Sell to five people before you build a site
The most common sequence is: buy 100 shirts, build a store, wait. The better sequence is: make five sales by hand, then build the store for the people who already bought. Those five sales tell you the size curve, the colour that actually moves, the price the market accepts, and the sentence that makes someone say yes.
Five sales can come from a gym, a school club, a band, a small business that needs staff shirts, or a group chat. None of them require a website. All of them teach you something an analytics dashboard cannot.
Channels compared
| Channel | Fees | Time to first sale | What it demands | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your own store (Shopify) | ~2.9% + $0.30 + shipping | Weeks — needs traffic | A domain, photos, and a way to get visitors | Brand building, repeat customers, email list |
| Etsy | ~6.5% + ~3% payment | Days — Etsy brings the traffic | Strong photography, keyworded titles | Design-led shirts, gifts, niche artwork |
| Amazon FBA | 15% + fulfilment | Weeks — account and listing approval | Barcodes, brand registry, inventory shipped to a warehouse | Volume, search-driven buyers |
| TikTok Shop | ~6–8% | Depends entirely on content | Video volume — several posts a week | Designs with a visual hook |
| Local markets | $40–250 per stall | Same day | A weekend, a table, a card reader | Learning what sells, building a list |
| Corporate / team | 0% — direct invoice | Weeks, but high value | A phone, samples, terms | Orders of 50–500 at better margins |
Etsy
Etsy is the fastest route to a first sale because it supplies the buyers. It is also the most price-transparent, which means a plain shirt has no chance — the listing needs a design with a point of view. Fees total roughly 9–10% once transaction, payment processing and listing fees are counted, which is still cheaper than running ads to your own store at the start.
What works: a specific audience named in the title (not "funny t-shirt" but "gift for a cyclist who commutes"), photos of the shirt on a person, and a size chart in the images rather than the description.
Your own store
Your own store has the lowest fees and the highest cost: traffic. It is the right answer once you have a product people search for by name, and the wrong answer as a first move with no audience. The order that works is Etsy or markets first, then move repeat buyers to your own store where you keep the margin and the email address.
The one thing to get right early: collect email addresses from day one. A customer who bought once is worth more than any ad you can buy, and the list is the only asset that survives a platform change.
Amazon and TikTok Shop
Amazon takes 15% plus fulfilment and requires an account, barcodes, and inventory in a warehouse before you sell anything. The upside is demand that already exists. Do not start here unless you have capital and a product that can survive a price war — a plain cotton tee on Amazon competes with a thousand listings at $12.
TikTok Shop is the opposite: near-zero setup, but the shirt is almost incidental to the video. If you are not prepared to post several times a week, it will not move. When it does work, it works fast — one video can sell more in a day than a store sells in a month.
Local and corporate
The channel nobody writes about is the most profitable per hour: local businesses that need staff shirts, sports clubs, schools, bands, events. No platform fee, no shipping, cash or invoice, and the buyer is standing in front of you.
The trade is that it does not scale by itself — every order is a conversation. But 20 local orders of 30 shirts at $32 is $19,200 of revenue with no ad spend, and it funds the online side while you learn.
A realistic first quarter: 5 sales by hand, 20–40 at markets, 30–60 from Etsy, one local order of 30. That is the first 100 shirts sold without a single dollar of advertising — which is exactly what the first order is sized for.
Where the first 500 shirts come from
A sequence that works, in order:
- Days 1–14: sell 5 by hand. Confirm the price and the size curve.
- Weeks 3–6: list on Etsy or do two weekend markets. Learn which design and colour move.
- Weeks 6–10: open your own store for the people who already bought, and start the email list.
- Week 10+: approach 10 local businesses with a sample and a one-page price sheet.
- Month 3: reorder — and this time you know exactly which sizes to buy.
The reorder is the milestone that matters. Order one is a test; order two is a business. Everything in this section exists to make order two correct.