Spreadblog checked in with Steve, head monkey honcho of the world renowned 2smartmonkey collaboration. They recently relaunched their site and it great, really great. It would be wrong to call it a Spreadshirt shop, its zero Spreadshirt branded. We’re just the backroom brawn, to the 2smartmonkeys brain. If your interested in seeing an example of just how flexible the Spreadshirt platform is, I think 2smartmonkeys is a good place to start.
(Read the interview after the jump)
How long have you been using Spreadshirt?
Since summer 2005, so two years, longer than most marriages apparently.
You’ve just redesigned your site to look and feel almost totally independent of Spreadshirt. Do you think its important for sales to have a totally unique look and feel?
There are three reasons really and one of them answers yes to the second part of the question. I think that having a unique look helps give the site a more branded feel and it obviously allows me to control the navigation and content more easily too, which is equally important to me. That was one reason (I think) the other two are that I enjoy doing the technical stuff and taking on what was essentially a site from scratch was a challenge for me. Lastly, sales. I think the more professional a site looks and the better the continuity is page to page the more likely people are to buy into the brand and buy the tees.
Talk us briefly through how you created the site?
Well I like monkeys and so does my mate Tim (the other smart monkey of the name), we decided to put some of our ideas onto cotton and see how far we could take it. We both like design and wordplay but the idea for doing t-shirts came after we did a (Hassel) Hoff based design for a mate’s stag night. After that we just looked to come up with designs that feature stuff we like and that we would wear, simple as that really. The site itself has evolved over time, and as I’ve had more time, to reflect the stuff we like too.
Which additional technologies are you using on your site?
Hmm, nothing groundbreaking as my coding skills are still pretty limited. We do have some java stuff (like I say, not cutting edge) php for the forms and mailing list sign up and use lightboxjs which is a handy bit of free code used in the graffiti gallery section. I kept it simple really, constrained by my knowledge.
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What do you think are the key things to run a successful spreadshirt store?
Good t-shirt designs, a decent amount of hits, having an audience for the designs you do and having an easy to use/navigate shop. Not necessarily in that order though…
Have you found the spreadshirt experience easy to use?
Yes, definitely. You do need some html knowledge to make the most of it but it’s worked for me, and the Spreadshirt people I’ve dealt with are all great. When I say people I mean team/staff, as far as I know there isn’t an umpa-lumpa thing going on in Leipzig…is there?
What would you like to see in future version of the service?
Maybe it can be made easier to create a brand, in other words make the separation from Spreadshirt easier for serious designers/shop partners. Better bulk prices, and viable screen printing option for shop partners. I realise the problems with the above from a Spreadshirt viewpoint but it’d be good.
What’s the most effective way you’ve found for generating sales? And advertising the shop?
I’m still trying to get it right so I don’t have a definitive answer. Get a good search ranking in google for some well searched terms, that’s the best way I’ve found, but it’s not easy to do. Adwords/Adbrite can bring rewards and hits, also t-shirt related blogs and myspace, both good for spreading the word…as is telling everyone you meet about your site. Although the last one can kill your popularity at parties if you do it too much. I’d say avoid traditional media advertising as it’s expensive and in my experience ineffective.
Whats your favorite spreadshirt shop, other than your own?
I love the designs at Amorphia Apparel. And Individualitee for some great designs and a very slick shop.
What plans do you have for the shop in future?
I’d love to actually bump into a someone wearing one of our tees, that’d be cool. Other than that just to keep building the customer base and coming up with new and better designs, as for the actual shop, just to keep it fresh.
More Cottony goodness
Oh this is great… why nobody telling me about this article =)