Last summer, Shari and I started kicking around the idea of opening a merchandise (merch) store. We wanted to have a way to bring our creative ideas to life and give us an opportunity to share those ideas via an online store.
The first step was finding a platform that would allow us to create designs that could then be placed on t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. Having no graphic design background, we needed a user-friendly site that would allow us to use existing graphics and customize them to fit our needs. After playing around with several options, we settled on a company called PlaceIt.
After a few days of spending hours in front of the computer (and maybe uttering some bad words) we learned the basics of working with the pre-made templates and had several designs that were ready for the next step – create our merch!
Right off the bat we knew we did not want to maintain inventory and handle orders and shipping, so we spent some time researching our options for online, print-on-demand companies. We were also looking for a place that offered a built in storefront presence that would allow us to add our designs to multiple products and integrate them right into a sales page.
There are many out there, all with their own pros and cons. We decided to try two of these, and set up our shop on Teespring (now “Spring”) and Redbubble
Once we were happy with the look of both stores and had a feel for the process of creating individual items we ordered a few things for ourselves to check quality and fit.
Originally, we thought we would have one store that would handle all of our items but found that we liked things about both of them! We determined that we liked the design process and the quality of the clothing items better on Teespring, so that’s where we will be sellling most of our items.
The options for stickers, and the quality and price point, were better on Redbubble so that’s where our sticker shop will be!
We are still learning new and better ways to create designs and Kris is starting to work with GIMP, a program similar to PhotoShop that will allow her to do things like remove the background from an image to create a sticker, for example.
We’d love it if you’d browse our stores to see what we’ve created up to this point.
Click here to visit our Merch By The Girls store for shirts and mugs. From now until March 21, 2021 you can get 10% off by using the promo code PREAT2021 at checkout.
Looking for a sticker to decorate your water bottle? Click here to visit our sticker shop.
We will add new designs as time allows (we’re going to be a little busy for the next 6 months you know!) and hope you find something in our stores that makes you smile!
akaTheGirls 