E Business Development My T Shirt Marketing Essay

My T-Shirt! is an exciting new business that allows people to custom design a shirt (specifically the design on the front or back) any way that they would like. By intelligently leveraging cutting edge technology, My T-Shirt! will harness the power of computer sublimation to allow custom shirt printing in production runs as small as one unit. The company was founded by Sanjaya Danushka. The company is set up as a Private Limited Company in Negombo area. My T-Shirt! will have a storefront in Negombo as well as a comprehensive website that allows ordering to occur anywhere.

Imagine the ability to create a totally custom shirt. You choose the material and style of the shirt, and then the image or graphic you want on the front and/or back. This is the ultimate form of expression. There are no limits to what you can communicate. Some people might show their fanaticism for a particular sports team, others a musician. Or you might have a social message or cause on your shirt. Whatever you may decide, you can print any image on your shirt. 

My T-Shirt ! will offer customers a variety of options for creating their own custom shirts. The majority of orders will be for t-shirts, however other style shirts will be available. My T-Shirt! has developed a strategic relationship with Hewlett-Packard (HP) printer division. We will use their printer sublimation technology that allows a computer image to be applied to a shirt in a high quality, high resolution, and economically feasible manner. This technology creates an image durable enough to withstand thousands of washings. Its photo-like quality, due to significantly higher printer resolution than anything on the market, will show off any image. The technology is cost effective enough to offer customers the ability to order just one unit. Most other competitors’ costs prohibit printing custom shirts in one-off production runs. Finally, the customer may choose from an extensive library of existing images, supply their own image, or have an artist create an image for them.

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Sublimation is a process using heat to transfer (embed) ink into a fabric surface such as a shirt. The alternative method of creating custom shirt designs is called silk-screening, a process in which a screen is made with an image and that image is transferred onto a shirt. Because set-up costs are high silk-screening is not cost effective for small number production runs. Another disadvantage is that silk-screening applies a thin layer of ink to the surface the shirt inhibiting breathability. The sublimation process avoids this problem since the ink is not coating the fabric’s surface, but rather, is embedded in the fabric. Only with recent technological advances has sublimation become cost effective in small production runs.

While other vendors are able to offer sublimation in single production runs, their computer based sublimation process produces lower image quality. My T-Shirt! takes sublimation one step further by producing the graphic images at a higher resolution than other existing technologies. My T-Shirt! has access to their new prototype sublimation high resolution printer giving My T-Shirt! a significant advantage.

My T-Shirt! will offer custom sublimation mainly on T-shirts, but will have other shirt styles available. Customers can choose from traditional cotton-blend shirts or all natural fiber cotton shirts.

Customers can then choose from pre-existing graphics or custom artwork. The pre-existing graphics are chosen from an extensive catalog. My T-Shirt! has developed strategic relationships with several companies that offer a wide range of graphic images. The relationships allow My T-Shirt! to list the other company’s graphics within their catalog thereby significantly options. These images can be viewed and ordered online, providing customers with flexibility and convenience. My T-Shirt! will have a comprehensive Website that will allow ordering a customer’s home, or where ever they may be. Additionally, My T-Shirt! will have a delivery system according to customer requirement.

My T-Shirt! will also offer custom artwork or graphic options for sublimation. The customer may bring in a graphic or may use My T-Shirt!’s sub-contracted artist to realize their vision. My T-Shirt!’s artist can take a customer’s pencil drawing or even articulated thoughts and turn them into a new design.

My T-Shirt! will offer a range of different shirt options. As indicated by the name, there will be an emphasis on T-shirts. Short sleeves, long sleeves, organic fabrics, and a variety of polo, rugby and other styles will also be offered.

My T-Shirt! will have a storefront in Negombo as well as a comprehensive website that allows ordering to occur anywhere. But our delivery facility is available only within the island.

Target Market Segment Strategy

My T-Shirt! has chosen these two market segments because their demographics (reasonably young) have the highest likelihood of purchasing a custom shirt. Both of these segments are reasonably young. This is important because most of My T-Shirt!’s products are T-shirts and younger people tend to wear them frequently.

Artwork — This segment prefers having custom artwork created and placed on their shirt. They generally have the image or style in mind and will direct the artist to create it. Occassionally when the customer will not have an exact image in mind but will rely on the artist’s skills to help shape the work. Some of these customers will use My T-Shirt!’s partner artist, business purpose and others will have a friend or other service provider develop the art.

My T-Shirt! has segmented the market into two groups, organized by the type of product that they purchase. The first group is customers that desire an already created graphic image to be placed on the their shirt. The second group are those that prefer custom artwork to be placed on their shirt. My T-Shirt! has decided to divide the market by the products that they purchase because it offers an intuitive, easy method of targeting the two different groups. An additional reason for segmenting the market based on the two products is because the demographics for the buyers of the two products are distinct enough to group them separately.

The T-shirt design industry is a primarily brick and mortar based industry. Most companies offer either silk-screening or sublimation services to typically local customers. While most of the products are T-shirts, there is a niche of companies that offer these printing services for uniforms, team jerseys, etc. Most of the participants in the industry fall into two categories, those that sell to individuals and those that sell in multi-unit production runs. The companies that sell to individuals are almost always silk-screeners who have a limited number of silk-screens already developed. The customer chooses which one they want and a T-shirt is made. This type of vendor is often the typical T-shirt maker that you see at fairs. The second type of sells most of their products in larger production lots. This can be explained by the fact that for custom work, whether silk-screens or sublimations, it is not cost effective to produce in small lots.