Been back on IRateThis for around a month now and have pretty much figured out our new direction.
I’ve been in touch with a lot of T-Shirt designers and looked through loads of Online T-Shirt Stores. There seems to be a wide range of stores with different targets and niches, loads of great designs and LOTS of different places of where to find them.
You’ve got your Busted Tees, T-Shirt Hell, etc which has built a brand and doing well.
You’ve got your Threadless, DBH, Redbubble, etc which features great designers and great T-Shirts, these stores usually have a great community and brand.
You’ve got your Fulfillment companies like Cafepress, Zazzle, etc that has good designs but their T-Shirts are hidden in a swarm amongst a ton of other products of varying degrees of quality.
You’ve got your stores selling mainly licensed T-Shirts with some interesting designs scattered in.
Lastly, you have the Independent Brands. These for me are where the most unique designs are found but you really need to be looking … most of these stores are lacking in the visibility they deserve.
There are other stuff like Branded T-Shirts from Malls, Designer T-Shirts, etc ..
Anyways, the gist is that theres a big range. A guy/girl wanting to browse shirt designs would either go to their brand of choice or Google it…. and usually getting the same few stores on the first few pages.
With IRateThis, I aim to market the site to get high visibility and to allow users access to the wide range of T-Shirt Designs available.
I’m pretty confident with the visibility bit and we’re already making good progress there.
How we will allow Store owners to showcase their T-Shirts is still to be finalized but its going to be a community thing and of course linked to ratings. One thing I can confirm is that we will be adding Facebook Connect for our users, making it easier for them to access the site.
I’ll keep you guys updated regarding progress here and on Twitter but I would appreciate any comments or suggestions from you guys.
Take Care and have Fun!!!
Matt