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Start-ups that sell T-shirts are a dime a dozen, but a tool to let you search across all of the stores has been nonexistent. Enter PleaseDressMe, a simple search engine that lets you hunt for specialty T-shirts from several vendors at once using some simple filters.

Included are big-name online T-shirt stores like Threadless, BustedTees and TShirtHell. More will continue to be added, but for the time being the selection is far greater than any of those stores alone.

You can find the shirt you’re looking for by keyword, tag, the color or price. You can also see shirts that the engine thinks are related. In my testing of this it tended to do a pretty good job, mostly basing the decision on color, although in one case it managed to pull together several shirts featuring boats or water from a T-shirt of Noah’s Ark. That was impressive.

All links on the site lead to the online store where you can buy the shirt. Missing from the engine is some of the local color you’ll find on those sites, like their user ratings, reviews, and photos of the shirt on actual people. Presumably the site plans to make its money off of affiliate linkage and sponsored results which are not yet a part of the picture.

PleaseDressMe is the creation of Wine Library TV’s Gary Vaynerchuk and his younger brother AJ, as well as Joe Stump, Digg.com’s lead architect.

Related: Web Shirts: 20 rad T-shirt sites

PleaseDressMe lets you search for T-shirts by tags, colors, price tag and keyword. It also shows you shirts that are related to the results.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Read more:
PleaseDressMe is Google for T-shirts

It’s no secret I’m a fan of Web T-shirt shops. This time last year I rounded up 20 different online shops that specialize in selling the cotton wonders, but few of those were as interesting as Cameesa.

Like many online T-shirt operations, everything on Cameesa is designed by freelancers who submit their stuff with the hopes of making a buck and getting some recognition. These designs (once approved by human editors) go into a pool where shoppers can pick out a shirt they want; the only catch is that they’ve got to invest in it so Cameesa can scrap together enough money to get it printed.

Designs have 31 days to get funded, and any investors who fund a failing design get their money back. If a design is completely funded, the 20 benefactors get the first run of the shirt and a small cut of future sales. The designer gets $500 and a free print of his or her shirt. From then on, anyone who comes by Cameesa can freely purchase that shirt like they would any other shop–seeding the dividends to the initial investors.

The shop currently has three shirts that have gotten over the funding hump. Meanwhile, the upcoming pool is filled with a handful of really good-looking designs that can be sorted by date or what needs the most funding. Because of the slim selection I’ll still likely stick to places like Neighborhoodies which pumps out 200 new designs every month, and Shirt.Woot.com which has a new shirt every day for $10 shipped. Neither of those have nearly as cool of a business opportunity for the buyers, though.

Artists and shirt investors can make a buck or two off a hot design with Cameesa, a crowd-funded online T-shirt shop.

(Credit: Cameesa)

Here is the original:
Cameesa: A Threadless where customers are also investors

Cafepress and Zazzle got you down when it comes to creating an online shop? Check out Pikistore: half site builder, half store front for apparel that sports whatever logo or design you slap on it. Believe it or not, it’s from the same folks who did Comeeko, the zany comic strip builder our very own Caroline McCarthy called “the best Web 2.0 site in the history of the universe.”

Pikistore’s angle for getting you to ditch the competition is that the online store you create exists as its own destination, and not a part of some network of other stores. Unlike Etsy, which does something similar, but focuses on the network of other sellers as part of the advantage, Pikistore is all about letting you create a standalone site that can be populated with your products, then giving you a way to make it a part of your existing blog or Web site.

Make your own custom clothing to sell to others with Pikistore.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like other online store makers you can take a single design and populate it onto a multitude of products without any sort of repetitive reproduction on your part. You can set mark-ups, and pick which items you want to let people buy, from mouse pads to kitchen aprons

It’s also got some pretty slick looking themes you can simply click to re-skin the look and feel of your site entirely. Users of WordPress, or any other Web based blogging platforms will be familiar with this, and advanced users who want to make the store simply match with their own sites can drop in the CSS and whatever graphics, logos, or backgrounds they’re using. It also allows for free domain transfer, which means you can link it up to your site’s .com address without having to sign up for a premium plan–something we’ve rarely seen in a free service.

As for the end result, most shirts cost around what they do on other services. Like competing customized apparel stores you don’t need to buy an entire box of shirts, you and your buyers can simply get them printed one at a time. What makes the service especially cool is that you can track some of these purchasing statistics, including where your traffic is coming from, and what OS and browser your users are on. These are the things typically found in analytics services like Google’s, and very helpful for helping to target your audience.

I’m interested to see what the final product looks like, something that can only be accomplished with a purchase. My one qualm is that the editing interface might be a little complicated to novice users who aren’t comfortable going outside the general boundaries of the theme builder. Intermediate to advanced users, however will find the high level of customization to be refreshing.

In case you’re wondering what it’s like to actually create a Pikistore, I’ve embedded an example video below (try not to get nauseous):

Related: Web Shirts: 20 rad T-shirt sites

View original here:
Pikistore offers up purdy lookin’ DIY T-shirt stores

CafePress and Zazzle got you down when it comes to creating an online shop? Check out Pikistore: half site builder, half storefront for apparel that sports whatever logo or design you slap on it. Believe it or not, it’s from the same folks who did Comeeko, the zany comic strip builder our very own Caroline McCarthy called “the best Web 2.0 site in the history of the universe.”

Pikistore’s angle for getting you to ditch the competition is that the online store you create exists as its own destination, and not a part of some network of other stores. Unlike Etsy, which does something similar, but focuses on the network of other sellers as part of the advantage, Pikistore is all about letting you create a standalone site that can be populated with your products, then giving you a way to make it a part of your existing blog or Web site.

Make your own custom clothing to sell to others with Pikistore.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like other online store makers, you can take a single design and populate it onto a multitude of products without any sort of repetitive reproduction on your part. You can set markups and pick which items you want to let people buy, from mouse pads to kitchen aprons

It’s also got some pretty slick-looking themes you can simply click to reskin the look and feel of your site entirely. Users of WordPress, or any other Web-based blogging platforms, will be familiar with this, and advanced users who want to make the store simply match with their own sites can drop in the CSS and whatever graphics, logos, or backgrounds they’re using. It also allows for free domain transfer, which means you can link it up to your site’s .com address without having to sign up for a premium plan–something we’ve rarely seen in a free service.

As for the end result, most shirts cost around what they do on other services. Like competing customized apparel stores, you don’t need to buy an entire box of shirts; you and your buyers can simply get them printed one at a time. What makes the service especially cool is that you can track some of these purchasing statistics, including where your traffic is coming from, and what operating system and browser your users are on. These are the things typically found in analytics services like Google’s, and very helpful for helping to target your audience.

I’m interested to see what the final product looks like, something that can only be accomplished with a purchase. My one qualm is that the editing interface might be a bit complicated to novice users who aren’t comfortable going outside the general boundaries of the theme builder. Intermediate to advanced users, however, will find the high level of customization refreshing.

In case you’re wondering what it’s like to actually create a Pikistore, I’ve embedded an example video below (try not to get nauseous):

Related: Web Shirts: 20 rad T-shirt sites

More here:
Pikistore offers up purdy-lookin’ DIY T-shirt stores

CafePress and Zazzle got you down when it comes to creating an online shop? Check out Pikistore: half site builder, half storefront for apparel that sports whatever logo or design you slap on it. Believe it or not, it’s from the same folks who did Comeeko, the zany comic strip builder our very own Caroline McCarthy called “the best Web 2.0 site in the history of the universe.”

Pikistore’s angle for getting you to ditch the competition is that the online store you create exists as its own destination, and not a part of some network of other stores. Unlike Etsy, which does something similar, but focuses on the network of other sellers as part of the advantage, Pikistore is all about letting you create a standalone site that can be populated with your products, then giving you a way to make it a part of your existing blog or Web site.

Make your own custom clothing to sell to others with Pikistore.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like other online store makers, you can take a single design and populate it onto a multitude of products without any sort of repetitive reproduction on your part. You can set markups and pick which items you want to let people buy, from mouse pads to kitchen aprons

It’s also got some pretty slick-looking themes you can simply click to reskin the look and feel of your site entirely. Users of WordPress, or any other Web-based blogging platforms, will be familiar with this, and advanced users who want to make the store simply match with their own sites can drop in the CSS and whatever graphics, logos, or backgrounds they’re using. It also allows for free domain transfer, which means you can link it up to your site’s .com address without having to sign up for a premium plan–something we’ve rarely seen in a free service.

As for the end result, most shirts cost around what they do on other services. Like competing customized apparel stores, you don’t need to buy an entire box of shirts; you and your buyers can simply get them printed one at a time. What makes the service especially cool is that you can track some of these purchasing statistics, including where your traffic is coming from, and what operating system and browser your users are on. These are the things typically found in analytics services like Google’s, and very helpful for helping to target your audience.

I’m interested to see what the final product looks like, something that can only be accomplished with a purchase. My one qualm is that the editing interface might be a bit complicated to novice users who aren’t comfortable going outside the general boundaries of the theme builder. Intermediate to advanced users, however, will find the high level of customization refreshing.

In case you’re wondering what it’s like to actually create a Pikistore, I’ve embedded an example video below (try not to get nauseous):

Related: Web Shirts: 20 rad T-shirt sites

View original here:
Pikistore offers up purty-lookin’ DIY T-shirt stores