Hello,
I’ve been making designs for about a year now, but still havent printed my firstborn.
About 2 months ago i found DBH & Threadless and came up with this small business idea.
After calculations i figured out its actually good money to buy shirts and resell them locally(Russia,Finland), especially with rise of euro.Also a good way to sponsor my own line of tee’s.
So i did a test run, bought 2 shirts from DBH. They arrived in 9 days and to my big surprise without tax check, i kept one for myself and sold other one for 30e. I made 15euros net win. :O
Not many people in Russia/Finland buy stuff online, many friends use me to buy stuff of ebay cause they cant be arsed to make paypal,pay outside EU package taxes and stuff like that, so i pretty much work as a courier for last 2 years(not really for profit tho), which should be good ground for reselling DBH,Threadless etc stuff.
But my main concern is moral, is this ethical, is it low live to resell stuff like this, would it matter to you as designer that someone bought your stuff and resell it on ebay or at backyard?
For some reason i have a bit of moral struggle inside, when basically this is just one way to make money?Right?
Enlight me with your point of view :)
Thank you!
32 Comments
i came from nothing said 4 months ago
IMO thats cool, gotta makea buck.
I sell on ebay, and would love to think one of my tees could resell at a higher price, as long as its one of my tees bot just a copy.
Reliique said 4 months ago
No not a copy, as shirt come straight from DBH for example.
What about legal side of this? As i understand when i purchase something i get right to sell it further for whatever price i like, riiiight?
jimiyo said 4 months ago
might want to hollar at dbh, but it all seems legit. just as long as tl and dbh get their cut, i dont think theres anything illegal. i mean, people buy stuff and resell it on ebay all the time.
i was considering cashing in all my tshirt cash over at dbh and reselling, cause id rather have the cash. and it would be nice to have some awesomely printed/foil/jumbo stuff mixed in with my general printed tees.
Reliique said 4 months ago
One of my motivations to win is actually getting my shirts printed somewhere, if i ever win i will buy shitload of them so i can sell them here at home. In Finland there is not even a single place to make jumbo prints :(
Yeah well basically im customer like any of you, i buy them for 19$ i just plan to resell them straight away,
Btw 2 shirts i got were Revelations by you jimmy :)
collisiontheory said 4 months ago
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this at all. Good way to make money. I was planning to do this with my winning shirts, buy a lot and sell it here in my country but then the dollar is stronger than my currency so might not be a good idea.
robolove said 4 months ago
Why dont you buy in bulk from a wholsesale distributor? If you have demand for the stuff you are selling you could buy about 20 of a design in at a lower price.
You could set up a bigcartel store to sell your stuff on.
Reliique said 4 months ago
I wonder does DBH have wholesale ? I should email them, havent thought about that, maybe cause im still in ''testing'' phase, but thx for tip,even if it is pretty obvious :)
Second problem is that i havent set up company yet, so i cant open ''shop'' yet.. ill have to figure that out.
Ok well at least it seems ok with everyone, so i wont be put on manticores black list :D
Derisory Designs said 4 months ago
Hey Reliique, I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you are doing, but (for your own designs) Why don’t you just contact an american based screen printer? you will get better prices than buying your own shirts retail from DBH and since the american dollar is so weak it would probably be pretty cheap for you to do even with shipping.
Reliique said 4 months ago
Yes thats what i will have to do, i have one last option in Saint Petersburg(Russia) if it fails ill have to make everything in States :)
swissarmyshark said 4 months ago
In Russia, shirt wears you
Joe said 4 months ago
Are you part of this community: http://community.livejournal.com/nadeto/ ?
godsloadedsociety said 4 months ago
make yourself some coin man. if there was a market for me selling t-shirts to people here i’d be doing it for sure. you’re a business man
LitoQ said 4 months ago
haHA!
Half a Job Jeans said 4 months ago
" Born in Montreal in 1969, he spent his youth bulk-buying American T-shirts — he loved the quality — and selling them on to his classmates back in Canada"
This is a quote from The Times about how Dov Charney started out, and look at him now. (ie his business ability & not his pervy side !)
LitoQ said 4 months ago
well.... ya learn somthing new everyday
gabroll said 4 months ago
Do it.
ryanmiller said 4 months ago
yeah man, start buying wholesale.. my company, carraway clothing, sells wholesale
vad_ns said 4 months ago
2 Reliique
WHERE ARE YOU FROM?....
wotto said 4 months ago
interesting... imo u are just allowing dbh and threadless to reach parts that they maybe usually wouldn’t.
mattschoch said 4 months ago
it sounds like dbh is still getting their money, your not like printing other peoples designs or anything so noone is losing business, your just getting some easy money, and people in your country are getting cool shirts. win win.
kcsallstar said 4 months ago
hahaha...great reference
beth said 4 months ago
ethics and morals are for pussies!! Balls to the wall!
jumpy said 4 months ago
there is a shop in sydney that sells threadless, they say they buy wholesale from threadless... maybe u could contact threadless and hook something similar up??
Reliique said 4 months ago
Im from Russia, but i live in Finland. Thx everyone for input!
Problem with wholesale is that i dont have a company and huge orders will bring some attention here(imports tax,entrepreneur tax) So ill try to start without those head-aches. Maybe with big customer base i can go and set-up a shop or something..
For now online store i guess.
vad_ns said 4 months ago
kak dela chyvak?
sentimentaladam said 4 months ago
You may have to pay taxes and other fees for the bigger orders but you’ll most likely be paying less then $19-$24 a tee. So it will still end up to be the same amount, if not cheaper. We do wholesale too (Sentimental Clothing)
ironyboy said 4 months ago
There’s info about becoming a threadless vendor here, but they explicitly state they don’t want their stuff sold elsewhere online.
I’ve seen defunker selling their stuff before now, so I’d imagine it’s probably different if you have a pretty major site like that and are mates with Jake.
AndrewOliv said 4 months ago
my dad does this for aliving...
goes to garage sales buys shitty rhinestones braclets for 5 dollars puts them on ebay and he got 5,000 dollars.
he’s an antique dealer and nothing wrong with buying low and selling high. captialism at its finiest
Time Without the E said 4 months ago
word
at the place i work at sometimes they have stuff marked down from $99 to like $10 and ill resell it at 30 or 40 bucks online
chaunt said 3 months ago
Dragging up an oldish thread for my first post, but I found this thread via Google looking into exactly the same thing, having just seen about this store on HYA.
http://www.mycupoft.fi/
Reliique said 3 months ago
Hey thx alot chaunt! Have to visit the store to see how much they ask for them :) 20 shirts still waiting to be sold. blaaah...
edit:
threadless shirts go for 39e - 59e at their place.. jesus christ..its almost 90$ for a shirt! ethical - not!
ernie said 2 months ago
This looks legit to me as long as the original artist gets their due.