OoShirts

ooShirts is an online shirt printing company based in Berkeley, California. The site enables customers to design t-shirts, sweatshirts, and other articles of clothing using ooShirts' online design tools. The company's success has been attributed to its lightweight business model.
Business Model
ooShirts is a lightweight business, meaning that overhead costs are minimized. The entire design and ordering process is done online using automated tools, which eliminates the need for the many artists typically employed at t-shirt printing businesses. ooShirts uses a network of twenty suppliers nationwide to keep both shipping costs and times low. There is also no direct advertising—instead, ooShirts relies on word-of-mouth and referrals based on the company's dedication to their principles of good business. These practices allow ooShirts to charge significantly reduced prices for the same products as equivalent companies while maintaining profits.
History
ooShirts was founded as an offline business in 2006 by Raymond Lei. In the process of ordering t-shirts for his high school tennis team, Lei discovered how expensive the service was for even his team's simple, three-color design (pictured). Dissatisfied with the high prices he encountered, Lei began researching the custom apparel business and found that many companies were marking up prices by more than 50 percent. Lei contacted a printer in China who quoted a significantly better price for the same quality product. Lei then began selling custom shirts to other clubs at his school and word of ooShirts' affordability spread.
As business grew, Lei decided it was time to put his company online. He hired a programmer in India to build a website and ooshirts.com was launched on March 17, 2007. The site's ease of use attracted more customers, so Lei added more tools and options. A U.S. printer noticed the growing popularity of ooShirts and offered to match the Chinese supplier's price. Lei accepted the offer, which cut shipping times from three weeks or more to two weeks or less. The company was also ranked one of "America's Coolest College Start-Ups" by inc.com in 2011. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the company's yearly revenues to be at $720k in June 2010. By the end of 2010, ooShirts' yearly revenues had reached $2.2 million, as reported by inc.com.<ref name="blue" />
The company now has twenty suppliers across the country and six employees.<ref name="crunchbase" />

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