ShirtSeek.com – Redressing The Balance

admin    T-Shirt Marketing     PleaseDress.Me, T-Shirt Marketing, T-Shirt Votes, shirt seek, shirtseek.com, t-shirt community, t-shirt rating sites, t-shirt search

Paul Grzymkowski has poured his heart into the creation of ShirtSeek.com and I must admit that his Email pulled a few heartstrings too, reading the all too familiar story of yet another net visionary stumbling at the first hurdle. I’m hoping I can pull something inspirational out of the proverbial hat to recharge this guy’s batteries, but I have a feeling this review is going to be a long hard slog.

It’s true we have similar services out there, there’s Rumplo.com for instance, a very popular t-shirt voting site, although I’d say it was a lot thinner in the ‘t-shirt community’ department, it’s still a mainstay with many t-shirt designers to get their works out there. Paul’s biggest gripe is the competitor site PleaseDress.me which turned up a few months later with a virtual ticker-tape parade as it arrived on the scene, compared to the rolling tumbleweed reception that ShirtSeek.com has received.

I don’t think the situation is quite as bad as Paul perceives, now I know no one trusts Alexa.com for accurate traffic statistics anymore, but even as a general guide I can tell you and Paul that this is how the visitors are ticking over so far :-

As You can see there’s very little difference right now, and in fact neither is generating an enormous amount of traffic. The truth is most t-shirt related sites (with the exception of the likes of Threadless, Spreadshirt, Cafepress), blogs and communities have few visitors, however much passion we all may feel for the medium, and yes it is a medium of art rather than an item of clothing, most of the world hasn’t woken up to the splendour of the iconic tee (quite yet).

What’s more I believe I’ve been put in the impossible position of comparing two very different beasts here, let me make a poor analogy here (on 4 hours sleep btw), it’s like comparing a critically acclaimed book with a flashy news stand magazine. One is in the game of making money, the other has higher ideals, of building a long lasting community.

ShirtSeek.com was released to the public when PDM was but an inkling in the collective subconscious of a hotshot team of net entrepreneurs. ShirtSeek is a one man band operation, an admirable but always treacherous past time in the online world, if there’s one thing this difficult, evasive, and generally intolerable reviewer has learned about making one’s way on the net it’s that the old adage ‘talk is cheap’ is actually a good thing, if you’re a loudmouth with a few thousand friends you can do almost anything (as long as at least one of your friends can code interactive application-based sites in their sleep). I’m not all that keen on social networking, I suppose it takes a certain kind of personality to persist with proffering small talk to hoards of strangers everyday. But unfortunately that is exactly how business is done online, and so much so within the field of t-shirts that I’d be hard pressed to find a success story in our industry that didn’t feature a social marketing guru behind the scenes.

The truth is Paul needs to make more friends, and don’t we all? I sometimes wonder if all of us social noobs out there could somehow get it together for once, we might just find we have our own enormous social networking army ready to storm the barricades of Digg, Facebook, Myspace and all the other usual suspects. The truth is we are all of the opinion that quality wins over quantity every time. The trouble is we are for the main part in the minority and probably always will be. The Internet is foremostly a money-making machine, if you have several thousand ‘friends’ you most likely have something to sell, and take every opportunity to do just that, if you don’t you gain the respect of those who’d rather ponder life and its complexities, but those same people rarely fork out on a whim.

The amount of inspiring and creative people I meet who’s ideas, creations and solutions either never make the light of day, or die before the first dusk merely reiterates my own sneaking suspicions of our society today. What’s more the more spontaneous surfer is used to clear cut simplicity of ideas, they jump on every bandwagon out there, and jump off at the first sign of trouble. They are used to the best, and they want everything handed on a plate. For instance most t-shirt review sites would have given ShirtSeek.com a couple of paragraphs and a photo or two and will be done. They as many people these days have little patience with the ideals of organic growth and natural evolution. If they don’t find all the bells and whistles they find on the vast and established networks we all know today, then they’ll hitch a ride to the next site before you have a chance to finish your ‘about page’.

So what can Paul do to improve his chances. This Paul is going to be a little painful, change always is, but here goes.

The domain name – Shirt Seek. No one seeks shirts, they search for them, and they search for t-shirts rather than shirts. With the right skills a name shouldn’t even matter, then again I’ve never been particularly imaginative with domain names, having seen the changes in Google’s SEO policies over the past few years, I’ve got myself stuck in a keyword rut. Americans call t-shirts ‘tees’, and most people online are American (bar the Chinese which is academic seeing as I cannot speak or write the language and that their average wage could hardly cover the cost of a designer t-shirt). So I lumped myself with a dull and hyphenated domain name. Still, my ranking isn’t too bad, I get a lot of positive feedback, I find the experience rewarding for the most part. You could call my blog a ’slow burner’ in the world of t-shirt review blogs. What’s worse is that PleaseDress.Me is playing with TLDs, the way that say Del.icio.us has, and you know how much social networker types love that, the thing is that Google does too. If you can include a keyword in your TLD Google seems to go crazy for it, don’t ask me why.

Functionality. PleaseDressMe is geared towards the social networks, following the tradition of many successful t-shirt sites, they even offer a widget, if Paul could design a Facebook widget for ShirtSeek.com I think he’d put PDM to shame in a minute flat, it’s a tall order I know but Paul has managed to build ShirtSeek from scratch so I doubt it’s a total impossibility. Beyond the widgets there’s the functionality of the sites themselves, Paul, I have to admit that PDM have far more on offer on their homepage, it’s like a tarts’ boudoir over there, they make it all so easy and lay out their wares before you have a chance to blink. I’d consider ‘appropriating’ all of their search functions, seeing as they’ve near enough ‘appropriated’ your whole strategy!

Community. Where ShirtSeek excels is in its community-based model, rather than PDM who’s sole purpose is to generate cold hard cash, and then some. For instance every link I found at PDM led me to a product page via an affiliate link (Shareasale, Commission Junction, CafePress, TshirtHell). PDM want you to buy, they don’t want your opinions, or rather your views and comments are merely a by-product of their core strategy to rake it in as fast as possible. ShirtSeek’s links lead to a review page, offer details of other t-shirts by the same designer, and offer the visitor a chance to have their say. It’s more constructive, more altruistic, and a rather more inspiring business model, although ultimately less profitable.

I can see that ShirtSeek is in it for the long-term, I understand Paul’s motives, his ambitions to build a t-shirt community are highly admirable, but this does leave him open to attack from many other competitors. For instance there’s T-ShirtForums.com, an enormous t-shirt community that’s been around for quite a while, backed up by a network of other popular t-shirt related sites including a t-shirt rating site and a t-shirt designers directory. Then there’s a whole heap more t-shirt rating sites out there to choose from.

It gets worse, there are some absolutely enormous contenders to deal with, if you want to see a t-shirt community in action check out Threadless.com, which apart from selling a few t-shirts ($18 million profit was the last figure I’ve heard), they also encourage an enormous amount of interaction, what am I saying ‘encourage’, they positively demand it. Without audience participation Threadless would never have got off the ground, and seeing as they started as a thread in a t-shirt forum, it’s no surprise they’ve taken this route, and in some ways revolutionised it. I don’t personally enjoy Threadless, many competitors use fake or friends’ accounts to slate their rivals, firing out zeros and ones like there’s no tomorrow. There is no such thing as perfection when it comes to a business models, evolve or die is the best advice I can offer. My blog will most likely die on day, it doesn’t evolve, I don’t evolve, I firmly dug my heels in years ago, then again that could be old age or senility kicking in.

I will never be a success in business, perhaps I’ll find my place in the world one day, the Arts, visual, literature, who knows I might even manage to make a living, but that’s because I like to stick to my principles. If it’s worth saying at all, it’s worth saying well. I don’t skimp as you’ll obviously gathered by now, I know what it means to put quality ahead of perfunctory streamlined efficiency and productivity. I’d rather make a name for myself than make money, I’ll doubt I’ll get either, but if I do I will have both and that’s because I am in some way or other unique, I’m not truly unique, I can’t fly or move objects with my mind, but unique in the way that some old hobos sit in a gutter and drink away their lives, whilst others write about it.

Paul needs to take another look at ShirtSeek, I’m not keen on the design myself, yes PDM has a rather obvious format, a clone of everything from Stumbleupon to Threadless, but it’s a proven format. If you want to make your mark take it to the edge and then some, or not at all. I like the scribbled effect, but if you want to make it stand out scribble over everything, and leave the edges of the site tattered and frayed, or go the whole hog and create a site that looks like a t-shirt, with a tag and the top and hems around the edges. Sure it’s all just personal tastes but making yourself stand out these days is a near impossibility. Most successful sites rely on two things, a very strange name and an incredibly simple layout. The fine line between bland and brand is almost imperceptible, but it’s there.

I’d love to see ShirtSeek.com survive and prosper, excel and triumph, who knows Paul may even have a job for me there one day if he does make it big, but before any of that happens let’s recount what needs to change.

Friends. Make friends. Buy Friends. Pay someone with friends to trounce the networks and splurge your branding everywhere.

Functionality. Chuck far more function on the homepage. Tell them what you offer and why you’re the best. You have more listings than PDM, you offer more interactivity, tell the people as soon as they arrive. Create a Facebook widget and find someone to plug it to death, PDM have hardly made headway there yet.

Branding. Create a stronger branding, imprint that name in the subconscious of every passer-by, how can ShirtSeek become a household name? It’s difficult but only experimentation will find the answers you need.

Offers. Try some tie-ins with the major sites, you’re not clawing in the affiliate links like PDM so go to the top and offer them far more exposure, free ads for free contests for instance.

These are all merely opinions, ideas, if you have any yourself, or think you might be able to help propel ShirtSeek.com into the major league contact Paul Grzymkowski and tell him what you can do, who knows he might give you a job too (if things truly take off).

In the meantime show your support for all of Paul’s efforts, sign up (for free), submit your t-shirts for some free and unfettered promotion to the market, vote and comment on the current listings and generally shout about ShirtSeek.com from the rooftops, be it via the social networks, your favourite forums or blogs, or even an email to a friend or two. Competition is ultimately a good thing, it increases the quality of service and eventually sorts out the wheat from the chaff. Let’s hope that Paul has a bumper harvest of wheat this year.

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