The Crap Journal: Follow Me Through Greatness or Failure

pileofcrap

pileofcrap

New member
Oct 17, 2006
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Atlanta, GA
So I'm REALLY bored and decided to create a journal like so many others have in the past. In this journal I will post every detail I do as I do it. Hopefully I won't crap out and not update it like a few others have.

My Goal: To reach $1/day(averaged) selling a product with no physical inventory.

To do this...
I'll pick a niche.
I'll register one domain.
I'll find a dropshipper or online manufacturer.

I tend to go "out there" with my ideas or at least compared to what many other people I know and see posting use for making-monies-online.

I'll post an update in the next few minutes with the idea. I have a list of ideas I've came up with throughout the years and have decided to go with one of them.
 


Ok so I've decided on my product and to my surprise I already have the domain registered. For the record I would have registered with Namecheap anyway.

Niche: offensive Tshirt (only one)
Domain: handicapshirts.com

So I've had this idea for a while. To create a handicap parking sign shirt with an arrow pointing downward toward your crotch. So this is what I've decided to do.

My hosting will be on my own reseller or VPS, not sure which I want to put it on.

Next "To Do":
Find an online printer.
Get the website created.
 
Ok hosting is setup and I decided to run Wordpress as my CMS. It's just easier.

I have a few tshirt printers in mind already. I'll go through them and see which one I like best and post an update as soon as I've picked one.


All this is the easy part, imo. The hard part will be the marketing. Where I feel this "journal" will get interesting.
 
I actually should have chosen another niche or at least registered a different domain. I have a bit of a head start. Anyone else trying to recreate my potential success here wouldn't so much as the domain is already aged a couple of months. Link building, for example, will be a lot easier.

But I push onward. Now, marketing won't be very tricky regardless of the age of a domain. I won't be using any PPC but I will use the tools I already have available to me. Currently I have an OnlyWire account setup with multiple social bookmarking sites, Scrapebox, Scrapeboard, Traffic Travis, Google External Keywords, and this will be all I'll use to in terms of "tools". I also plan to visit a few forums and manually throw the URL out there, FB groups, and more.

As for the website. It'll be very basic. Some "testimonials", preview of the shirt, and a buy now button.

After looking at my top choices for a printer, which are:
Cafepress
SpreadShirt
and
Zazzle

I've decided to go with SpreadShirt, a big reason being I ordered a hoodie from their site 5 years ago and the quality wasn't terrible. So again, I do have a bit of a headstart there.

Now, I've created an account with SpreadShirt and have noticed they do not offer any sort of off-site hosting, code, ect.. They have API and while I know some coding I do not know enough to implement myself. The point of this journal is to spend as little money as possible and try to make a buck.

My plan, now, is to create my own store-front website and let people buy the shirt. And once a day check for orders and input them myself. This way I get the look and the feel I want.

Now I need to come up with a design, again I have a few in mind, and add it to their system AS WELL AS build the website around it.

Considering I already paid for Scrapebox/board well before this I will not count that as a loss as well as my hosting.

Currently
----------
+$0
-$10 (for the domain)

UPDATE::::::::
I've looking at the free templates and can't really find one I like. I'm going to have to pick one and make my own modifications.
 
Will you offer different sizes, designs and colors of t-shirts? (I know you wrote only one, but is it enough?)

What form of promotion you choose? SEO, PPC, media buy?

Will you try to push your product on different sites (I don't know, maybe ebay or amazon?)

I was thinking about something like this for future as a step up from AM.

Good luck, will follow your journal.

EDIT: I see your post now, didn't see it while writing my questions.
 
Haha no problem. I had, while looking at the printer sites considered pushing some through eBay as well. As for promotion, link building is going to play a huge role for me. But I may have to rethink my promotion strategy. I'm only offering one product and no real updates. I either need to be very picky with my anchor texts or reconsider how I'll promote it.

There will be one design but I will allow different sizes. The color of the shirt will make the most sense for the design I have in mind. So sizes may be the only option I give.
 
What about site's content. With one t-shirt it won't be much...

Did you consider making some video so it can go viral? Social bookmarking - will be done for backlinks or traffic (link bites)?
 
Yes I'll def be using Social Bookmarking and I have a guy via Fiverr I've emailed about creating a video.

First and foremost I need to get the site finished and the product ready.
 
Progress so far:
Still working on the site. I personally think it's coming along nicely. You can type in the address mentioned above to see it. Feel free to give input.
I've shown the image so far to some friends and asked them to write a short testimonial, even if they love or despise it.
Almost done with the image as well.

I would have more done but my girl came home early and we ate dinner and watched a little TV.

To Do:
Finish The Site and Image.
Gather the sorta faux-testimonials. Never write them yourself, use the people you know and ask what they think about stuff.
Have a video created.
 
Well I made a lot of changes to the site. Still don't feel I'm finished. If I'm going to be doing a lot of link building then tomorrow I'll do some keyword research and try to better implement them into the text.

I decided it would be fun to create a hate mail section as I'm sure to get some.

Tomorrow:
Finish up the site
- I'd really like it, considering how I went with the image, if people could choose different colors. I'm aiming for a $10~ profit margin per shirt but I feel if I lowered that to a $5 one I would get a lot more orders. I'll ponder on it as I sleep tonight.
 
Wasn't able to do as much work today. Made some more changes to the site and started writing out the code to offer a few different colors as per tomaszjot suggestion.

My girlfriend's mother died like almost at the same time as I started this project and we just found out about it. So we've been having to deal with a lot of that today.

Tomorrow though I'll start adding the payment system.
 
Lowering the price doesn't always generate sales with t-shirt designs. Keep your original and make an image of quality... lower price in the clothing world online means lower quality to almost everyone I have noticed. If anything try high first, and lower it for "30 day sale" and then bump it up again.
 
Yeah I know what you mean. I figured out a way to keep the shirt under $20 (by like 5 cents LOL) make $6/sale and have free shipping. The shipping isn't technically free but it'll entice people to buy, I believe.

What this means is to meet my $1/day/avg goal I'd need to sale around 5 shirts a month.

I could easily change it up to make more revenue but I cannot imagine someone buying a shirt for $20 then paying shipping on top it. I'm sure people do but I think a $6 profit margin is good.

I didn't have a lot of time to work on it today. I've put in an order for a small video to be made but Im not sure if it's what I want. I've considered ordering a few shirts myself and having friends, sexy lady friends, model them.
 
I don't actually get the joke on the shirt.
Are you suggesting your cock is deformed?
Or that you want paraplegics to sit on your cock?

Meh... you might need better ideas for a bad-taste T-shirt.
I'm sure some WF members will oblige.
 
Yeah I'm sure. It's been a 50/50 shot with my friends. Some don't see how it's offensive and others have said "damn wtf" so we'll see. I could def come up with a better shit like one that simply says "EAT SHIT".
 
The idea of t-shirt is good IMO, I like it. Later on you may come up with more handicapped shirts ideas.

I'm not sure about theme you selected. I would think about something more funky, maybe bigger header with some logo ordered from WF?

I would suggest stronger copy. Maybe some more shocking title. Instead of The Most Offensive Shirt something like Warning! This Shirt Might Get You Suspended from Your College or Voted New York's Most Offensive T-Shirt of 2010 (I know these ideas are crap he he).

Also stronger testimonials like "This t-shirt get me into fight with massive bloke on the wheelchair" Harry (hehe crap again). Maybe embed some video like Pastor Terry Jones burning your t-shirts with madness in his eyes.

Just my 5 cents
 
tomaszjot has a good point, The point of the shirt is humor I'd make a bunch of bullshit testimonials that are hilarious, good idea with the organic video that's a really good idea.

Focus on quality, shirts and ideas like this need images of quality or you could easily get over looked. So professional website, logo, the works.
 
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