As we mentioned in the last newsletter and blog post, we have a contest running for Shop Partners during November. You still have the chance to qualify to win one of three great prizes. Give your marketing drum a good pang, whack, bang and get some new customers into your shop. Shops with even one sale are automatically entered into the contest. You can find some great tips on how to market your shop on our Spreaducation pages or in our Forum, where you can exchange and test ideas with Spreadshirt employees and other Shop Partners.

Important information for your customers: Christmas Ordering Deadlines 2009
Santa’s elves aren’t the only ones working hard in the weeks up to Christmas: we also have quite the amount of products to produce by hand. As the production times tend to increase this time of year, we would ask you to inform your customers about our ordering deadlines so they know that they will get their gifts before 25th December. There’s a brilliant little chart in our FAQ section where you can find information about all EU countries.

The ordering deadlines for the UK are:
Standard Shipping: order must be made before 10:59 a.m. (GMT) on 17th December.
Express Shipping: order must be made before 10:59 p.m. (GMT) on 20th December.

The tabloid newspaper with the largest circulation in the UK has 40 years of news reporting filled with both success and controversy. The Sun is certainly most famous for its headlines, which can range anywhere from witty to outrageous, can be pertinent to current events or even be seen as blatantly offensive. You might have a clear memory of some of the more iconic headlines plastered across their front page, or maybe seen one framed for its humour on the wall of your local pub.

These headlines are what we talk about at lunch or on the coffee break. They strike up conversation (and perhaps argument) as they mark current news events and opinion. Is that not in essence what t-shirts sometimes do? The Sun and Spreadshirt thought the same. I have been asked countless times about the shirts I wear and I gladly invite this intrigue and conversation: and now you can do the same with The Sun Shop shirts!

You can find a wide range of their famous front page headlines from their very first print (Horse Dope Sensation) up through their September 2009 headline about the Labour Party (Labour’s Lost it). My favourite is certainly the “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster” shirt. Check ‘em out:

Their shop is split into three styles: a Fashion Shop where you get the famous headlines graphically represented; the Front Page Shop where you can find shirts with the exact front page from famous headlines; or you can choose shirts from the Classic Shop with a bold headline font.

Have fun reliving and wearing some of the most famous (and infamous) headlines in British newspaper history.

Yet another review of Spreadshirt’s products has arrived for our Twardrobe series. This time Simon reviewed our Men’s Summer Shirt from Continental. I must say here that girls have the distinct advantage that they can pull off wearing a men’s shirt. You won’t see many guys running around in our Spaghetti Top. Here are the hard facts about the Summer Shirt for those missing summer in November:

Who are you? What do you do?
My Name is Simon and I study Communication Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden. I am also a proud Shop Partner at Spreadshirt. My shop °white tees offers designs which are based on graphic design, as well as shirts based on fonts and photography. I’ve only recently put together my shop and am putting a lot of time and work into the new designs. New designs should be arriving over the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled.

What do you like about how the shirt looks?
The design: brilliant! But, it is from my shop I like the shirt itself just as much as the design.

How does it fit? continue reading ‘Twardrobe Feedback: Girls Sure Can Sport Guys’ Shirts’

I’m probably not the first to tell you that Facebook has become ginormous. Perhaps you saw that the average user in the UK spends 3 full days a year on the site (with the “addicts” spending more than a week / year). One of the newer trends with Facebook are the number of (fan) Pages set up by companies, and the number of fans flocking to them. Facebook says that more than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day and ReadWriteWeb tells us that more than 40% of people “friend” brands. Well, if those stats are true, then our Page is surely to find some new fans: follow us on Facebook!

What are your favourite Facebook Pages? Maybe some of you have your own pages for your shop or business – if so give us the link and we can “officially” shake e-hands. Here are a few Pages I like:

Ben & Jerry’s
Snikers
Gap
Pringles
Red Bull
Ice Cold Beer

And what are your favourites?

The early bird catches the worm – according to a trend study done by Google, more than two thirds of the Christmas gifts will be purchased in November. That’s just one of the good reasons to take part in our November Shop Partner promotion. With the voucher code “NOVEMBERSALE” you can get 15% off all products in Spreadshirt Partner Shops until 23rd November 2009. A quick look at Twitter, newsletters, blogs and the shops themselves tell me that many of you are already out there banging that marketing drum. Yeah!

If some of you shop partners are looking to spruce up the shop for the coming holiday season, you might have considered getting some top-selling holiday products in your shop. We thought we would take our last t-shirt Top 10 post and wrap it in some holiday shopping cheer. Here are the Top 10 products for Christmas – according to the bestselling items from November and December of 2008: continue reading ‘November Sale – with the Top 10 November Products’

Where were you 20 years ago today? At my ripe age of 8 on 9th November 1989, I can only remember sitting down at dinner with the TV on and my dad saying very earnestly: “Pay very close attention, this is a very important day in history.” We then watched people standing and cheering on top of a wall that really didn’t have much meaning to me at the time. Despite my father’s words, I wasn’t up to par on my world politics and I continued on with my careless and free 8-year-old life.

Now that I am living in East Germany, hanging out and working with those whose lives were most certainly changed 20 years ago, it’s a great time to look back and reminisce on the past two decades and beyond. Of course, we would take a look and see what our Marketplace has to offer:

If you are looking for a good overview of the 20 year anniversary, you are sure to find plenty on the BBC or Guardian websites. I would also point you in the direction of some great East German jokes which were collected by West German spies. My favourite:

“What would happen if the desert became communist? Nothing for a while, and then there would be a sand shortage.”

Where were you 20 years ago?

We’re back again with yet another hot product review from our October Twardrobe series. You may think “another one?”, but it’s nice to have customers talking about our products here for a change (rather then me!). Henning is our next winner and he designed, ordered wrote a review of the above-pictured Men’s Organic Shirt from Continental Clothing. It seems our Twardrobers like to take pictures of their pets and the shirt (see below). Here’s what Henning has to say:

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Henning and I wear exclusive shirts from “HASENFARM – Manufaktur für Fellersatzstoffe” (loosely translated as HAREFARM – Manufacturer of Fur Substitutes). continue reading ‘Twardrobe Feedback: Hare Farms and Organic T-Shirts’

The first of the Twardrobe feedback has arrived! Steffen was one of the winners of the October edition of Twardrobe and got (instead of the requested Men’s Organic Shirt from Continental Clothing) our Anvil Recycled T-Shirt. Let’s get straight to his feedback:

Who are you and what do you do?

I am one of the Twardrobe winners and I write about things I win.

What do you like about how the shirt looks? continue reading ‘Twardrobe Feedback: Cats & The Recycled Shirt’

Patterns and forms can be found just about anywhere. Take a look around the room and I bet you can find a number of examples of natural and man-made patterns. They often get ignored. Not at ctrl-clothes.com where these modern, abstract forms are front and centre. The triangles, squares, lines and shapes are certainly fresh and original, and remind me a little bit of a mix between my geometry class and class trip to the modern art museum. Give the Tunnel? shirt a good long look and you might get lost therein: certainly works brilliantly as an eye-catcher. But, shirts aren’t the only things greeting you at ctrl-clothes: you are presented with quite the innovative, interactive store front (based on a Manchester street – see below). Here’s the interview with Ben, the man behind ctrl:
continue reading ‘CTRL Clothes – Modern, Abstract Patterns Make Their Way onto Shirts’

May the best-selling shops win! We’ve prepared a little contest to help you boost up your shop sales before the holiday season really takes off. If you sell well in November, you could win some great prizes. We’ve also set up three different prize groups to make sure that even the smaller shops have the chance to win something. All you need is one sale, and you’ve qualified for a prize!

• 100+ sales: 5x exclusive newsletters to your customers (consultation with the winners, created and sent by Spreadshirt).
• 50-100 sales: 5x free flyers for your shop (our graphics team will create the flyers in consultation with you, your logo and your designs. We will then send the flyers to the 5 winners).
• 1-50 sales: 4x help re-designing your shop-layout (e.g. we will create graphics, banners or teasers specifically for your shop).

We will randomly select the corresponding amount of winners from all of the Shop Partners who fall into each of the categories. We will then contact them via e-mail.

Hold your horses – that’s not all … of course, we would like to help you increase your sales: a 15% off everything in your stores would be a good start, don’t you think? This promotion runs during the same time as the above-mentioned contest 9.11 – 23.11 (brilliant, aren’t we?) The voucher code is: NOVEMBERSALE.

This voucher code is valid for the entire contest period from 9th to 23rd November 2009 and gives your customers a 15% discount on all products. You are free to use the ad banner which our graphics team put together for you. You can find out more information about this promotion in the forum.

Happy sales!