What is Teespring and How does it work? 

Teespring is an eCommerce site for custom-made products. The platform permits users to make their own designs and allows them to print and sell them without any trouble.

The users are able to market their custom-made products and the Teespring team will take care of the production and shipments. In this way, consumers get a diverse range of personalized products, and their business model is different from other eCommerce sites.

(image credit: teespring.com)

Teespring is a free-to-use platform. One who creates an account on the website also can earn from the facilities provided by Teespring. You can design your product using the given designing tools or can upload designs to the Teesprings launcher.

Other than t-shirts, Teespring also sells products like mugs, apparel, kids and babies products, phone cases, hoodies, etc. 

The business model of Teespring is the best example of growth hacking. Apart from the other business models, the factor that makes Teespring different is, the site sells the products designed and marketed by the users.

The company earns from the ad campaigns that are paid by users for the promotion of their t-shirts. Thus, the company gets traffic and grows eventually since the users are paying for ads.

How to build a website similar to Teespring?

People love t-shirts and anybody can launch a t-shirt business online. But product knowledge or modern technology is not the thing you need to get started. What you really need is the right tools at your fingertips that can automate the entire process.

Many customers have contacted our consultants to get advice for this. They found Printcart T-shirt Printing Solution on the internet and felt interested. The thing they wonder the most is if this solution could help them to make a website similar to Teespring. In this article, we will answer some related questions that are asked the most by our customers about this issue. 

Hope that this could help all of you have a clear overview of how this solution works and could it help you to build an eCommerce printing website. 

1. Can the designer tool called Printcart be integrated with the POD provider's APIs?

We could connect your website with any POD provider's APIs so that you can import their products and variations and also shipping fees and taxes. 

We recommend doing API integration from the beginning when you start building your website. As it will be used for import products, variations, shipping, taxes at the checkout stage. So it is good to have it from the beginning so you can add product and category and also make sure after the import later, it will not affect your UI. Here are some examples of our POD provider's API integration projects so far.

You could send us a request to integrate our Printcart online design tool to any POD provider's APIs that you want. Contact us for more information and useful advice!

2. Can users make accounts on the website and create designs to sell like Teespring?

This T-shirt Printing Solution supports a feature called “design launcher” which allows people to join your website as designers and create their own designs. It is already included in our T-shirt package. However, if you need to customize it to make it exactly fit with your business model, feel free to share with us your ideas. We will help you to bring it into reality. 

How it works for website admin

Dashboard: manage design templates, designers 

 

Designs: manage design created by designers, then approve or reject designs 

Designer: Manage designers, approve or reject user’s register requests

 

Withdraw: manage money withdrawal requests from designers  

Live chat: direct chat with designer

How does it work for designers?

Settings: set up banner, avatar & artist profile

My store dashboard: manage designs that were created or approved, pending, sold 

My Design: create designs, manage and edit designs  

When clicking on “Start Designing” the designer could choose 1 product to work with. 

Then, the designer could upload a completed design file or a fixable design.   

Upload file design 

Choose other products that designers want to apply their design to.  

With this design launcher feature, designers could make their own designs. Once, the designs are made. They will be shown in the shop owner's store. If there are any consumers who purchase the shop owner’s products and use designer’s designs, designers will get a commission for each successful order. The admin could set the commission rate, decide to reject or approve designer designs. 

3. Can the users have stores?

The answer is “Yes”. However, it is not available in our T-shirt package but an extra function that needs to employ on your website separately.

This function allows you to make your website as a marketplace where people could sign in and sell their products like Amazon or Etsy.

We will integrate any multi-vendor plugin that you request (we highly recommend Dokan multivendor plugin) to turn your website into a printing marketplace. 

Here is the workflow chart.

There will be 3 types of users on the website: Admin, User, Vendors 

  • Admin:  Add product, Price, and variations for products, templates, approve vendors, set commission for vendors.

  • Vendors: Register as vendors on the site and wait for admin approval. After admin approval, vendors can add products and then design from products that were added by admin.  After publishing to sell on the site and get a commission, the admin will be the person who prints and ships to users.

  • Users shop on site: There will be  2 types of products :

    • Products that are added by admin: User will have 4 ways to order: choose variations, add to cart, and order. Upload design and then order. Design online and order. Pick a  template and then design and order.

    • Products that are added by vendors: Users can order in the following ways: Choose variations and add to cart, order use design that vendors had designed. Or upload the design and then order. 

We will develop the function that allows vendors after uploading products they will be able to choose products that were enabled design by admin, and then they can design based on what admin has set and then public to their store.

  • Step 1: Register as a vendor and get approved by the admin

  • Step 2: Add product and set price for the product

 

  • Step 3: Choose a product to customize and choose colors to design 

  • Step 4: Design based on colors, sides chosen 

  • Step 5: Process to upload the designed products on vendor' store

4. Can different payment gateways be integrated?

Whether you are an eCommerce platform owner or just maintaining your online presence, you want to offer your customers a safe, quick, and easy-to-use payment system. The chosen payment solution has to satisfy both the needs of your customers and your business. So, it has to be protected from fraud, support a variety of payment methods, be convenient to use, and be compatible with your platform.

Our solution was built on WooCommerce, so you could choose from a large range of payment gateways for WooCommerce.

For other specific payment gateway integration, please kindly contact us for more information.

5. Can you do custom work to create a website very similar to Teespring?

Our solution was built on open source code, so we could freely customize it as per the customer’s demand. 

The solution was built to meet basic requirements for a printing business only. So in case you have any ideas or have a specific business model, contact our consultant for a tailored solution for your own business. Based on the customer’s detailed demand, we will build an appropriate workflow chart and discuss what needs to be done with their website. With more than 9 years of experience in this field, we are confident that we know what is best for your printing business. 

If you intend to build a website similar to Teespring, leave a comment with your contact information or contact our consultant staff at support@printcart.com today for more information!  

Lynn Jones

Shop Owner
Lynn Jone, Digital Marketer, copywriter, and avid fan of Technology!

One of my favorite quotes is: "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value" - Albert Einstein.

I graduated from foreign trade university majoring in Economics. However, it took me 5 years to find my passion for Digital Marketing. With over 5-years research and over 3-years practical work experience, I am confident that I can easily what problems your website is facing and suggest the best solution for your business.

I used to be an accountant, a salesperson, a banker even a receptionist. However, I just feel to be myself when I choose to be a Marketer, especially an SEOer. I have spent a lot of time studying and learning about marketing tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahref, Alexa, Similar Web, ... In order to understand customer behavior as well as to make a website to be on the top rank on the search tool.

"Content is king". Where advertising is about the sale, content marketing is about establishing a connection. The best content marketing will lure people to your brand and keep them coming back for more.

So let’s explore the wide world of ever-increasing content, and investigate how you ensure your message is well delivered to your target customers.