Are T-Shirt Communities A Rip-Off?

admin    T-Shirt Articles     Design By Humans, T-Shirt Designers, Teextile, Threadless, cafepress, crowdsourcing, spreadshirt, t-shirt communities

I love t-shirts, that should be pretty much apparent to anyone who reads this blog, and I alongside a vast majority of fans of t-shirt arts was excited by the development of Threadless and other t-shirt communities out there across the world. But, and it’s a big but, as with almost all business sectors, there’s good practice, bad practice, and quite a wide range in between. Now, I know how it feels to be ripped off, we have all, in our lives from time to time, experienced a “poor deal” at the very least, and sometimes downright theft. There are charlatans across the globe, pervading all kinds of product and service based industries, who’s sole intention is to grab your money and run. Fortunately the vast majority of companies realise that without long term customer loyalty there’s little chance of them going on a “rip off” rampage and getting away with it, not including those that have almost sole or shared monopoly of a retail sector, banking being a good example of bad practice.

As with the rest of the business world, the t-shirt sector has its “bad apples”, one of the first to come to my attention following an initially positive review here at Buy Tees was Teextile.com. They still remain the worst offenders in poor if not non-existent customer service, sending out t-shirts late, sometimes never at all, and even neglecting to pay their designers. Today I received another comment at my post Teextile – A Rip Off? which highlights all the crimes and misdemeanours of this relatively young venture into the world of t-shirt crowdsourcing. Here’s what the designer Warren Hart had to say on the matter:

“I let them use one of my designs ( SLF ryu shirt ) (http://www.fourninjas.com/shop/product/1006828) to sell in January of 2010. They have yet to pay me a dime for the amount of shirts they sold. In total they owe me about $300. For months I’ve asked and asked for my money and nothing. Just one sob story after another. They were quite rude to me as well. Now they don’t even respond. P.S. Tanga.com have ripped off my design as well.“

A few days ago I also received a comment from a reader complaining about the French t-shirt community site Wordans.com:

“Wordans has very poor business skills! I ordered shirts for a festival I was attending, their web-site claimed it would take 5-10 days and it took my shirts over 16 business days to reach me. When I cancelled my order they said they would not give my money back and I should have put a rush on my order even though I ordered with more than sufficient time!“

Now, despite the awful example of Teextile, perhaps the most crooked and conceited t-shirt community on record (read these comments to see why!), I might be blowing things out of proportion. Although I have a suspicion that most t-shirt buyers experiencing problems with customer service and shipping times may simply be on the receiving end of companies that are a victim of their own success. For every Threadless, Design By Humans, Cafepress and Spreadshirt out there, obversely there are dozens (if not hundreds) of failing t-shirt companies and ‘Print On Demand’ t-shirt sites, and it’s simply a matter of under-manning and underfunding. Without enough staff and a decent contingency fund there’s little most t-shirt companies, or any company for that matter, can do when demand outstrips supply.

Then again, I’d like to see a single instance of say a car designer, a commercial architect, or a governmental advisor in a quango who hasn’t received monies for their services. The truth is that certain t-shirt communities out there are getting a very bad reputation amongst designers, far worse than they will have garnered through a dissatisfied clientèle. Without design, the lifeblood of all t-shirt communities, there is no community, there are no t-shirts, no customers, no profits, absolutely zilch. It seems extremely short-sighted for any company, no matter what they sell, to cheat their own designers, do they think we are all fools?

The time is at hand, I believe, to stand up against the commercial bullies, the cheats, the crooks and the thieves in the t-shirt industry, and the best place to start is with the current worst offenders, Teextile.com.

Above is a button to include on your own blog, site, or social network page if you want to help stop this ever pervading problem. If you wish you can link to this post or http://buy-tees.net/2010/03/teextile-a-rip-off

or not, the choice is yours. I simply think it would be a good idea to make it clear that we’re not going to take this s*** off any t-shirt community again. In the UK we have something called Trading Standards that to a degree can guarantee customer rights, along with our own Statutory rights. In America the best they can offer is the Better Business Bureau which seems to be something of a voluntary organisation with little legal clout and a tendency to ignore those companies that haven’t signed up to their register. Useless.

What we really need is an independent body, funded by all the major t-shirt sites as mentioned before, i.e Threadless, DBH, Cafepress, Spreadshirt etc. This body would essentially provide a seal of approval for new and old t-shirt communities, including a ratings system that is recognised world-wide by the industry and the buying public. The ball is in their court now, who knows, if we all stand together on this it might just happen.

Spreadshirt Turns Green

admin    spreadshirt     organic tees, organic tshirt, recycled t-shirts, recycled tees, spreadshirt, spreadshirt tees

Spreadshirt is working on improving its green credentials… they’re increasing their range of recycled and organic tees to meet the rising consumer demand.

Products of Nature

New Bamboo and Organic Apparel in April

Women’s ‚ÄúEarth Positive‚Äù T-shirt

The Earth Positive shirts from Continental offer a more progressive ethical apparel choice. They are:
1) Made with organic cotton (GOTS Certified)
2) Carbon Neutral
3) Fair Trade Certified (FWF Seal) read more

The World’s Funniest T-Shirt Contest?

admin    T-Shirt News     Spreadshirt contest, funny t shirts, funny t-shirt contest, funny tshirts, spreadshirt, world's funniest t-shirts, world's funniest tees

Spreadshirt.com in association with Aviary.com (a browser-based suite of collaborative applications) have challenged the world (that includes you) to create the funniest t-shirt in the world. Well as we all know humour doesn’t always cross national borders let alone personal taste, but hey what the heck we at Buy-Tees.net thought we’d pick out a few of our current favourites already in the running.

If you fancy submitting your own t-shirt design you’re in with a chance at winning one of the following:

* A t-shirt with your winning design. [$30 value] (includes free shipping)

* A Premium Shop Membership at Spreadshirt. [$100 value] (limited to North America – hmm there they go again Spreadshirt ignoring everywhere else.)

* An Aviary premium account. [$99 value]

You can check out the current contenders yourself at Spreadshirt.w1k.com or sign up and get going straight away, or if you’re not in too much of a rush to give the world a belly laugh or two take a peek at these… and remember if you want someone other than yourself to win you should really vote for them :p read more

Make Your Mum Proud

admin    spreadshirt     Mothers Day, discount, mom, mum, spreadshirt, spreadshirt sale, spreadshirt t-shirts, spreadshirt.net, tees

Yes this one’s for the Brits, well the Europeans at any chance, it’s not for moms, who don’t exist over here, they can be mothers, though not it the way you might hear between two taxi drivers stuck in a New York traffic jam, no, definitely not. Anyway if you love your mum, and I don’t mean that in a Greek tragedy way, I mean the normal “thanks for going through labour for me” and no I don’t mean working her way through a post-socialist political party either.

Anyway, you can say it with flowers, but well she’s probably sick of the sight of daffodils. You could say it with chocolates, but hey, she’s probably sensitive about her weight these days. So say it with erm… a Spreadshirt t-shirt? Well maybe, I don’t know your mother, she might be that way inclined. I sometimes think Spreadshirt resemble Hallmark more everyday, at least they have a sale on to mark the occassion. Roll on T-shirt Review Bloggers Day, in case you’re wondering what I’d like, it’d have to be a manual flatbed screen printing press for my art (A0 and up). They seem to be rather thin on the ground in this part of the world. read more

Spring Has Sprung At Spreadshirt

admin    spreadshirt     spreadshirt, spreadshirt sale, t-shirt discount, t-shirt sale, t-shirt voucher

Spreadshirt Spring Sale

Full-colour promo with 15% off

The winter has nearly had its day and spring is already fighting to declare itself open for business. Time to feed the retinas their yearly dose of unadulterated colour – grant yourself and your customers a budding bloom and make sure you send the spring breeze flying in the right direction:

From 20th February ‚Äì 1st March 2009, you can order any article with a colourful design (i.e. at least one colour that isn’t black or white) and receive a generous 15% discount!

Voucher code: BABYBLOOM

Duration:

This voucher code is valid for orders in all ‚ÄòPartner Shops’ from 20th February ‚Äì 1st March 2009. The promotion is not available in conjunction with other offers or discounts.

Whilst we’re at it you can get a whopping 17% off any t-shirt for Spreadshirt’s Patrick Day promotion! Design what you like and pay less.

Spreadshirt Winter Vouchers

admin    spreadshirt     spreadshirt, spreadshirt freebies, spreadshirt vouchers, spreadshirt.com

If you’re a Spreadshirt.com designer and want to help your customers get their holiday shopping done early, or you just want a quickie bargain then Spreadshirt are offering FREE UPS ground domestic US shipping.

Coupon codes:
USD$: WINTER48
CAD$: CADWWINTER48

*Minimum $30.00 order required. Offer available for domestic US shipping only.

War and Peace in the World of T-Shirts

admin    T-Shirt Reviews     Banksy, BombG T-shirts, Glennz, Robit, T-Shirt News, chance, coincidence, karma, matchmaking, military t-shirts, miracle, new label, new t-shirts, saga, spreadshirt, story, wonder

Now, I’ll warn you, this is most likely the beginning of a long saga, if not an epic of all t-shirt articles. I doubt you can really call it a review because there’s so much to tell you, so much to explain, and so many twists and turns in the story that the word ‘review’ just wouldn’t do it justice. This is the story of the birth of a new and hopefully very successful (fingers crossed) niche target t-shirt label.

Let’s start from the beginning, the very beginning. Now, if you believe in fate, hey you have to believe in something, then you’re probably not the most ardent fan of coincidence. I’m not, in this grizzled addled brain of mine I like to cling on to the small hope that perhaps some things in life have a purpose, and that on those few occasions you should grab life by both horns and wrestle it to the ground.

Now, human beings are complicated creatures, they have individual lives and emotions, each has their own perception on why we are here and what we should be doing, and that means that a lot of us will never meet and if we do we will never agree on the most fundamental precepts of existence. Sometimes that’s a good thing, it means avoiding wars and most painful experiences in life, but sometimes it can be a real shame, glancing back and realising you’ve missed a great opportunity to help (in some small way) others find their way in modern life and all that it entails.

i want to introduce you to two guys, two very different men, both have a love of t-shirts, both want to find their way in the industry, and until recently neither had any idea of the other’s existence. read more

Spreadshirt Voucher

admin    spreadshirt     Canada, spreadshirt, spreadshirt voucher, spreadshirt.com, usa

Spreadshirt.com are offering a new promotion for October until the 31st.

For 20% off all tees include one of the following codes (depending if you’re in the USA or Canada – yes it seems like another corporation has decided to ignore the rest of us).

US: FALL28
CAN: CADFALL28

Make sure that you get your order in by the 31st and they want a minimum of $30 purchases which kind of takes the edge of the whole idea…

Alive and Kicking (and Jet Lagged)…

admin    T-Shirt News     Spunky.co.uk, T-Shirt Reviews, art, blah, conduit.com, humor, rant, retro, spreadshirt, t-shirt toolbar, teefeeds.com

Hey all you lovely t-shirt people, I am in shock, I’ve just got back from a week in Marrakech (yes we had a lovely time thanks) and the first thing I did after a quick cuppa (you know how us Brits like our tea) is switch on the old Macbook and look at my inbox which is heaving. It’s wonderful to be so missed, so appreciated, I’d never realised till now exactly how many people have cottoned on to my obscure little blog, it’s not the grandest of designs, or the greatest of concepts, but I enjoy it, and from what I’ve read it seems many of you out there feel the same. So, firstly thanks, thanks, and more thanks. Don’t worry, I haven’t had another funny turn if you’ve been left hanging out there in the world of t-shirts. Chris and I needed a little break away from the miserable weather here in the UK and Marrakech was the closest, sunniest hotspot we could afford, besides it gave us both a chance to practice our haggling skills, and our School French or what remains of it, hardly Franglais these days, but still funny how much you remember when you’re thrown in the deep end.

read more

Sneaky Spreadshirt?

admin    spreadshirt     new spreadshirt, spreadshirt, spreadshirt commissions, spreadshirt designer, spreadshirt license changes, spreadshirt marketplace, spreadshirt.net

It looks like Spreadshirt are pulling a fast one on all their designers. Let’s take a look at the new marketplace, product and licensing revisions at Spreadshirt.net:-

The new license can be found here.

The old license can be found here.

Essentially the differences mean, as far as I can tell, designers will receive no marketplace commission whilst making it far more work and more difficult to get your design to the customer. Why do I say this?

read more