"Not for use as pants"
April 14, 2010 // theories of ecommerce // 1 Comment
This quote is my favorite part about wearing a shirt from Woot!. While Woot! has taken the net by storm, Threadless was here first. Two great places to buy shirts – two different ways to buy them. Let’s skip the battle royal and jump right into what makes Threadless tick.
Threadless has one of the most innovative business models and communities to hit the net in quite some time. Get designers to design tshirts, have people vote on the best designs, then produce only those which the community loves. Why is this so great? You don’t waste resources on tshirts no one likes — all the designs are winners in the eyes of the community.
Woot!, my BFF, has a similar concept: they host what they call a Derby with a given theme to have designers design around. People vote, shirts, win, blah blah blah.
Why design and give these people free money when you can go to CafePress and do it yourself? Cash Money. Screw it – it’s battle royal time. Today: Shirt.Woot! takes on Threadless, site v. site, shirt v. shirt. Today, from the designer’s view on why to submit your design. Note: Shirt.Woot! has two agreements based on how exclusive the design rights are to Woot!
| Threadless | Shirt.Woot! (exclusive) | Shirt.Woot! (non-exclusive) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner’s Cash | $2000 | $1000 | $500 |
| Reprints/Sales | $500 / reprint | $2 / shirt after first 3000 sold | $1 / shirt after first 3000 sold |
| Bonuses | $500 Threadless Giftcard (or $200 cash) – and tons of other contest prizes are possible | Um…you get a shirt printed? | Seriously, it’s printed and people buy it! |
| Total compensation of 5k shirts sold | $3000, assuming $1000 more for reprints | $5000 | $2500 – but you can sell it elsewhere too |
It’s all about how well your shirt sells. If you can bear through a contest, Threadless is a good up-front win. If you have the design that sells over time, Woot will win you the most. But, if your design is just pure genius, then Threadless is again the way to go because of their contests.
The million dollar question my dearest friends at Harrrrvard ask, would you take these shirts to department stores? Hell no. Quick win for the company (Threadless or Woot in this case), but long term destruction of the core business. The key behind both of these sites is one key thing: community. People love these sites and it’s the community that keeps it running and alive. People strive to win a Threadless contest and get their shirt produced. People on Woot! die to be the first to buy a deal that day and crave the cleverness of the designs. Last I checked, I really don’t feel the sense of community when I go shopping at Target, Macys, JCPennys, Kohls, etc. All nice places, don’t confuse that – but I go to get stuff and leave, not to hang out, see what else is there, comment on things so others can comment as well.
Could you imagine going to somewhere like Kohls and there would be a computer display by a rack of shirts, and people would post their comments on the shirt right there – you could comment and interact. Crazy!?! Note: I’m officially patenting this idea and concept and reserve all rights to it. If you’re a major (or minor) retail store, please contact me for the rights to this idea. This was posted was drafted on April 10, 2010. I throw in an interface wireframe as well as thoughts on the mobile app that goes with it.
Brian Beckowski said...
Hey man…love the picture of the donuts. Just had to comment on that.
I agree with you that retail outlets are probably not the place for Threadless to go. However, I thought it would be interesting for them to do a test run just to see what happens. They’d have to be pretty creative in their marketing and advertising (which doesn’t currently exist), so I think it could be a flop. You never know though…maybe they come up with some creative way to sell in the retail sector and it works out for them. It’s a huge revenue stream that they should at least test.
April 15th, 2010