Print your own clothes

It all started with an idea. Design unique prints and print them on clothing aimed at the little ones. But where do you start? What do you need? And how much money do you need to invest?

How did you find a supplier?

Finding a supplier is quite tricky but having a USP (Fair Wear clothing) made it a lot easier. After Googling and requesting samples, I eventually ended up with a company in England (my roots) that works with companies in Tanzania, Africa to produce clothing in a safe and fair way. The companies they work with are paid fairly and are well taken care of.

The supplier produced a series of shirts and baby bodysuits in my own colours (which they now offer in their own collection). I had labels made with a company here in the Netherlands which were then sewn into the clothing in Tanzania.

So how do you start selling online?

Once the clothing was in production, I started to focus on getting a website built. One where the customer can create their own design using elements supplied by me. This turned out to be quite a challenge as at the time there were no ready-made systems that you could purchase. WordPress wasn’t even developed yet, everything was custom-built. It cost me a lot of money (10,000 euros) for something that worked but still didn’t fulfil all my wishes.

A few years later I was able to purchase a software system for 3,000 euros (again a lot of money). A system that did contain all the functionalities I was looking for. All I had to do was customise the website into my own colours, images, and fonts. Then I could start filling the backend with the products and graphic elements and no longer needed a web builder to help with this. The moment when I started to expand my HTML knowledge.

The site was a success, orders came in and I was busy printing shirts and baby bodysuits.

And then you stopped for a while

Yes, due to moving cities, I cancelled my office space and decided to put everything on hold for a while. The advantage of clothing is that it retains its quality, and the colours are still hip today. So, by keeping everything I was able to slowly start up again in 2017.

I built a new website in WordPress using a plugin where the customer can customise his own shirt. Only the plugin didn’t work very well on the mobile version, forcing me to build a new website again. So now I don’t have the ‘design it yourself’ option anymore but do give people the opportunity to adapt the design by adding another plugin into the website for this purpose. As every order is custom-made, it’s easy for me to adapt the design before going to print.

Today, there’s a completely new site online, all stocks have been replenished, and the collection has been expanded with sizes for the bigger kids and adults. Now the whole family can wear a unique personalised shirt, hoodie, or baby bodysuit.

Check the websites: www.dgcreations.nl / www.eigenkledingbedrukken.nl