Big News Coming Up

Image via Wikipedia

I'll be teaming up with another local t-shirt designer and offering their shirts on my site in the very near future. They will be offering mine on their site as well. I'm very excited about the ability to cross-promote with some talented designers and work together. The more the merrier and it all helps spread the word about Buffalo.
I'll keep you posted--Im also planning to add another shirt or two of my own before summer as well. Things are looking up!

Order by March 9 for St. Patty's

Irish Shenanigans and Hullabaloo T-shirt

Our new t-shirt design is inspired by the best outdoor party in Buffalo-the St. Patrick's Day Parade. So good in fact, we've got two of them: the mainstream Delaware Ave parade and the old-time, authentic First Ward parade. Im more apt to hit the Old First Ward rather than risk getting in no holds barred fist-a-cuffs on D street, but if your game and a risk-taker, have at it.
St. Pats is about having some laughs, enjoying some libations belting out some Irish Folksongs and this tee hits 'em all. Plus, see if you can guess who we've made our Grand Marshal. We'll give you a hint, during the blizzard of '85 this Irishman told us all to "stay inside and grab a six-pack..." Words of wisdom.
Go to our Buffalo T-shirts website and pick this shirt up now for $16.99 (thats $5 off our regular price). But hurry, this pre-order sale price is only good until March 2nd.

Good game, good game, good game, good game...

We finally found a shelf to call our own in Buffalo NY. We've just teamed up with CityLove Clothing of Buffalo and they'll be selling our wares at their retail loco at 830 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo (between Lafayette & Auburn). With that, you can use your Buffalo T-shirts $5 off coupon from the Buffalo First Coupon Book and get the above rocket tee for a mere $13.50! Slamming.
Im loaded up on goofballs. Goofballs, everyone, goofballs.
We are also looking forward to having CityLove push our shirts to the network of other stores they distribute to in the WNY area (currently somewhere around 12-18) and will keep everyone posted when we are in those locales.
I'm also working on selling some of CityLoves choicest on the Buffalo T-shirts site in the future.
And lastly, I'll be placing an order for the screenprinting of two new shirts this week-both just in time for my favorite holiday and pasttime.
Things are looking up.
Thanks!

Buffalo and The NY Times

44 Places to go in 2009
"From the Aegean Sea to Zambia, this year's most compelling destinations are awash in sublime landscapes, cutting-edge art, gala music festivals, and stylish new resorts."
"With the exception of senatorial hopefuls, many New Yorkers write off the rest of the Empire State as a cultural hinterland. But the chilly rustbelt city of Buffalo now has something to thrill culture junkies other than its scattered specimens of pioneering early 20th-century architecture: the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Opened last November and designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, the museum has more than 7,000 works by more than 600 artists with strong ties to western New York State."

"...chilly rustbelt city..." They gotta throw in the jab, dont they? At least they didnt write "snowy" or "depressed"

Buffalo T-shirts: Now with FREE SHIPPING

Thats right. After careful consideration, we've decided to lift the shipping charge and offer to send our shirts to the masses free of charge. From now on we're offering FREE SHIPPING FOR ALL ORDERS (until 01/2009). Thats an extra fin in your pocket, my friend. So go and buy yourself something nice, like The Rocketship 7 perhaps or the Retro Buffalo. We've also lowered our regular prices too, so go and check us out at Buffalo T-shirts

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN

WITH 51% OF THE VOTE...
The Voting Booth has closed and with a landslide victory Palmer's Inn Canalside Tavern is the winner. This is the next shirt to be released by Buffalo T-shirts. Interested in pre-ordering and getting FREE SHIPPING? Sign up for my newsletter at Buffalo T-shirts and you'll find out how. Wondering what this Palmers Inn is all about, check out Buffalo T-shirts Voting Booth.

Buffalo T-shirts New Squidoo Lens

Im trying out Squidoo this weekend to get traffic flowing to my website. Heres my first real, true-blue lens for one of my shirts. If you get a chance add to the Favorite Buffalo Restaurant list.
CLICK HERE

SCORE Buffalo

I realized I had never heard back from the SCORE counselor that I sent my rough business plan too a couple weeks back so I sent him another follow-up email. I'll keep you posted as to what happens (if anything)

SCORE one for BfloTees

Got a prelim phone meeting set up with the fine folks at SCORE (Buffalo office). Hopefully, they'll give me the guidance needed to keep me focused and on the ball with my business plan. The guy that called seemed nice. He caught me at a great time too, I had just started melting some wax down on the stove. Another bright idea of mine. I got lost in answering an email and next thing I knew I got a nice little fire on my hands! Luckily, Im cool as ice under those situations and took care of it without mishap...
except the small kitchen fire of course.

Marketing Freebie Idea for Buffalo NY t-shirts

Did I mention I got my stickers in the mail recently? They look great and can't wait to give them away to friends and family (and down the road, some customers). I also had a nice little promo idea. With the purchase of a t-shirt, the package will include one or two stickers AND one old bills or sabres trading card. Just to reinforce the Buffalo aspect of the company. This is a nice and inexpensive hook to get people interested. Who knows, maybe that will influence a sale in the hopes of getting a certain card...or maybe not but its still a nice piece of cross promotion that cost me only .05 cents per shirt (or so). The image above are some of my recently purchased cards. Anyone want a 1981 Gilbert? Or how about Lindy Ruff? Then order a t-shirt and you might get it for free!

Web Landing Page

Worked on the "Opening Soon" landing page for the website today. Thats it above. Nothing major, just wanted to give it a little Buffalo blue collar attitude. Ill also put a link on it for people to sign up for the mailing list. Never too early to get a customer list!
I'm also working on t-shirt tags, Ill get some pricing for them this week. You can see the tags on the landing page-these will be placed at the bottom hem on front of the t-shirt. A nice branding effect I thought. I'll give props to Johnny Cupcakes on this idea. BTW, if I can model/promote my brand like his in the least, Ill be in great shape. What a great story.

http://www.johnnycupcakes.com
Thems some tasty tees.

Still debating: farm out screen printing or DIY

I was thinking last night about teaming up with a printer vs doing it myself. I believe both will benefit me and heres how:
I'm going to do my own shirts first. Nothing big, maybe 3 designs (I have 12 ready), whip up a dozen or so of each and see what happens. This will give me shirts to use to photograph for advertising, samples to show retailers and some to sell if I'm lucky enough. I can purchase a small pro kit and screens, etc for 200-250 and start with a few one color jobs to keep costs down, buying the shirts from a online warehouse. Hiring a screenprinter at this point is just too costly. I'd have to print 50-100 shirts of each to make it close to being cost effective. I'd rather start smaller and gauge response beforehand.
I will have to check online retailers that might be able to offer smaller runs of shirts. I might be able to find someone for this part online, then go local for the bigger runs.
After that I will revisit hiring a screen printer when I can gauge popularity so I can focus on the marketing/selling of the shirts rather than the making of them. I will definitely hire a local, small business screen printer for sure...as long as they are crafty.
Ill keep you posted. And by 'you' I mean...

**UPDATE**
Alright, I sent out an email to a local screen printer that does small run printing. They listed their prices here:
http://www.pranxtees.com/pricing.html
$5.56/shirt thats actually a really great price. Unfortunately, That isnt for the American Apparel shirt I want to us, so who knows. Hopefully it'll come back at around $8/shirt. That would settle it. I'd take that plunge right now. Plus with the added bonus of working and supporting local business is ideal.

March Snow

It was hardly a blizzard really, but its nice to get a weekend snow in Buffalo. We got about a foot or so, it clogged up our street a bit and I spent my time outdoors pushing a couple cars out and shoveling the walk. Maybe Frank and I will get out and do some sledding this afternoon.