T-Shirt Business Plan Template

T-Shirt Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their t-shirt businesses.

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What is a T-Shirt Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your t-shirt business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes research into the t-shirt industry to support your plans.

Why Do You Need a Business Plan for a T-Shirt Company?

If you’re looking to start a t-shirt business or grow your existing t-shirt business you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your t-shirt business in order to improve your chances of success. Your t-shirt business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

How to Write a T-Shirt Business Plan

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of t-shirt business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup or do you have a t-shirt business that you would like to grow.

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the t-shirt business industry. Discuss the type of t-shirt business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

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Company Overview

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of t-shirt business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types:

• Women’s T-Shirt Business: this type of t-shirt business offers a wider variety of t-shirts styles, such as cap sleeve, thin strap, tanks, etc.
• Men’s T-Shirt Business: this type focuses on men’s/male t-shirts
• Unisex T-Shirt Business: creates neutral t-shirts
• Children’s T-Shirt Business: this type of t-shirt business targets children with design and sizing

In addition to explaining the type of t-shirt business you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the t-shirt business industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards particular designs or themes for t-shirts, it would be helpful to ensure your plan calls for the ability to quickly add or alter inventory.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the t-shirt business.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your t-shirt business plan:

• How big is the t-shirt business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your t-shirt business. You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your t-shirt business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, teens, baby boomers, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of t-shirt business you operate. Clearly baby boomers would want different product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than teens.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most t-shirt businesses primarily serve customers living in their same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other t-shirt businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes other types of shirts and apparel items.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other t-shirt businesses with which you compete. These are other types of t-shirts your target customers purchase.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior t-shirts?
• Will you provide t-shirt options that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a t-shirt business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product: in the product section you should reiterate the type of t-shirt business that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering.

Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the products you offer and their prices.

Place: Place refers to the location of your t-shirt business. Document the location(s) in which customers can purchase from you. Will you have a storefront? A website? Operate kiosks or locations at events? Will you sell through other retailers or websites? Document your distribution strategy here.

Promotions: the final part of your t-shirt business marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Social media marketing
• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Flyers
• Banner ads at local venues

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your t-shirt business such as serving customers, procuring supplies, manufacturing shirts, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 1,000th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new location.

Management Team

To demonstrate your t-shirt business’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in the t-shirt business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in t-shirt businesses and/or successfully running retail and small businesses.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement: an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 100 customers per day or 200? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets: While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $25,000 on building out your t-shirt business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement: Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say an entertainment company approached you with a massive $100,000 branded t-shirt contract, that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now for manufacturing, employee salaries, etc. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During that 180-day period, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a t-shirt business:

• Office location build-out
• Cost of equipment
• Cost of maintaining an adequate t-shirt inventory
• Cost maintaining an adequate amount of supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Appendix

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your store design blueprint or location lease.


Putting together a business plan for your t-shirt business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the t-shirt business, your competition and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful t-shirt business.

How Do I Download a Free T-Shirt Business Plan PDF?

You can download our t-shirt business plan PDF template and use our sample t-shirt business plan to write your own business plan. This is a business plan template you can use in PDF format to sell t-shirts online or in a brick-and-mortar t-shirt store. If you are looking for the quickest and easiest way to complete your business plan, Growthink’s Ultimate T-shirt Business Plan Template has numerous features not available in the free template including its financial projections template which automatically calculates your complete five-year financial projections including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

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