The other day I was wearing a t-shirt with a company’s name on it. Normally I don’t like it when companies use my torso for their marketing, but this was a relatively unknown company, and I liked their shirt better than the rest of the crap in my closet. In fact, I would have paid, oh, $5 for that shirt.
I’m not alone. If you walk to the park on a warm day, a lot of men are wearing free t-shirts with company names on them. And it’s not because these men can’t afford other shirts. It’s because the company branded shirts are different, and they are comfortable. And the high tech, sometimes unknown names make you feel like you’re on the inside track of something.
This got me thinking about creating a business that sells nothing but company branded t-shirts over the Internet. The shirts would be dirt cheap because the companies would be sponsoring them. The customer’s cost would be something nominal above the shipping costs, and you would buy a minimum of a dozen at a time, with different company names, for maybe $5 per shirt. That’s twelve shirts for maybe $70. You could give away half of them and still be happy with your price.
Corporations wouldn’t need to provide the physical shirts, just the design in digital form. Companies such as Café Press already let you match a design with your choice of shirt.
Would you pay $5 for a shirt with a cool company logo on it?