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Comment by shon | Hacker News Reader

Wanting to experiment with Shopify, I decided to make a t-shirt shop for cyberpunk and sci-fi stuff. So I registered a short sci-Fi sounding domain: https://hex7.org and proceeded to toil (many many mouse clicks) away stocking my shop with with hand-designed shirts and coffee cups and then waited.

2 years in, not a single sale :<

Partly I wanted just to add products and see if the combination of Shopify, Google, and my super-niche geeky products would generate at least one lonely customer… but no.

Did I buy ads? No. Did I SEO? No. Did I use ChatGPT to write tons of shitty Cyberpunk stories and blog them? BRB…

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Thanks for sharing. I like! One of my own current side hustles involves creating and selling t-shirts, hoodies, caps, etc. just like you. And also like you, I had ZERO luck trying to sell them in my own store (Shopify, WooCommerce). However, when I listed them on popular DTG-type sites, they started selling, and now sell several hundred $ per month. I'm talking Teepublic, Redbubble, Spreadshirt, etc. I didn't initially want to go that route because I thought making $2 or $3 per shirt sounded pretty crappy when I could have my own store and maybe make $15-$25 per garment. And also have control over my client base. But hey, a few hundred $ per month at $2-3 per shirt profit is almost infinitely better than $ZERO per month at $20 profit. I dunno, maybe give it a try? :-)

Wow that’s amazing. Thanks

If you are interested, I'd also recommend that you check out Michael Essek's YouTube channel (no affiliation, just like his stuff). He is a very successful t-shirt designer who sells books and materials to help people design stuff like this, but he also dispenses a LOT of free advice on his YouTube channel, if you are lucky he'll even critique your design on his show and give you advice on how to improve! Check https://www.michaelessek.com/ or on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelEssek

I run a SaaS service for large POD merchants (basically, people doing what you're trying to do, many of whom are making a living at it).

Shopify does not give you organic traffic. You don't want to start with Shopify unless you already have a dedicated audience.

If you're just getting started, places like Redbubble and TeePublic are the easy way. Low margins, but it's "fire and forget". Amazon Merch used to be the hot ticket but it's pretty saturated. I would say that Etsy is the most popular place to make money in POD right now - it's a little more involved (you pay listing fees) but you control your pricing.

I've been in this space for about 6 years now. Happy to answer any questions.

Was going to say almost exactly the same thing. Etsy is a far better place to start for this kind of thing. Makes it easy to add some level of internal/external advertising as well to get started.

To be honest the t-shirts don't look that great. Maybe there is room for improvement.

FINALLY some product feedback!! What would make them better?

Maybe GP is not the target market and I guess I'm not either? The only thing that appeals to me at all is the hacking the Gibson poster. Pretty cool. I have zero idea what all the other stuff is, if there are references I don't get them and the designs aren't interesting enough to intrigue me.

Maybe it's not my style so take my opinion with a pinch of salt. Hal9000 and Ono Sendai design are too basic tbh. Broseph feels much better. Also the black color really feel like it's for teenager or maybe metal vibe people (could be the customers you're targeting?). Maybe try to show different tshirt color in the front page so we know there is more than just black. Try to add more design? All the best!

You have a sale. Maybe the most expensive mug I've ever bought :) I look forward to it.

Wow thanks Kevin! ;) now I am longer in the $0 club!

I just bought something too!

dunno if its just me, but i think a dark site would suit a cyberpunk theme better. the photos with the plant and chair don't look very cyberpunk either

the other thing i noticed is that the graphics on the main page are hard to see when on mobile. the graphics are small enough so when you include the models head in the photos then the graphics are even smaller. maybe the thumbnail/first photo could be zoomed in. threadless.com for example just crop at the models neck.

also, maybe if you could find stock photos of people that look more cyberpunk that might help

Is there a particular reason you didn't buy adspace?

I imagine it's the main way that most shopify stores make their sales, and is probably a good way to realise some gains from your time investment.

Have you heard of CyberDog, its a clothing brand in London

Do you supply a feed of your products to Google Shopping? It's free now.

Hmm how does that work?

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