T-Shirt Printing API • Hacker News Board

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#51

Post by frankdenbow » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

lingben wrote: post #14

so is this like https://www.startupthreads.com/ where you can integrate with them to send t-shirts to clients or community members?

We (StartupThreads) also have an api in private beta that companies have used to ship swag. A little different than this but this looks cool.

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#52

Post by nirvanatikku » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

rfnslyr wrote: post #48

fletchowns wrote: post #29

Bash Script + cronjob + Google Image Search + shirts.io = random new shirt every week?

That's a fantastic idea. I would be down for that.

while it is a pretty neat idea, it makes me think of http://iam.peteashton.com/keep-calm-rape-tshirt-amazon/

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#53

Post by rfnslyr » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

evanjacobs wrote: post #39

ScotterC wrote: post #20

But are the shirts any good? No mention of material or examples of how one might look.

"Are our shirts any good? No. Our shirts are f king great."

"Are our shirts any good? Not really. Why are you even on our site?"

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#54

Post by mayank » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

meritt wrote: post #24

ScotterC wrote: post #20

But are the shirts any good? No mention of material or examples of how one might look.

I see a lot of reference to Gildan shirts in their APIs. Might as well be dyed burlap.

Funny--I love Gildan t-shirts since they actually last for a good while and don't shrink.

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#55

Post by arkem » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

jumanji89 wrote: post #43

infinitone wrote: post #5

Interesting- we are starting to see more and more APIs that interface with real physical objects. Is this the new advent of APIs? Am i going to be able to purchase a pizza delivery whilst printing a shirt and having my car unlock for the car wash guy all from my phone as I'm heading home. What other real life APIs are there available atm?

An API for general printing (e.g. business cards, letterheads, brochures, posters, etc.) is desperately needed. I can't seem to find any commercial printer that offers an API.

For business cards, stickers, greeting cards, labels, etc Moo has an API http://us.moo.com/api/

I haven't used the API but I've bought business cards from Moo and they were great.

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#56

Post by diggan » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

Cool thing, have an idea that I would like to try with this. However, the following part turns me off quite much: >"Shipments going internationally are subject to a charge of $8.50 per garment." Which means that if one order for $3.32 becomes $11.82? That's pretty much, even for international shipping...

Anything like this within Europe?

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#57

Post by frankdenbow » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:27 PM UTC

mayank wrote: post #54

meritt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of reference to Gildan shirts in their APIs. Might as well be dyed burlap.

Funny--I love Gildan t-shirts since they actually last for a good while and don't shrink.

There are a few different styles of Gildan shirts. The SoftStyle shirts are passable quality, the others I would stay away from.

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#58

Post by jimauthors » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

Can one product be part of multiple categories? Will (product_id, category_id) tuple ever change? Can I cache the ids and use it after sometime?

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#59

Post by rlei » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

ScotterC wrote: post #20

But are the shirts any good? No mention of material or examples of how one might look.

Raymond from Shirts.io here.

For anyone interested in seeing our print quality, we can give out $100 in free account credits for you to print some samples. Just send me an email: raymond at shirts dot io.

Here's a shirt we just printed: http://i.imgur.com/PHa4hBL.jpg Here's me wearing a shirts.io shirt: http://i.imgur.com/Jcsq2uf.jpg

Re: T-Shirt Printing API

#60

Post by ahsanhilal » Fri, Jun 14, 2013, 10:34 PM UTC

I really like the concept but I don't understand why anyone in tech would want to be in the bulk tshirt manufacturing business. I used to be in the tshirt business: albeit we used to make high end stuff which was sold to premium retailers. As I see it, the inefficiencies in the business do not come from the ordering part. There are plenty of places where you can order tshirts. The really hard problem to solve is the manufacturing one.

Second, I don't get how you would actually make real money through this. Most of this business is low margin, labor intensive. In any low low margin business you make money through scale. However, pretty much all of the high quantity stuff is done overseas and then shipped to the US, because even then it is cheaper. We used to airship stuff all the time (a lot more expensive than boat) and it would still ending up costing us a lot less than doing it in the US

I don't know why people keep making solutions for tshirt manufacturing. It is effectively a price-conscious B2B model.