Where New Products Come From

Have you ever wondered how new products find their way into the Spreadshop range? Here’s the scoop.

Shop Owners often request new products for their Shops or ask why we’ve deactivated a certain product. We’re happy to honor your requests whenever possible— after all, you help us keep the Spreadshop assortment up-to-date and on-trend.

We get lots of questions about new products on the blog and in the forum, so today we’re going to walk you through the process of adding new products to Spreadshop.

Tips, trends, tests

We’re always on the lookout for new products. The project managers from Spreadshirt’s business units and brands meet regularly to discuss which trend-bandwagons we want to jump on. They analyze the gaps in our product portfolio and decide which Shop Owners’ product wishes to grant.

The wish list then sets out on the long journey towards approval. The products on our list face a number of challenges before a new product can be added to Spreadshop.

First stop: The professionals from our Apparel Department take a close look at which suppliers offer our wish-list products. They check the quality, the delivery conditions and which sizes and colors are available. When a product gets the nod, they then order sample products and hand them over to our production team.

Print, wash, dry, repeat

What good is an awesome product if it’s not compatible with our printing techniques or if the durability doesn’t meet our strict requirements?

The next stop in the journey? Product testing. To put each potential product to the test, we print, wash and dry it. Then we do it again. And again. And again.

For each product, we test:

• Every type of print (digital, flex, flock)
• On all printers (different models of Kornit and Brother)
• Every product color

Every product and test print is then meticulously examined: if the fit is affected or the prints are cracked or faded, that’s it – game over! Products that don’t pass our testing process have no chance of being included in our range. If everything looks good, the journey continues.

Measuring, photographing, digitizing

Before you or your customers can design and buy a new product in your Shop, we have to digitize it completely. For our print-on-demand processes, we meticulously measure each product and define the appropriate print areas for each printer model. This ensures that everything goes smoothly throughout the creative and printing processes.

We also photograph the product from every angle and in every color. We then process the images to optimize the photos for presentation on our platforms.

Only at this point has the product actually made it into the assortment. Once it’s online, the new product will be activated for your Spreadshop. It can take up to six months to reach this point.

Storage and sorting

This is just the beginning of the new product’s life in our assortment. Now that it’s officially joined the club, each product has to prove itself. This is because every new product we add to our range takes up some of our valuable warehouse space. As you can imagine, 170+ products, stocked in every size and color, take up a lot of space on our production facilities’ shelves. That’s why for every new product we add to our range, another one usually gets the boot.

Of course, we only say goodbye to products that don’t sell well. But sometimes our suppliers also stop or change production and we have no choice but to take the product out of the range. In either case, it can take up to six months until all articles are sold out.

So, what’s the moral of the story? We are happy to grant your product wishes and add new products to our range. But the journey from the initial idea to the final digital product in your Shop is a long one!

While we’re on the subject: Now that you know how it works, is there a particular product you think would make the cut? Let us know in the comments!