Threadless

What Threadless is

Threadless is a Chicago company that sells artists' designs printed on apparel and other goods, through two channels: a community-voted main store and Artist Shops, where each artist runs a storefront and Threadless prints and ships the orders. Wikipedia describes it as "an online community of artists and an e-commerce website based in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 2000 by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart." The facts below come from Wikipedia and from third-party articles, several of them written by competing services, and each is credited to its source.

How it started

According to Wikipedia, Nickell and DeHart started Threadless in 2000 with $1,000. It began as a T-shirt design competition on dreamless.org, a forum for people experimenting with computers, code and art: users posted designs in a thread (hence the name) and the founders printed the top designs. They soon built a website with a voting system that scored designs from 1 to 5. By 2002 Nickell had started a web agency, skinnyCorp, with Threadless growing under its umbrella; by 2004 the company printed new shirts every week and no longer needed agency work. Wikipedia puts profit at around $1.5 million in 2004 and $6.5 million in 2006.

Threadless is closely tied to the idea of crowdsourcing. Wikipedia notes that Jeff Howe, who coined the term in a 2006 Wired article, soon associated it with Threadless, and that Inc. put the company on its cover in 2008 as "The Most Innovative Small Company in America," estimating $30 million in sales. In October 2017 Threadless acquired Bucketfeet, a maker of artist-designed shoes that also produces on demand and has its own network of artists, with a plan to bring those artists onto the Threadless site in 2018. In summer 2020 it began selling face masks with designs from its community, with a portion of sales going to the non-profit MedShare. Wikipedia also records a retail store that opened in August 2007 and closed in January 2014 because of a decline in sales.

The community store and design challenges

The main store runs on votes. Wikipedia describes the process: about 1,000 designs are submitted each week and put to a public vote; after seven days staff review the top-scoring designs, and based on the average score and community feedback about 10 designs are picked each week, printed on clothing and other products, and sold worldwide. The same article lists themed design challenges, in which artists can earn an extra cash reward on top of their cut of sales, and forums where designers get feedback on work in progress.

The rewards have changed. Wikipedia says Threadless originally paid a $2,500 prize to the weekly winner. With new terms in 2014 the weekly competition awarded a $250 gift code instead, and artists "retain all rights to their work and receive royalties on each sale." Wikipedia adds that "many artists feel that without the $2,500 prize for winning the weekly design competition, the incentive to use Threadless has decreased." Its summary of the early model says designers whose work was printed received 20% royalties based on net profits, paid monthly, plus cash and merchandise.

Artist Shops

Artist Shops are the part of Threadless that works like a print-on-demand service. Wikipedia says the program started in 2015, letting artists sell shirts printed with any design directly to customers, and that since it rolled out in 2016 there have been over 100,000 Artist Shops. It explains the pricing: Threadless charges a base price for making each item and the artist decides how much to charge above it. The shops are independent of the main store, and a design does not need to win a vote to be sold there.

A blog by ooShirts, a competing printer, describes Artist Shops as free, customizable stores: the artist uploads designs, sets a profit margin above base costs, and Threadless handles printing and customer service, with no upfront investment. Bear Grips, another competitor, groups Threadless with the platforms that give a seller their own storefront or listing page rather than needing an existing store to plug into.

Products and printing

Wikipedia lists the product range as apparel and prints, phone cases, shoes, bags and notebooks. ooShirts' blog gives a fuller catalog: t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts and leggings, accessories such as phone cases and tote bags, and home decor including art prints, canvas wraps, framed pieces, throw blankets, pillows and rugs. It says a single design can be made available across t-shirts, hoodies, phone cases, stickers and home decor at once.

On printing, Wikipedia says most Threadless T-shirts are no longer screen printed, and lists the techniques the company has used: gradients and simulated process, UV color change, oversized printing, puff, belt printing, vinyl, super glow, flock, embroidery, suede, metallic, blister, foil and high density. It dates direct-to-garment printing to Threadless Labs, announced in September 2011.

On production, ooShirts' blog says Threadless runs a distributed manufacturing network with production facilities across multiple countries, so customers receive locally made products.

What sellers report

The competitor articles are frank about the downsides, and they are worth reading as the competitors' views. MyDesigns' blog says that after marketplace discounts an artist's royalty "often ends up in the $1 to $4 range per shirt," that the customer belongs to Threadless, and that discovery gets harder as the catalog grows; it recommends Threadless only as a secondary channel. ooShirts' blog reports complaints about fabric quality and says processing and shipping can take two to five weeks or longer, especially for international orders.

ooShirts also describes Threadless Causes, a collection of designs on social causes, and the main marketplace's trending designs, staff picks and themed collections, which give artists more places to be found.

Who it suits

Threadless suits artists who want a community as well as a shop: people who enjoy entering challenges, getting votes and feedback, and seeing a winning design printed and sold by the company. Artist Shops add a free storefront where the artist sets the markup and Threadless does the printing and customer service, and Wikipedia's note that artists keep the rights to their work means the artist keeps ownership of each design.

It is a weaker fit for a seller building a standalone brand business. The competitor blogs point out that the customer relationship stays with Threadless and that royalties after discounts are modest, so most describe it as one channel among several. For an artist who wants a long-running artist community with a storefront attached, Threadless remains one of the original options.