Step one in promoting t-shirts imprinted with pop-culture objects is acquiring permission from rights holders. Kevin Stecko has been doing that since 2000 when he launched 80sTees.com, his t-shirt enterprise. However receiving that permission isn’t straightforward.
He advised me, “I began the corporate with designs of He-Man, a toy cartoon. I obtained that license, after which they wouldn’t approve hardly any of my designs.”
Quick ahead to 2023, and 80sTees.com carries 120,000 SKUs with photographs from films, tv reveals, comedian books, and extra. He and I not too long ago mentioned his journey — licensing, warehousing, drop-shipping, and extra.
The audio of our total dialog is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for size and readability.
Eric Bandholz: Inform us about your organization.
Kevin Stecko: It’s 80sTees.com. I began the enterprise in 2000. We promote t-shirts with photos of cartoons, toys, and video video games. I’m carrying my Karate Child shirt at the moment.
We have now to acquire licenses from the creator to make use of lots of these photographs. Early on I had to purchase from the producers that owned the rights. A few of them would maintain inventory, and I might purchase three of a measurement. Some wouldn’t maintain inventory, and I had to purchase a complete print run.
My warehouse had at the least considered one of every part we offered. I bought the area, 45,000 sq. ft. As quickly as I purchased the constructing, Amazon sellers began consuming away at our enterprise. We by no means wanted the whole area. Now virtually every part’s printed on demand and drop-shipped. For probably the most half, so long as there’s no licensing difficulty, I ship the orders to our suppliers electronically, they usually ship them to our prospects.
There are roughly 10 corporations that ship orders for us. They’ll license to us and print on-demand, and we listing it on our web site.
Bandholz: How do you discover the rights holders and negotiate the charges?
Stecko: There are a few methods to seek out them. I typically begin by going to the web site and sending an electronic mail asking who I speak to about licensing. There’s a giant commerce present in Las Vegas known as Licensing Expo that’s useful.
If you happen to’re keen to spend $3 million, Disney will in all probability speak to you for a license — whether or not it’s traditional Disney, Star Wars, or Marvel, they’re all going to value a ton of cash licensing-wise.
Hasbro isn’t as grasping. I’ve a take care of that firm for Transformers and G.I. Joe.
The massive corporations have related authorized agreements. Some will need the standard 10% royalty for t-shirts. Some will need extra, but it surely’s often between 10% and 12%. In the usual approval course of, we generate a mock-up of the design after which ship it to them. If that will get authorised, the subsequent step is a manufacturing pattern. As soon as they approve the pattern, we will go stay with it.
Bandholz: How do they know what number of gross sales you will have?
Stecko: It’s primarily a belief factor. Within the settlement, I might comply with an audit. If my numbers are flawed, I must pay for the audit and for errors or under-reporting. It often doesn’t matter to us as a result of we’ve assured such a lot of gross sales. I might pay a royalty provided that gross sales exceed that quantity.
For accounting to the rights holder, we’ll obtain a quarterly report of our gross sales for that merchandise. It reveals what we offered the product for and what number of. Then we ship them these experiences and pay the royalty if relevant.
Shopping for a license is all the time a danger. We by no means know what’s going to promote or whether or not the license holder will approve our designs. I’ve signed offers the place we couldn’t get something authorised.
I began the corporate with designs of He-Man, a toy cartoon. I obtained that license, after which they wouldn’t approve hardly any of my designs. We’d make a design and ship it to them for his or her approval. They practically all the time responded, “Nope, can’t do this.” So we let that deal expire. I’m fairly positive we misplaced cash on it as a result of we had so little merchandise to promote.
Bandholz: What number of SKUs are in your web site?
Stecko: We have now over 10,000 designs. Each design has from 5 to 12 sizes. So 120,000 SKUs. The navigation for our website is exclusive. It’s arrange for searching. We have now an enormous menu bar that expands into an accordion-style menu. We would like guests to see all our stuff, not only one merchandise.
Bandholz: You promote on Fb.
Stecko: Earlier than the pandemic, we spent lower than $100 per day on Fb. When the stimulus checks went out, we noticed how nicely the Fb Adverts have been doing, so we saved rising the funds to the purpose the place it was our greatest month ever in Might 2020.
Some days, even now, the adverts will suck, or we don’t get the variety of conversions because the prior week. However total, nothing comes near Fb. We now spend upwards of $500 per day.
Bandholz: You’re semi-retired now.
Stecko: Right. I don’t have a pet venture. I assist my staff, and my spouse and I are sometimes free in the course of the day, and we go on a hike or exit to lunch. I labored exhausting for a really very long time, so I don’t thoughts the downtime.
Bandholz: The place can folks assist you?
Stecko: Our website is 80sTees.com. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.
