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T-shirts with slogans/pictures on them. As far as I can tell, they are bought only by people on vacation, or for a quarter at thrift shops. Many seem designed by people who cant speak English ("leave freely anywhere") nor even Spanish ("sol de marina"), to quote a few that I own.
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How many T-shirts are actually sold at retail for full price, and who would buy them, and why? Billions are internationally sold at thrift shops (like Ropa Americana) where clothing is imported (from USA) unsorted, from bales still on the palled in the street. How much of this is second-hand donated, and how much overstock?
Somebody talk me through the slogan T-shirt market dynamic.
Not sure in your country, but in the U.S. they are sold in just about every store, from Walmart, Target, most department stores and specialty stores, etc. and are bought and worn by many people. I own a few dozen myself and wear them a lot
I do not own a single t shirt that has advertising on it....never will.....I buy my plain Hanes brand t shirts on line for 1/2 of what walmart charges.
Printed tees are a huge business, you've got a lot of questions.
Obviously the misspelled ones were sold cheaply or donated because of the mistake. You'll have to ask the people at Ropa Americana how much they paid for all those bales, how would we know?
Why do people buy them at all? They are sold everywhere. They like the colors, the message, they identify with the slogan. The tee promotes their favorite school, rock band, event or holiday. Some are custom made for groups, teams, work places, giveaways, 5K's, churches, etc. And tees that promote specific organizations (colleges, sports teams, bands, movie characters, companies) usually require approval, licensing and royalties, which significantly bump the price.
Planet Money once did a podcast tracking a T-shirt from a young woman's Bat Mitzvah to the country in Africa where it showed up for sale. Many people who are concerned with alleviating poverty in developing countries say that donated clothing disrupts the local economy instead of helping it.
I have a lifetime supply of T-shirts after a 38-year career and multiple athletic events, blood drives, etc. I'm still entering athletic events and donating blood. Haven't bought one in years. I wear them to the gym every day and use them as rags when they're no longer wearable.
I only wear graphic tees. It's the best way one can express their interests and hobbies. Tees made as recently as the early 2000's are already collectible. I'd pay $100 each for the ones I wore in high school, all a size or two bigger of course.
I assume the OP has a corporate job and must wear clothes that most Americans only want to wear at their own funerals. For the self-employed, its t-shirts about 350 days per year.
Billions are internationally sold at thrift shops (like Ropa Americana) where clothing is imported (from USA) unsorted, from bales still on the palled in the street. How much of this is second-hand donated, and how much overstock?
Your talking about clothes donated to charities, we have metal boxes in parking lots people can donate old clothing to. America is a very wasteful society, I've seen clothes get donated with the store tags on them, never worn once by the people that brought them at full price. The decent stuff gets sold in thrift stores like Goodwill, the crap like t-shirts get packaged up by the shipping container and sent to other parts of the world to be sold pennies on the dollar. This is why you see people from third world counties wearing clothes that have some American company logo stamped on them, they are old clothes worn by American's, some of which may have been originally sold for $10 to $50 new, worn maybe a dozen times before getting donated a couple years later to make room in over stuffed closets and drawers for new clothing.
Nothing you see is overstock, no profit in it, overstock most likely ends up in thrift stores than landfills if it doesn't sell.
New shirts are manufactured in the United States, sold in bulk anywhere from 50 cents to a few dollars depending on type and quality. A silk screen or emberder company will print a image or logo on the shirt. some will be sold at discount retailers like Walmart for $10 to $15, others will go to specialty stores where the image is highly desirable by the buyer and think nothing of paying $30 to $50 for the shirt. They will take it home, put it into a drawer with 20 to 30 other shirts and wear it maybe a dozen times over the course of a year or two, eventually they will grow bored with the shirt, it may get packed into a storage tote, sometimes it gets damage with a stain or tear and goes into the trash, other times it works its way to the bottom of the drawer to be forgotten. Every few years we have a holiday called "Spring Cleaning", were we gather up all the stuff we no longer want and donate it or take it to the dump. After the shirt is shipped over seas, and sold at a road side stand, the shirt many be one of only a few shirts someone poor owns who will wear it every day until it's nothing more than a rag before throwing it away.
Last edited by TechGromit; 05-29-2019 at 01:55 PM..
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