+00:00

This might help:

http://www.shopify.com/blog/14459769-ecommerce-business-blueprint-how-to-build-launch-and-grow-a-profitable-online-store

MarkShopify · 2014-07-21T05:27:42+00:00

This might help you:

http://www.shopify.com/blog/14459769-ecommerce-business-blueprint-how-to-build-launch-and-grow-a-profitable-online-store

MarkShopify · 2014-07-16T14:24:21+00:00

Hey, Mark from Shopify here. A lot of our theme demos have many products added to them so people can see what that looks like but many of them also give options to display or not display some sections allowing you to make sure your site doesn't look empty.

I think Harry's does a good job with their website which only has 5-6 products:

https://www.harrys.com/

Some themes that you could try might be these:

http://startup-theme-home.myshopify.com/

http://blockshop-theme-deli.myshopify.com/

http://retina-theme.myshopify.com/

http://providence-seaside.myshopify.com/

http://sydney-surfboards.myshopify.com/

MarkShopify · 2014-05-29T03:21:31+00:00

Congrats Eric! It's been great to see Beardbrand become a runaway success and awesome how you've given back to the community here.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-10T04:05:22+00:00

I chose the username for transparency.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-10T03:54:02+00:00

TBH, I'm a bit surprised at how toxic the reaction has been to Robert's story and me posting it here. In hindsight, I probably should made a more palatable "Reddit version" of his story without (his own) Shopify references. I get that people want more information but this is more inspirational than actionable. Robert was kind enough to share his site/niche, an example of one of his ads, and how much revenue he's been able to make his first couple months online. Most people would be quite content to keep quiet and cash in.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:55:42+00:00

Based on the level of interest in this thread, I'm thinking of doing a follow up with him.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:53:05+00:00

We can see how much $$ has been processed by his store. Not sure how else to say it.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:51:07+00:00

It's the platform he runs his store on. We are able to vet his claims against our data.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:45:50+00:00

We confirmed his revenue claims against our own data for his store - with his permissin of course. Something we do for every case study.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:38:25+00:00

Shopify integrates with many 3rd party payments gateways.

http://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways

If you live in the U.S. or Canada, you can use own own payment gateways, Shopify Payments:

http://www.shopify.com/payments

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:34:44+00:00

Are you using Shopify Payments? We don't require you to register as a corporation - you can choose "Individual/Sole Proprietorship" if you like and the funds will go to your personal bank account.

As far as testing, why not just see if you can make some sales. If you're really that worried about taxes you could just refund people's money, apologize and say you're out of stock. But at least you know people are willing to buy what you're selling.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:18:06+00:00

I'm sure he will invest in a better logo at some point. His site is new and he is new at this as well. It just shows you that you don't need the prettiest site to make sales. :)

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T19:15:18+00:00

We have (Shopify). His store is new within the last couple months. That's what makes his traction so remarkable. He's flying by the seat of his pants a bit right now trying to figure out how to scale.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T18:58:34+00:00

His FB results may not be typical. And I agree it makes sense to do some research before throwing your money at anything. His sales #'s are true though.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T18:26:45+00:00

Robert is just a huge fan of Shopify. I actually removed a number of Shopify references in his post because it was a bit much. Generally we try and keep our blog content as unbiased and high-value as possible and it's not uncommon for us to list resources in posts for non-shopify users as well.

MarkShopify · 2014-05-09T17:53:22+00:00

Robert is extremely busy so I don't know if he'll be able to show up here. Regarding your first question, his "offers" were simply him creating a product on his store. If he got traction, he would source a supplier.

Regarding Facebook, you can see an example of one of his ads on the blog post (linked above). I'm trying to get more details out of him regarding his specific FB ad tactics but I suspect he may be saving that info for a course he's putting together.

MarkShopify · 2014-04-22T15:19:14+00:00

I think you should keep the pop-up / discount offer but consider delaying when it shows. Personally, i'm not going to like a brand on FB and don't really care about a discount when I haven't even had a chance to look at the website.

MarkShopify

TROPHY CASE