The Ultimate Step by Step Guide to get your WooCommerce T-shirt Designer Store up and running.

Starting a woocommerce t shirt designer store can be easy when you know exactly what to do, and you make the right decisions from the beginning. You might be asking yourself “how do i know i am making the right decisions?”. To make the right decisions you need information. That is what we are here to do, to give you all the information you need to kick start your woocommerce t shirt designer store.

First things first, before we jump into the process, you must know that the t-shirt designer industry is full of competition, and therefore you must find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Defining your quality, brand and niche, will help you determine the kind of image you want to give your woocommerce t shirt designer store from the beginning.

Quality: the quality of your t-shirts will either make customers come back or run away, so sourcing out for the best quality is important. That is why the “Allada” woocommerce t shirt designer plugin comes with the t-shirt sample data of the biggest t-shirt brands on the market like Gildan, Anvil etc.( will be discussed in Step 2).

Brand: building a unique brand is very essential for the survival of your business. You should be able to capture the attention of your customers in the midst of other competitors by adding value to your customers. All the steps we will talk about in one way or the other will contribute in making your brand strong.

Niche: it is very important to have a niche or a target audience. It makes you the master of that sector. For example, producing custom t-shirts with business motivational quotes is better than motivational quotes in general.

After determining what you want in terms of quality, brand and niche, you can now move to the steps involved in setting up your  t-shirt designer store.

STEP 1: Manage the front end of your woocommerce t shirt store

1. Choose an appropriate logo and theme: At this stage choosing your logo and theme are very important. In choosing your logo, your choices of color and image needs to reflect the identity of your woocommerce t shirt designer store. Also choose the right theme for your store.There are different types of themes for different purposes like education, health, fashion, restaurant etc, for example “Allada” the woocommerce t shirt designer plugin comes with a theme that was designed specially for t shirt stores.
   Another option you have is to purchase one on themeforest.com. If you are on a short budget, you can look on WordPress.org for a free theme.
2. Choose an appropriate logo and theme: At this stage choosing your logo and theme are very important. In choosing your logo, your choices of color and image needs to reflect the identity of your woocommerce t shirt designer store. Also choose the right theme for your store.There are different types of themes for different purposes like education, health, fashion,restaurant etc, for example “Allada” the woocommerce t shirt designer plugin comes with a theme that was designed specially for t shirt stores.
   Another option you have is to purchase one on themeforest.com. If you are on a short budget, you can look on WordPress.org for a free theme.
3. Promotional graphics and links to important pages: When a customer clicks on the link that leads to your shop, s/he falls on your homepage. The standard practice is for the site visitor to easily navigate from there to the checkout page, without any hassles – first impressions count, always.  The homepage is the ideal spot to place your promotional graphics, calls to action button, delivery options, payment options, FAQs, email signup bar, social media buttons, customer service and links to your popular product pages. Your woocommerce t shirt designer store should be arranged in such a manner that the customer cannot miss any important information.
4. Search bar at top: A search bar is very important, because a customer doesn’t have much time to waste on your shop. Placing a search bar at the top of your store pages helps the customer search for what s/he wants exactly, without having to get lost on the whole site before getting results.
5. Language bar: The benefit of having the language switch option is that it gives the possibility to anybody in the four corners of the world to shop on your store without a language barrier. This will increase your profits and will give you a worldwide visibility. It is also best to place it at the top of your homepage for easy access.

Step 2: Manage the technical aspects of the whole store

1. Include payment gateways and security measures: Your woocommerce t shirt designer store should have security measures to avoid being hacked. You should also set up safe payment methods on your website, and show the payment systems you use. There are a lot of payment gateways and you have to choose the one that is the most convenient for you.At this point maybe you have been asking yourself the following questions. “How do I choose the best payment gateway?”  “What are the options and existing criterias to choose the right payment gateway?”. Then you can read this article on how to choose the right payment gateway.You can also look through this list of existing payment gateway solutions and what they offer.
2. Check your website speed and responsivity: It is important that you make your website compatible to all devices. Customers should be able to easily access your store via mobile, tablet or computer, because a bad experience will make your customer move to the next store. Pagespeed helps you check the speed of your online store, and Responsinator can help you analyze the responsivity of your website.
3. Add product categories and filters tab: Make sure you properly arrange your products by category in a clear structure in the header of your woocommerce t shirt store, so that customers don’t get lost or confused in their search of a particular t shirt. For example you can arrange your t shirt categories by type, price, brand, and person (male,female, kid).These little tips will make it easier for the customer to find exactly what s/he is looking for on your woocommerce t shirt designer shop without wasting time.
4. Add shopping cart and checkout, wishlist: The position of your shopping cart and checkout button on your store is very important because they are the major actions that will lead to sales. The ideal position for a “shopping cart” button is on the extreme right hand of the top bar. The checkout button too must be bold and can’t be missed. If their positions by default is not self-imposing you can ask your developer to look into the code and change it for you.You can also offer promotion deals on your checkout pages. For example you can give discounts on shipping costs, or free shipping when they spend a certain amount, or even various shipping methods so that the customer doesn’t feel limited. With a wishlist option, your customers can save their cart for later purchase. You don’t need to go searching for a discount plugin, because the Woocommerce All Discounts plugin offers you these and much more.
5. Installing Allada (the Woocommerce T shirt Designer plugin): This is by far the most important tool you will be needing on your woocommerce t shirt designer store. This is the plugin that will help your customers create their unique designs. Allada is installed like any normal WordPress plugin, through the Plugins install section.When you are done installing Allada on your woocommerce t shirt designer store it is important to activate the Imagick and Zip extensions on your server, because these extensions allow every designed t shirt on the configuration page to be visually viewed and packaged. Then you can create your t shirt configurations and templates ready to be sold on your store.

Below are some of the advantages of using Allada:

1. Printful Integration: The Printful service has been integrated in the plugin therefore you can easily set-up Printful on your store and let them process and ship out your customer’s orders straight to them. You don’t need to break your head over delivering products to your customers anymore.
2. T-shirt design sample data: Another advantage is that you don’t need to create your t-shirt products one by one anymore. Allada our woocommerce t-shirt designer comes with the design sample datas of the biggest t-shirts brands such as Gildan, Next Level Apparel, Anvil, Bella Canvas and much more (models, colors and size) ready to be used on your online store.
3. +1000 clipart included: It also comes with cliparts. A t shirt design can not be complete without cliparts.That’s why our woocommerce t-shirt designer plugin has more than +1000 remarkable cliparts and graphics organized in libraries, and if that’s not enough, you can upload your own.
4. Upsells: Some sections can have an extra fees attached that you can charge your customers, as they use them. For example, adding text, or clipart. Each clipart can be priced to your convenience in order to increase the cost of the customer’s design.
5. Shop full management: Maybe shop management is not your thing. You may find all this process too long, or you just want somebody to fully manage your woocommerce t shirt design store for you, from the domain name reservation to website deployment and maintenance after launch. With Allada it is possible to get this additional service so you can only take care of your core business.

Step 3: Manage the product pages of your custom t-shirt store

There is also a chance that people land on your woocommerce t shirt designer store through a particular landing page. In this case, there are some information that needs to be on your product page to push people to purchase your product. All the following options except the “customize button” are entirely managed by the shopping cart system of woocommerce, therefore there is no need to take care of them one by one.

1. Customize button: The  first value of your woocommerce t shirt designer store is that it allows people to build their own custom t-shirt, therefore a “design your own” button should be bold enough on the product page to push the customer to action.
2. Multiple product images and angle: On the configuration page you should add all the different angles of the product image, for the customer to have a 360° virtual view of the product before purchase.
3. Product information: You  have the choice to add additional information on the product. Adding more information reassures the customer of the quality of the product he is purchasing.
4. Purchase quantity field: This  information field is necessary, because it helps the customer know how much of a product he is purchasing.
5. Add to cart button: After  the final preview of the custom t-shirt, the action that will result in a sale is the “add to cart”, therefore it is necessary to have a bold button on your product page that the customer can’t miss.
6. Social share button: For  more visibility of your products, you can add social share buttons on the product pages of your woocommerce t shirt designer store. Your customers can share their customized t shirt designs with their social media audience and in return you get some visibility.
7. Related product links: This action pushes people to shop more. If, for example, a woman purchases a custom t shirt for herself, and your related product links display custom t shirt for men and kids too, she might want to purchase one for her husband and kid as well. By suggesting them to her, you increase the chances of doubling your sales.

Step 4: Add value to your store through blog and media content

Having additional content on your woocommerce t shirt designer shop will help you stand out from your competitors and give your more rankings on search engines. In doing this you are not just selling to your customers but you are also adding value to them. If you want your website to appear on the first pages of Google, you will have to do the following:

1. Identify a relevant keyword phrase:
   People who are looking for the product you sell, will look it up on Google by using certain keywords. When they do, you want to make sure that they land on your store, by using the right keyword. The first thing to do is to find out the trending keyword phrases in relation to your niche. In order to find the ranking keywords you can do a keyword search with SEO tools like moz.com, google seo tools , or you can also buy and install the  WP Rankie plugin. It will help you to research, track and report on your desired keywords to see how your SEO is doing.
2. Rank on keywords:
   The next step is using the keywords (in your niche) that are trending to optimize your visibility on google. You will have to insert those keywords in your various articles, tutorials, and case studies. To get it right, you will need to install the Yoast SEO plugin, then enter the keyword or key phrase you’d like your post or page to be ranked for in the yoast seo section. The plugin will then run a check on your content to check whether you’re using the keywords often enough and in the right spots. When your content respects the do’s and dont’s of the Yoast plugin checklist, a green light will show up, indicating that your content is now ready to be published.
3. Tutorials: This  types of content can help some customers learn how to use your t shirt designer, or you can also show them useful ways to use a t shirt in a do-it-yourself tutorial. You can produce tutorials in a text format or in a video or both.
4. Blog articles on products and announcement: You  can write valuable articles on your products, or on t shirts in general in which the customer can learn something new. It is also important to publish important news or announcements concerning your shop, as this will strengthen the communication bond between you and your customers.
5. Case studies/ Testimonials: Showcasing how your customers have been using your products is a good way to talk about your woocommerce t shirt designer store. You can feature some of your customers on your website in the format of your choice, showing how they use your t shirts. It will enhance the credibility of your store.

Step 5: Customer follow-up

Once someone buys from your woocommerce t shirt designer store you don’t go away just like that, you need to develop a customer retention strategy so that they can always come back. The   surest place to reach them directly is by email. Here is what you can include in your emails.

1. Purchase info: You can thank them for their purchase, send a receipt with the price, image of the item, and also links to the product, site, support and related product suggestions.
2. Ask for a review: A few weeks after a purchase is made, you can ask your customers to tell you what they think about your product. Their feedback can help you evaluate how you can improve on your products service quality.
3. Offer promotion deals: One way to win their loyalty is to give them deals from time to time. For example if you have customer that buys t shirts from you in bulk, you can ask him to join your loyalty program, in so doing he will become a loyal customer because he gets some privileges that your ordinary customers don’t get. One of the plugins that can help you set-up any type of discount easily is the Woocommerce All Discounts plugin.

Step 6: Customer live support

This should be the heartbeat of your woocommerce t shirt designer store. One of the ways to convert a customer is by convincing him to purchase from you, and that requires constant communication with the (potential) customer.  When you are at the early stages of your business the basic support need to give your customers is via emails, phone, and social media pages but as your business expands and you get more and more customers to handle it is ideal that you set-up a livechat system and a FAQ section to help you manage your time and satisfy your clients easily.

1. Social media pages: You  should have an extension of your woocommerce t shirt designer store on social media platforms like facebook, twitter, and instagram. Your customers may contact you through them. The advantage of having social media pages is that it helps give more visibility to your store and you can get new customers via those different platforms.
2. Emails: Your  woocommerce t shirt designer stores email address should always be open for customers that need help or information through that platform. Communicating through mails allows you to collect your customers email. You will be able to expand your mailing list database which you can exploit anytime to market new products or deals.
3. Phone Number: Very essential to your business, it is necessary for people who would want to communicate with you over the phone.
4. Live Chat: This  is a 24/7 support platform on your woocommerce t shirt designer store whereby customers can come and ask you any question prior to purchase or after purchase. There are lots of chat system existing today like Intercom, Livechat, Zendesk, Drift and much more, which you can install on your store. Having a live chat system is an effective way for customer retention, the more you chat directly with the customer the easier you can convince him/her  to purchase your product.
5. FAQs: Anticipate on your customers questions and provide the answer to them in a document format. This saves you and the customer a lot of time.

Conclusion

These are the major things you need to get your woocommerce t shirt designer store running. If there is something missing from our checklist  or you have some ideas or advice to share with us, just drop it in the comment box!