Jumping into the middle of things? Don’t miss part 1 and part 2.
To my understanding, Spreadshirt has slowly been taking the world by storm though I don’t want to make too many such comments as they are a German based company.
Their site is nice.
While I haven’t felt the need to mention account creation in my reviews of the previous sites I must say something here. They ask for too much information. We haven’t even gotten to first base yet and you want to know all of my prior flings? Hold on now. If you are a web based business, why do you need to know where I live? This is the 21st century. I could be on any continent running a business. My address shouldn’t matter, but I digress.
Needless to say, the shop creation took a bit longer with these guys than with Cafepress or the ultra speedy Printfection. You do get some nice premium level features for your shop though including: eight shop themes and multiple language/currency support.
When it comes to shirts and colors, Spreadshirt has the most options I’ve seen so far. When choosing shirts, you get to encounter one of the two unique features that Spreadshirt has made their name on… personalized commission percentages.
Want to make 100% commission off of each shirt? No problem, though the price of the shirt does magically double for your customers when you do that… weird huh?
I mentioned that Spreadshirt had two unique features didn’t I? You wouldn’t call me a liar would you?
Seriously though, if you are a designer that has no want to sell shirts but simply wants to sell your designs, Spreadshirt is the place for you.
What does that mean for budding designers? It means that you can make money selling other peoples designs. For some reason that makes me feel dirty.
Going to shower now…
I’m back and feeling much better.
Ok, so besides the Open Source use of designs, what else makes Spreadshirt special? Well they do more than Digital Printing. Great right? Well maybe.
They use flex (aka Vinyl) and Flock (similar to Vinyl) and heat press them. What does this mean to you the budding designer? It means that if you don’t want to go down the Digital Printing path, you are limited to three color designs. Unless you want to use their writable flex (why god? why?) or specialty flex (glow-in-the-dark or glittery) where you only get one color.
If you are into vinyl (the safe word is banana) then this site may suit your needs, otherwise I would suggest that the serious designers move along.
Pros
- They do more than just digital printing with the addition of flex and flock
- Some Premium Level shop features come free-of-charge
- Almost every shirt color imaginable
- You don’t need to BYOD (Bring Your Own Design), they have lots to choose from
- Lets you make money when other people sell your designs
Cons
- Weird site navigation
- Account creation requires too much information
- Flex and Flock, while another option for designers, is not suited to designs with high color counts
- The lack of shirt vendor choice makes me sad across all of the sites thus far
Stay tuned for tomorrow, when we take a look at Wordans!
