Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Just a little encouragement if you are frustrated with slow growth in your custom shirt business...

I think we all dream of going viral on social media or selling out of product overnight!  I am right there with you but just remember there are benefits to slow and steady growth. Here are just a few things that come to mind:

1. By having slow and steady growth, it gives you time to ensure your packaging and shipping rates are accurate and aren’t stealing from your profits.  This area of business can be tricky any little change in package sizing/weight can have a huge impact on shipping rates.  If you've missed calculating a particular scenario this could be devasting to your bottom line.
2. You'll have time to create a smooth order flow and improve accuracy, ensuring each order includes all the right items and are all being shipped to the correct customer. This will also save you time and money as your volume increases. We had a large influx of orders about 4 weeks in.  While I was super excited, it also proved to me that we really weren't ready for the volume.  Sadly, some of you may have fallen victim to that.  We shipped packages to the wrong customers and even missed the ship date for a few orders.
3. You'll have time to develop back end support. As your order volume increases so do customer inquiries, questions and complaints. These are just as important to reply to as shipping orders quickly. You don’t want a reputation of not responding.  I have hired a couple of people in the last couple of months to help monitor email and messages.  In my opinion we still aren't answering these inquiries fast enough.  This is an area that kind of snuck up on me.  I knew there would be questions but there are also a lot of requests to change a shipping address, or add one more transfer to an order already submitted.  We are happy to accommodate when we can but these things do take time so if you don't plan for them upfront, you could have challenges with these types of requests on the backend. 

I hope these tips help you find happiness in the slow and steady growth of your t-shirt business. It can really work to your advantage in the end. 

If you are looking for vibrant, popular shirt designs don't forget to check out all of our amazing Ready to Press design transfers. They will help take your business to the next level!  Click here to browse and shop!