Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

There are a lot of people who are looking to make money online, but there are so many money making scams out there. As a result, you may be pretty skeptical of any popular “side-hustle” ideas floating around the internet. This isn’t a bad thing, as being skeptical can save you from wasting time and money. This skepticism is especially strong when there is a claim of what initially appears to be too good to be true, such as no upfront costs needed to begin the business. Teespring is one of these companies that almost seems too good to be true.

Is Teespring Legit?

The first question is whether or not Teespring is legit. The company has been around for a few years now, and has even produced a number of millionaires according to Forbes. In order to ascertain if Teespring is legit, it’s important to understand how they make money.

How Teespring Works

Teespring seems rather ingenious by making it a win-win situation for all. Instead of creating a design, paying a T-Shirt company to create the T-Shirts and then hoping you can sell all of them to make a profit, Teespring has you create a T-Shirt and set a goal of how many T-Shirts you will sell. The more you think you will sell, the more money you’ll make if you reach the goal. If you don’t reach the stated goal, then the T-Shirts are never produced and no money ever changes hands.

This is how Teespring is able to not charge an upfront fee. If you don’t hit the stated sales goal, they don’t have to produce the shirts. If you do reach the stated sales goal, a profit for you and the company have already been factored in. So, they produce the shirts, and are guaranteed a profit.

Is Teespring Safe?

There is little initial financial risk to using Teespring, so the company is pretty safe. Since you don’t need to give any upfront money when using Teespring, you aren’t risking losing your hard-earned cash. The real investment is your time. If you create campaigns that don’t reach their sales goals, you don’t earn anything. With that said, there are some unique problems with Teespring that you may consider “unsafe”.

Quality Issues With Teespring

Many content creators, businesses, and independent users lean on Teespring to make shirts. While only having 3.5 stars on Trustpilot, most negative reviews seem to be website-quality-related, or complaints about the time it takes to receive materials. While these issues can be worrisome, it doesn’t exactly implicate Teespring as a “scam”. It does, however, suggest you may want to shop around and see if there are other companies that can meet your needs.

In addition to their mediocre Trustpilot score, Teespring currently isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau. In fact, the BBB reports similar findings to Trustpilot, in that Teespring receives a high volume of customer complaints. The BB notes two primary issues of note: Customers finding it difficult to remove personalized artwork from the site, and the same late delivery problems found on Trustpilot reviews.

Qualitative Risks of Using Teespring

As mentioned above, there are a couple of risks involved with using Teespring. They don’t make it a “scam”, but they are definitively noteworthy. The most widely reported risk is blown deadlines. It seems pretty well-covered that Teespring struggles to get materials out on time for a significant subset of their customers. So, if you need your materials to make it to you on-time, you will probably want to explore other options.

Another risk reported by the BBB is the possibility of not being able to remove your art from the website. If you are a design-based business, your intellectual property is invaluable. As a result, you may need to think twice about using a company that may not surrender it when you ask. AS the BBB states, it is vital to examine the Terms of Service before you make your purchase to ensure your IP is protected.

Monetary Risks of Using Teespring

Other notable risks are costs you may incur when creating and trying to sell the T-shirts. If you pay someone to design a logo or other image (you don’t have to, you can do this on your own), you may lose these costs if you don’t ultimately sell the T-shirts you have set as a goal. The same can be true if you spend money to try and promote the T-shirts. This money is gone and you don’t get anything for your investment in the advertising if you don’t reach the T-shirt sales goal.

You also have a slight risk with the number of T-shirts you think you can sell. The higher you set your goal, the more you will make for each shirt sold. The problem is, if you don’t reach the goal, you get nothing. For example, if you set a goal of 50 shirts and sell only 49, the shirts are never produced and you get nothing. If, however, your set the goal at 10 T-shirts and sell 49, you would get paid a commission for all the sales since you met the goal. Although, that commission would be less than if you had said you could sell 40 T-shirts. Attempting to accurately estimate how many T-shirts you can sell without overestimating is vital.

Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

Teespring is not a scam, it is a legit business. Although, this doesn’t mean it is the best business for you. There are some risks, so it’s important to understand how the company works so you know what you’re getting into, but it’s a legit opportunity to make money without having to pay any upfront costs. If you think you are creative enough to come up with some T-shirt designs which you could sell to others, you may want to check out Teespring as a possible way to make some extra money in your spare time. Just make sure to explore all available options before pulling the trigger.

For how to make a success of selling this business as well as other side businesses check out these articles.

Building Facebook Pages for T-Shirts Sales
How to Mix Investing and Small-Business Ownership
Side Jobs to Grow Your Bank Account

(Image courtesy of Teespring)

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