Justyna Dorsz

Threadless

Learn from the best

I just stumbled on a 6 years old thread on the Threadless forum: Top 20 best selling designs. And if you scroll down the thread, you will see another slightly newer list of designs.

This one caught my eye:

Shark Forest
Shark Forest by Artemple

It makes me want to paint something colorful too.

But what surprised me most is that they all are so different. So many various themes: games, animals, retro, movies. That’s a good thing because it means that every designer can find their own niche.

Another thing that I noticed is that only two designs are with cats and I always thought that designs with cats sell best. So I checked the most popular designs right now and among the 48 designs on the first page, just two have cats and one of them is mine! I thought there would be 10 cat designs at least but I was wrong.

This is the first cat one:

Death and a Black Cat
“Death Rides a Black Cat” by Obinsun

And here is the second one. This is a cat about to jump.

Black cat about to jump
“Jump”

I like browsing through designs and get inspired. For example, this dinosaur design has been popular 6 years ago and is still popular now:

T-Rex
“Technicolour Rex” by electric_method

That’s pretty amazing — to make a design that people love and buy for years.

Make your first sale in the next 3 weeks

Tomorrow is Black Friday and after that the best 3 weeks for all the artists who sell their art online.

Everyone shops for gifts and so artists make the majority of their income in November and December.

TeePublic November sales

Conversely, January and February are very slow months and I earn very little in those months. Good thing that all the income you can earn before Christmas more than makes up for it.

You need to take advantage of this busy time.

If you haven’t yet, then you definitely should open your store. I recommend:

  • Threadless – which is my favorite one, and
  • TeePublic – which has the easiest and fastest system for uploading artwork.

You can also publish your art in a few other places. Wherever you submit your designs remember to add tags!

Usually, when you open your store you have to wait for weeks or even months for your first sale. Internet is full of people who complain that they get no sales and then they get discouraged and close their shops. But if you open your store now and upload even just a few designs, you have an amazing opportunity to make your first sale in the next few days.

Can you make money on Threadless?

Make money on Threadless

Friends, family, and other artists often ask me: can you make money on Threadless?

I’ve been a designer for 8 years now and I’ve been selling my art on Threadless for the past 5 years so I think I can answer that. The short answer is: Yes! You absolutely can make money on Threadless. Nearly every month I earn a substantial part of my income from Threadless.

When you are just starting selling your art online it might seem daunting. I know – I was there. So here are a few things that will help you if you want to earn money on Threadless:

  1. Make a lot of designs. You never know which one is going to be popular.
  2. Don’t get discouraged when no one buys your designs at first. Just keep designing and publishing.
  3. Try to find your niche. I make a lot of designs with cats and space because that’s what I like to draw. Maybe you like dogs or hiking or pizza? Draw that.
  4. Post about your new designs on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook. The more people see your designs the better.
  5. Tags! Add tags to your designs so people can find them. I try to add at least 8 tags to each design. It’s a good idea to also write a short description.
  6. Submit designs both to your Artist Store and to Design Challenges. Even if you don’t win a challenge, more people will see your designs and you will gain new followers.
  7. When you add a design to your store make sure you enable it on other products, not only t-shirts. Customers often buy hoodies, masks, tote bags, and pillows.
  8. If you haven’t yet opened a store, you should open one now! I have no affiliation with Threadless, I just like them a lot and earn a lot of money there. If you don’t know how to name your store, here’s a short guide.

Hope that helps. Here is my store if you want to take a look.