BUSINESS MODEL OF TEE FOR YOU (T4U)

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OFMr.BHASKAR BANERJEE

T4U is an online customized t-shirt printing initiative aimed at providing customers with a platform for creating customized t-shirts and giving them an option of bulk ordering.

SUBMITTED BYHEEMAAL KAUL MANISH SRIVASTAVA SHWETA YADAV

Section I Executive Summary

T4U! is an exciting new business that allows people to custom design a shirt (specifically the design on the front or back) any way that they would like. By intelligently leveraging cutting edge technology, T4U! will harness the power of computer sublimation to allow custom shirt printing in production runs as small as one unit. The company will have a storefront in Bangalore as well as a comprehensive website that allows ordering to occur anywhere. Imagine the ability to create a totally custom shirt. One can choose the material and style of the shirt, and then the image or graphic one wants on the front and/or back. This is the ultimate form of expression. There are no limits to what one can communicate. Some people might show their fanaticism for a particular sports team, others a musician or some might have a social message or cause on their t-shirt.

Products
T4U! will offer customers a variety of options for creating their own custom shirts. The majority of orders will be for t-shirts, however other style shirts will be available. We will use the DTG printing technology that allows a computer image to be applied to a shirt in a high quality, high resolution, economically feasible manner. This technology creates an image durable enough to withstand thousands of washings. Its photo-like quality, due to significantly higher printer resolution than anything on the market, will show off any image. The technology is cost effective enough to offer customers the ability to order just one unit. Most other competitors' costs prohibit printing custom shirts in one-off production runs. Finally, the customer may choose from an extensive library of existing images, supply their own image, or have an artist create an image for them.

Competitive Edge
T4U! has two sustainable competitive edges to assist them in market penetration. The first edge is a enormous catalog of graphic images. Their second edge is the high quality of sublimation offered.

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Section II Mission, Goals and Objectives

Objective
To set up a web based customized T-shirt business delivering youths. To become known as the premier custom T-shirt DTG service.

Mission
Tee For You (T4U)s mission is to offer the best and the finest in customized T shirt business. Tee For You (T4U) will offer customers the best product at the best price. Customer's expectations will always be exceeded.

Vision Statement
T4U is whatever you want it to be. T4U is about what you wear. Its also about what you think. And finally its about what you think you should wear .

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Section III Background Information

Industry Information
The size of the market is hard to ascertain due to more stores constantly appearing and the sole/private proprietary nature of most businesses on a global scale. Industry leader threadless.com made sales of $30 million in 2009, selling an average of 110,000 t-shirts per month. If we place a conservative estimate of 5% market share, that extrapolates to a market volume of at least $600 million. In the high-end market, threadless would probably account for 40% of the market, thus placing a value of $75 million (all estimates are in USD) that grows significantly every year.

Section IV Organizational Matters

Business Structure
Name of the Company Type of Company 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Physical assets Place of Business Duration of partnership Capital of the firm Profit sharing ratio Management Operation of bank accounts Borrowing Accounts Patiremant Death of partner Difference of opinion : : Tee For You (T4U) Partnership, under the following deeds:

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Management Team
T4U! will require the following personnel for operations: Heemaal, Manish, Shweta- For overall management and supervision Helper - Help with packing existing orders, and maintaining inventory Bookkeeper - Accounts receivable and payable Independent contractor - Graphic artist Receptionist - Help with customer queries Software Personnel - To help with website

Business Process
Tee For You (T4U) is an exciting new business that allows people to custom design a T shirt (specifically the design on the front or back) any way that they would like. By intelligently DTG printing technology, Tee For You (T4U) will harness the power of computer DTG to allow custom T shirt printing in production runs as small as one unit. Imagine the ability to create a totally custom T shirt. You choose the material and style of the shirt, and then the image or graphic you want on the front and/or back. This is the ultimate form of expression. There are no limits to what you can communicate. Some people might show their fanaticism for a particular sports team, others a musician. Or you might have a social message or cause on your shirt. Whatever you may decide, you can print any image on your shirt. Tee For You (T4U) will offer customers a variety of options for creating their own custom T shirts. We will use the printer DTG technology that allows a computer image to be applied to a shirt in a high quality, high resolution, economically feasible manner. This technology creates an image durable enough to withstand hundreds of washings. Its photo-like quality, due to significantly higher printer resolution than anything on the market, will show off any image. The technology is cost effective enough to offer customers the ability to order just one unit. Most other competitors' costs prohibit printing custom shirts in one-off production runs. Finally, the customer may choose from an extensive library of existing images, supply their own image, or have an artist create an image for them.

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Front end

Customer

Website

Catalogue

Bulk order

Artwork

Fill details

Payment

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Back end (for single order)

Order confirmation

Inventory check

If Yes

If No (source)

Send to print

Packaging

Dispatch to courier

Confirmation message to customer

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Back end (for bulk order)

Order confirmation

Sample approval

Inventory check

If Yes

If No (source)

Send to print

Packaging

Dispatch to courier

Confirmation message to customer

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Production Production Flow Chart

Production Lead Time

1. For Graphics taken from catalogue

Production lead time for such orders will be of 7 days from the date of confirmation of the order to the shipment delivery to the customer. 2. For graphics and artwork, given by customer

Production lead time for these orders will be of 9-10 days from the date of confirmation of the order to the shipment delivery to the customer.

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3.

For bulk/group orders

Production lead time for bulk orders will be of 20-30 days from the date of confirmation of the order to the shipment delivery to the customer, depending upon the size of the order.

Section V Marketing Plan

Products/Services
T4U! is a custom T-shirt printing company that offers customers a choice of imagery (ours or theirs) to apply to the front or back of a shirt. Sublimation is a process using heat to transfer (embed) ink into a fabric surface such as a shirt. The alternative method of creating custom shirt designs is called silkscreening, a process in which a screen is made with an image and that image is transferred onto a shirt. Because set-up costs are high silk-screening is not cost effective for small number production runs. Another disadvantage is that silkscreening applies a thin layer of ink to the surface the shirt inhibiting breathability. The sublimation process avoids this problem since the ink is not coating the fabric's surface, but rather, is embedded in the fabric. Only with recent technological advances has sublimation become cost effective in small production runs. While other vendors are able to offer sublimation in single production runs, their computer based sublimation process produces lower image quality. Your T-Shirt! takes sublimation one step further by producing the graphic images at a higher resolution than other existing technologies. Through a strategic relationship with David's former employer, Hewlett-Packard, Your T-Shirt! has access to their new prototype sublimation high resolution printer giving Your T-Shirt! a significant advantage. Your T-Shirt! will offer custom sublimation mainly on T-shirts, but will have other shirt styles available. Customers can choose from traditional cotton-blend shirts or all natural fiber cotton shirts. Customers can then choose from pre-existing graphics or custom artwork. The preexisting graphics are chosen from an extensive catalog. Your T-Shirt! has developed strategic relationships with several companies that offer a wide range of graphic images. The relationships allow Your T-Shirt! to list the other company's graphics
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within their catalog thereby significantly options. These images can be viewed and ordered online, providing customers with flexibility and convenience. Your T-Shirt! will have a comprehensive Website that will allow ordering a customer's home, or where ever they may be. Additionally, Your T-Shirt! will have a computer kiosk in the store front as an in-store catalog.
Your T-Shirt! will also offer custom artwork or graphic options for sublimation. The customer may bring in a graphic or may use Your T-Shirt!'s sub-contracted artist to realize their vision. Your T-Shirt!'s artist can take a customer's pencil drawing or even articulated thoughts and turn them into a new design. Your T-Shirt! will offer a range of different shirt options. As indicated by the name, there will be an emphasis on T-shirts. Short sleeves, long sleeves, organic fabrics, and a variety of polo, rugby and other styles will also be offered.

Target Market Segment Strategy

Tee For You (T4U) has chosen these two market segments because their demographics (reasonably young) have the highest likelihood of purchasing a custom T shirt. Both of these segments are reasonably young. This is important because most of Tee For You (T4U)s products are T-shirts and younger people tend to wear them frequently. Music is also an important interest for the target markets since both segments listen to and watch more than average amount of music. T-shirts are particularly popular at music events. This phenomenon may be explained in part by the expressive nature of both music and T-shirt graphics. Tee For You (T4U) will provide a form of expression, allowing each customer to choose what aesthetic or idea they want to communicate. Additional Groups: Tee For You (T4U) will also provide custom made t-shirts for school and college events. These are popular events where all students like to wear same t-shirts to show uniqueness. Tee For You (T4U) will also provide its services to NGOs and events like runs and marathons and other social events.

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Customer Analysis
Tee For You (T4U) has segmented their market into two distinct groups. As mentioned previously, the two segments are grouped by the type of product they chose. Although Tee For You (T4U) is dividing the market by product type, it is effectively dividing the market by age as well since the customers who purchase the custom artwork T shirts tend to be older than the group preferring the readymade graphics. While this is not a hard and fast rule, it is a fairly accurate generalization. Graphics - This is group purchases a T shirt and has an existing graphic placed on the T shirt. This is the less expensive option and lends itself to low production numbers, as low as one, since there is not the inherent expense of artwork creation.

Ages 14-25 69% are students Listen to 3.6 hours of music a week

Artwork - This segment prefers having custom artwork created and placed on their shirt. They generally have the image or style in mind and will upload it online.

Ages 24-43 Listen to 1.3 hours of music a week 18% are using the shirt as a form of communication for a cause or a

message Bulk orders - This segment prefers giving bulk orders with custom graphics or artwork placed on the t-shirts. For example, for college events, corporates, schools etc.

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Tee For You (T4U) has two competitive edges that they will use to their advantage to achieve market penetration.
Large

catalogue of graphics - Tee For You (T4U) is developing several

strategic relationships with existing graphics designers who are in the freelancing business and have an extensive images catalogues. Tee For You (T4U) is able to offer its customers an expansive array of imagery.
Quality

of the DTG - Due to the use of prototype technology, Tee For You

(T4U) will be able to produce DTGs of much higher quality than any of their competitors. This gives Tee For You (T4U) a fantastic competitive edge.

Competitive Analysis
Tee For You (T4U) has identified five competitors. They are

TANTRA This brand is supposed to be the pioneer in the business of T-shirts

for youths as their graphics and artworks, colours and prints are made keeping youths culture in mind and holds a good customer base in the market.
URBAN

YOGA - This local domestic brand concerning spreading the messages

of yoga postures in the as funniest way as possible. But it still has to make a place in the market.
PEOPLE

TREE This is a brand targeting youths based on the concept of

organic marketing and follow only organic way of production but does not offer customization as the cost shoots up in customized printing in organic way.
ALMA

MATER- This is an online brand for customized printing of hoodies and

t-shirts. This brand has evolved in the past 2-3 years and is a leading pioneer in this field.

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MYNTRA - Myntra.com is an Indian online shopping retailer of fashion and

casual lifestyle products, headquartered in Bangalore.

SWOT ANALYSIS (T4U)

Strength

1. Limited start up risk 2. 24 hours a day, 7 days in a week your business in operation. 3. You can do your business globally by sitting at your office, home or in bedroom. 4. The products reach to customers directly from the producers at a lower price than the market value. 5. It is fast and effective. 6. Low overhead cost and low barrier to entry 7. Direct consumer communication 8. Effective customization. 9. Price/product comparison 10. Can be started with a low investment

Weakness

1. Competitors can offer similar products quickly 2. High transportation cost 3. Limited flexibility in pricing 4. Many times, we prefer to buy the product by reaching personally to the market rather than purchasing through Internet. 5. Sometimes, transportation cost increases the product cost. 6. No. of potential customers who can buy through Internet is still not enough. 7. Inventory issues 8. Insecurity of payment gateways sometimes 9. Already an existing market 10. Limited market segment 11. No idea about quality and physical condition of the product

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Opportunity

1. Everyday number of Internet users is increasing in a rapid way. 2. People of tomorrow will feel more comfortable to buy products through Internet only. 3. Global Exposure 4. Industry Growth 5. Easy Expansion into other related areas like, hoodies, mobile covers etc.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Threats
Changes in environment, law and regulations Privacy concerns Fraud Competition Economic slowdown Rising costs of raw materials, commodity prices Change in consumer preferences

SWOT ANALYSIS (competitors)

Strengths
Globally well-established brands. Known for their humorous and creative designs to make people smile Franchising model is used by the brand therefore easy to expand. Popular brand among the youth and affordable price

1. 2. 3. 4.

Weakness

1. Presence as an add-on and in the retail outlets but the brands does not have their own outlets. 2. Sometimes perceived as a brand challenging sentiments therefore many people dont buy it.

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Opportunity
Diversification of products and offering other wide range of products. Global expansion with designs suiting the West.

1. 2.

Threats

1. Competition from international players in terms of designs, colors and comfort. 2. Economic down-turn affects the retail business directly with sales decreasing. 3. Location and brand presence in stores with other brands coming in is becoming a challenge.

COSTING AND PRICING

Cost Centers T-shirt(catalogue) (in INR) 70-80 30-40 2 50 30 50 232-252 350-400 T-shirt(own Bulk order artwork) (in INR) (in INR) 70-80 70-80 90-100 20-30 2 2 50 30 40 20 50 40 302-322 182-202 450-500 275-300

Stitched t-shirt Printing cost Packaging Courier/transportation Overheads Operational Cost Total Final Price

Promotional Strategies
The marketing campaign will seek to increase visibility for Tee For You (T4U), emphasizing the ability of the customer to completely customize their design. Tee For You (T4U) will use several different venues to communicate this message.

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Advertising - Tee For You (T4U) will run ads in several teen/young adult Youth events - Many different events will be sponsored as a means of

magazines whose readership demographics are similar to Tee For You (T4U).

increasing visibility. These include but are not limited to music festivals and sporting events along with the new genre of extreme sporting events.

Student groups - Tee For You (T4U) will attempt to gain awareness of the

different student groups who actively purchase shirts for their members. Awareness will be achieved through a combination of sponsorship of student organization events as well as advertisements in magazines that specifically target this demographic.

Sales Strategy
The sales strategy will emphasize the fact that ordering a t-shirt from T4U! is a very easy and pleasing experience. The sales effort will work on the continual development of the website, the main tool used for ordering. It will be quite important to have a friendly, easy to use web interface for two main reasons. One, there are so many choices available that it could become daunting to the customer. The second reason is that a large portion of sales will be placed on the website. It is imperative to make it so easy that people don't stop part way through ordering due to cumbersome or difficult instructions. The website embraces the philosophy of making the experience so easy and pleasing that the customer comes back to buy more. T4U! will also rely on three other factors to help boost sales. The first is exemplary customer service. Having excellent service will provide the customer with the feeling that the business is looking out for the customer's interest. Second, when a customer places an order, they will probably be excited to see the finished product, so T4U! will ensure the fastest turnaround time possible. Lastly, sales will be boosted by offering customers a high quality product. We will use high grade cotton shirts and state-of-theart sublimation printing materials.

Web Plan Summary

Tee For You (T4U) will have a website developed that is based on the philosophy that the site must be user-friendly. Tee For You (T4U) entire product catalog will be
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available on the site for customers to place orders. Because of the large volume of graphic image choices, it will be imperative that the site is easy to navigate through all the different options. The store will have a computer kiosk for customers to access the graphics catalog. The customer can then place the order online or take the information to an employee to place the order. The initial cost of the website will be the largest. Monthly maintenance costs will be marginal relative to the development and design costs.

Web Site Marketing Strategy

The website will be integral in Tee For You (T4U) marketing effort as the site is a key sales tool for both local and distant customers. The URL address will always be used in promotional material, encouraging people to check out the company, concept, and the products. In additional to inclusion in the traditional marketing campaigns, Tee For You (T4U) will submit their website to a variety of search engines, social web portals like Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, HiFive etc., where youths throng most of the time and thus increasing the customer base from there only.

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Section VI Financial Plan

Pre-Startup
1.

Details of Start Up Machinery And Fixed Equipments

Tee For You (T4U) will incur the following expenses for startup:

Two

HP computers - These will be high end models and utilize the following

software: Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, and CorelDraw.
HP

Laser printer For office document work and others. computer kiosk - This allows customers to view options for shirts and

In-store

existing imagery.
Website

- This will be used for information disbursement as well as ordering. display unit - To display assorted graphic images on paper for easier

Shelving

viewing.
Broadband Two

Internet connection.

desk/chair/office supplies sets. T shirt inventory - Inventory will be kept small to lower overhead. This

Small

will be accomplished by using a T shirt vendor who is one shipping day away, effectively using a just-in-time (JIT) system for managing inventory.

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2.

Start Up Expenses
(in INR) 3000 1000 1,00,000 70000 10,000 10000 1,31,000 2,00,000 20,000 2,20,000 3,51,000

Requirements Legal Stationery etc. Computer equipment Rent Insurance Office furniture Wesite development Total Start-up Expenses

Start-up Assets
Cash Required Other Current Assets Total Assets Total Requirements

Sources of finance
Family and friends

Future Business Expansions:

Tee For You (T4U) will expand from t-shirts to customized hoodies as they are also very popular among youth. Tee For You (T4U) will also introduce customized wallets, mobile back covers, shoes, flip flops (doodling), specs, headphones etc .

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FEASIBILITY STUDY
1. Product/service Feasibility

Keys to success
DTG

technology as a competitive advantage. customer expectations by offering high quality products at reasonable

Exceed

prices with quick turnaround times. 2. Financial Feasibility The venture is financially feasible since The initial start-up capital requirements are less and can be easily financed with the help from family and friends. The venture has a high potential of profit returns since this business deals with youngsters and their requirements.

3.

Market Feasibility

Tee For You (T4U) has segmented the market into two groups, organized by the type of product that they purchase. The first group is customers that desire an already created graphic image to be placed on the their T shirt. The second group are those that prefer custom artwork to be placed on their T shirt. Tee For You (T4U) has decided to divide the market by the products that they purchase because it offers an intuitive, easy method of targeting the two different groups. An additional reason for segmenting the market based on the two products is because the demographics for the buyers of the two products are distinct enough to group them separately.

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PRIMARY RESEARCH ANALYSIS

1. WOULD YOU CUSTOMIZED T-SHIRT?? BE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING A

2.

WHAT COLOURS WOULD YOU PREFER?

3. WHICH CATEGORY OF T-SHIRTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY FOR CUSTOMISED T-SHIRT??

4.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO CUSTOMIZE YOUR T-SHIRT?

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5. CHOOSE CATEGORY OF GRAPHICS YOU WOULD LIKE TO WEAR??

6. WOULD YOU LIKE TO ORDER IN BULK FOR YOUR CLASS, BATCH, COLLEGE EVENT ETC.?

Online T-shirt customization was greeted positively by all. This concept was welcomed equally by both males and females(47% n 53% respectively). Hence we can conclude that our customer base will be the youth irrespective of their gender. The most common colors preferred by the sample size were black<royal blue<white=grey<green<red<pink. The maximum no. of people chose to customize

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round neck T-shirts over Vneck and polo T-shirts. More no. of people would like to see their own graphics/artworks on the T-shirts as compared to choosing from the available catalogue. The most popular graphics were comic<music<sports. People said that they would be ready to pay upto Rs. 450 for their customized T-shirts. 75% people showed keen interest in ordering in bulk for college events etc.

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