I thought tshirt hell was the internet's favorite tshirt company?!?!
What Happened to Threadless?
81–90 of 112 posts
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#82Threadless announced Artist Shops in 2015 and rolled them out to Threadless’s general community in early 2016. Artist Shops, still in existence, allow designers to sell items printed with any design (allowed by Threadless’s terms and conditions) directly to customers and receive royalties on each sale.... The shift to a more equitable royalties and rights model removed the gamification elements of Threadless that mad…
Why is it so surprising? From both the designer and shopper perspectives, the Old Way does seem better. With the Old Way: Designer: does N work to create a design and has X% chance of winning $2500. They focus on what they love (i.e. design) and can get a nice quick payout if they're good. This is even better than a lottery, because it has the same excitement, but talent is also a factor which is very motivating. The…
I totally agree, but I bet it changed because the Old Way is worse from the perspective of Threadless. Specifically, each contest needs to result in a shirt that they can sell more and more of in order to maintain growth. That pushes you toward a bland, inoffensive, mass-market design. They think they can ultimately maximize profits by doing the etsy/cafepress model, where it's loads of vendors on the ground doing their own thing, and the marketplace supplier just floats above the fray collecting a slice every time money changes hands.
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it so surprising? From both the designer and shopper perspectives, the Old Way does seem better. With the Old Way: Designer: does N work to create a design and has X% chance of winning $2500. They focus on what they love (i.e. design) and can get a nice quick payout if they're good. This is even better than a lottery, because it has the same excitement, but talent is also a factor which is very motivating. The…
Great analysis. Altough i'm not sure that about the shopper side - since t-shirts are a self-expressive medium and not just a commodity like wine, probably there's value in offering a large selection. And if we'd change the old model to something like this: No prize. N designers competing. Top 1/3 win, and take all of the royalties of all the shirts in the competition, forever. How would you analyze that ? would it b…
Yes, having a store with selection is good for shopping. The contest is part merchandising and part marketing to show the "top hot new" SKU.
For any contest to work, you need good entries. The prize is the payout that motivates those entries.
I think a hybrid approach could likely work, where everyone's entry is buyable by default (and they get royalties). I'm not sure people would like if the winner(s) get royalties of other entries, but it might work.
One factor I'm realizing (which may have motivated the change) is that contests are a more of a "novelty" from a marketing perspective, so it may have sustainability issues. People easily get bored, especially if it's the same experience repeated over and over.
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it so surprising? From both the designer and shopper perspectives, the Old Way does seem better. With the Old Way: Designer: does N work to create a design and has X% chance of winning $2500. They focus on what they love (i.e. design) and can get a nice quick payout if they're good. This is even better than a lottery, because it has the same excitement, but talent is also a factor which is very motivating. The…
I totally agree, but I bet it changed because the Old Way is worse from the perspective of Threadless . Specifically, each contest needs to result in a shirt that they can sell more and more of in order to maintain growth. That pushes you toward a bland, inoffensive, mass-market design. They think they can ultimately maximize profits by doing the etsy/cafepress model, where it's loads of vendors on the ground doing t…
I think you're right. It was probably a good bootstrapping strategy at the start to get good designs into the system and also some marketing benefits from promoting top designs from contests. The more I think about it, contest-driven marketing is likely not sustainable - contests are more of a novelty and very hard to keep fresh.
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#85Threadless announced Artist Shops in 2015 and rolled them out to Threadless’s general community in early 2016. Artist Shops, still in existence, allow designers to sell items printed with any design (allowed by Threadless’s terms and conditions) directly to customers and receive royalties on each sale.... The shift to a more equitable royalties and rights model removed the gamification elements of Threadless that mad…
Reminiscent of the overjustification effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motiv…
> Tangentially, I would encourage anyone still in college to take some psychology classes while you have the opportunity.
What will you give me?
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#86Threadless announced Artist Shops in 2015 and rolled them out to Threadless’s general community in early 2016. Artist Shops, still in existence, allow designers to sell items printed with any design (allowed by Threadless’s terms and conditions) directly to customers and receive royalties on each sale.... The shift to a more equitable royalties and rights model removed the gamification elements of Threadless that mad…
Another angle is that when you build something a certain way, people who come and stay are the people who are attracted to that certain way. Those people are not going to like it when you take away the thing that attracted them.
It's impossible to know for sure, but what if Threadless had started out their "new" way?
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#87Are there any alternatives to Threadless? Tees from my last order have a completely horrible quality.
CottonBureau runs a bit more expensive, but the quality is top notch: https://cottonbureau.com/
To understand why printing comes off of cheap T-shirts, see CottonBureau's excellent comparison of screen-printing and "DTG" spray-on inking processes.
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#88> Concerns about controlling quality make sense given that artists on Threadless’s forum complain that they’re unable to promote their work because the print quality has dropped to the point that designs flake off after a few washes. Reviewers say the sizing, feel, and weight of Threadless’s shirts is inconsistent and getting worse over time, with some customers reporting that shirts bought five to 10 years ago are s…
> some customers reporting that shirts bought five to 10 years ago are still holding up better than those purchased this year. This isn't just a Threadless problem. All T-shirts now seem to be made out of this thin stretchy garbage material--good if you are an Italian model, bad if you are a normal 40 year old. I'd kill for a supplier that actually still uses nice solid cotton material that drapes rather than stretch…
Uniqlo.com has a good quality, but prints are less creative than from Threadless's artists.
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#89Something else not mentioned in the article is that graphic tees have fallen in popularity in the past decade vs plain t-shirts. I'm just one data point but having purchased from Threadless a few times, I haven't bought one graphic tee in the past five years or more. The novelty of a graphic tee wears off quickly. I'd rather have a more expensive but high quality plain shirt I'll like for years to come.
Have they fallen in popularity or have you aged out of the target market? Same "single data point" disclaimer, but most of my peers lost interest in them mid-college when they began dressing more mature. The high schoolers I know still wear graphic tees but for whatever reason Threadless never connected with the next generation.
This. I can attest that graphic tees are not "out of style".
Re: What Happened to Threadless?
#90Something else not mentioned in the article is that graphic tees have fallen in popularity in the past decade vs plain t-shirts. I'm just one data point but having purchased from Threadless a few times, I haven't bought one graphic tee in the past five years or more. The novelty of a graphic tee wears off quickly. I'd rather have a more expensive but high quality plain shirt I'll like for years to come.
This is a great point. Clothing styles go in and out of fashion on a cyclical basis that is multiple years long.
And there are professionals who focus on exactly this. I'm sure Threadless employs some, but maybe the wrong ones.