The market for law school novelty t-shirts (whaaaat?) is getting more players. I started tortfeasor in the summer of 2003, and since then I’ve seen at least two sites focusing on the law school market. I can’t seem to find the first one, but I just discovered Law School Stuff last night. Even lawschool.com has its own t-shirt (“free” but with $8 shipping).
I’m not impressed with the competition. The designs usually aren’t that good. Law School Stuff is an exception, but their originality comes at a price. They want $22 for a shirt with shipping (compared to tortfeasor’s $15), and I suspect their shirts use heat transfers rather than silk screening (the latter is much better quality, but harder to produce – the reason tortfeasor doesn’t have 20 shirts to choose from). Their shirts can take 3-5 weeks to ship (maybe they are doing screen printing) compared to tortfeasor’s next day shipping. I admit that the selection is better, but it’s one thing to draw up a bunch of shirts – another to actually make them and sell them for a reasonable price. This is the reason I dislike cafepress.
Nevertheless, as I said the other day, I am glad that technology is enabling this kind of start up.