Startup a year later or a successful designer store

Hello everyone, I never wrote on Habrahabr, but I read many interesting posts here. Many people write about startups online services. I will try to tell you about a startup of an online store from scratch. My name is Zakirov Timur. I design, create websites and operate online stores.

This is the story of one successful project that works, develops, thrives and finds new ways to grow just a year after it began its work.

It's about an online gift store - Lab Color , this store was conceived as a designer store of mugs and t-shirts. In just 1 year of work - we expanded our capabilities and methods for production, found new products, mastered new production - many new T-shirts appeared with different methods of application, gifts, the opportunity to make pillows and toys. We are different from any other T-shirt store - we prioritize the design and size of the print on the T-shirt ...
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An example of a photo from a photo shoot at a local career made for image advertising.

Lab Colors - Colorslab

I will try to tell you about the creation of the Lab of Colors from the very beginning.
It all started in late 2008 - early 2009 , I was very interested in designer toys from Gonkoga and studied the market for these toys and sales prospects in Russia, and agreements with some toy suppliers in China were already established. But the high price of such collectible toys and low demand in Russia left these thoughts for the future.
The main idea that I visited then was to really make money on the design, you need to sell it on some kind of carrier in hundreds of pieces).
Then I was interested in applying images on various surfaces. After a week of searching and thinking, the direction was chosen - the production of T-shirts, and at the same time mugs and other suitable goods. At the same time, the necessary equipment for applying special paint on white T-shirts and mugs was ordered in China, the development of the site, its content and search engine optimization were parallel.

The first mugs and t-shirts in the hands of satisfied customers

In the middle of February, after a long customs clearance, a thermal press, mugs, paint and other trifles came from China, a suitable printer was bought in Moscow.
We started working, taking the first orders and filling colorslab with new products with a vengeance.


The first orders were made by friends and rastamans redirected from our other project - bongs.ru , at that moment in design we focused on rastaman prints. Rasta mugs and T-shirts did not let us down - they provided us with many clients during the first time of work. Now we are trying to get away from such a topic, but at that moment it was a big help for a project without clients.
Every month we ordered a search promotion from one of the experienced specialists. It was the search traffic that provided us with targeted sales in the future.

Own cut of T-shirts and film application

In June-July a plotter was purchased and the opportunity appeared to print images on colored T-shirts.
At the same time, another employee was taken to the production department and a T-shirt manufacturer was found in his city.
As a result, we expanded our assortment, capabilities and speed of work - now let's say we can influence the sketch of a T-shirt before sewing it - we lengthened women's T-shirts, wears men's ones and fixed many more minor flaws from the time of making the first T-shirts.

Year 2010 - the future comes

This year we found suppliers of points and added a section of gifts to the site. Recently there was an opportunity to sew pillows and bags with full-color prints - soon we will focus on these accessories and their promotion.
There are still a lot of products that will be available for sale.

Lab colors a year later

For the year of work, some unpleasant things happened - T-shirts ended, paint ended, a thermal press burned, 10% of buyers do not buy out the order with cash on delivery…
We never despair and do not regret - problems can always be present and alienate from any undertaking, but the people who work with you, a good attitude to the project, simple pricing and exclusive design do their job - the business grows and thrives and the problems go away saboi.
I remember there was such a moment that the design of some T-shirts was made by the designer specifically for Yandex search queries - this made it possible to knock out many positions in the top of Yandex by the necessary requests.
We have always done and placed emphasis on search promotion, and not on placing media, banner or link ads on a monthly basis - such promotion saves us money, and therefore is a more effective method of attracting customers. You should not completely abandon the media and banner advertising, but you should prioritize in favor of search engine optimization.

Ready t-shirt or mug = free advertising. About 30% of our clients are former clients or their friends. We follow the rule that satisfied customers will get two more. Viral marketing is the perfect PR, all social networks are built on the principles of viral marketing.


We are often sponsors or manufacturers of branded T-shirts for various events, so at the end of 2009 we became sponsors, and also made about 60 T-shirts for this event.

I do not know how beautiful and a lot of writing. With my post I want to advertise an excellent project and so that such a startup would push everyone to create their own project or help to prioritize the existing business.

colorslab - Welcome to the designer gift shop
colorslab / photos - colorslab photo gallery (while naked without design)