Selling and Shipping T-Shirts with TypeScript

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about selling and shipping t-shirts, and how to do it all in TypeScript!

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Show Notes

01:58 - T-Shirts 101

• T-Shirts are cool
• I sold 100 right away to get the kinks out
• Then I did pre-order
• The stack
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Next.js

09:08 - Selling: Front-end

• Snipcart
• It’s a button
• When Someone buys, they scrape the site for the HTML
  • If you only have a client-side rendered button, you use the JSON API instead
• Integrated into Gatsby pretty easily
• Wrote one custom hook to count inventory and disable when sold out
• I thought Snipcart would be enough, but I soon realized it wasn’t. I needed something to fulfill the shipment.

10:10 - Selling: Shipping Quotes

• Snipcart has integration for USPS, etc.
• You can also do custom shippers
• It’s a webhook
• They also take care of customs declaration

13:30 - Selling: Backend

• Next.js Dashboard
  • Integrate with ChitChats, Stallion Express, and SnipCart.
• The tech
• Shipping Labels
  • Packing slip

18:05 - Fulfilling

• Printing labels
  • Designed with CSS + React
  • Print CSS is wild
  • Fan Fold labels were way better
  • I switched to Stallion Express
  • Cheaper
• Printing packing slips
• Batch scanning
• Scanning → Mark as shipped
  • Started with webcam
  • Bought scanner for cheap
  • QR code was better because my tokens were long
  • Data matrix is often better
• Sending notifications
  • Hit the endpoint via Snipcart

28:48 - The physical part

• T-Shirts printed from local supplier
  • U-Haul to get them here
• Bags printed in China (about 40 cents each)
• I wrote a bunch of code to organize by size
  • This cut down on moving around (14 hours if you save 30 seconds per shirt)
• Some got stickers
• Multiples were the hardest
  • 24 different types of shirts
    • some wanted 4xl
    • some wanted tall

36:30 - Common questions

• Why did you do this yourself?
  • Fun project
  • I learned a ton
  • This is how you don’t burn out
• Why not print-on-demand? (DTG)
  • Tonal
  • Embroidery
  • Quality
  • Money
    • Pay people in my community
• Control
  • Bags, stickers, etc…
  • stickermule
• Why not $companyThatHandlesIt
  • I want to do stickers
  • I want to do decks
• Why not Shopify
  • Large orders still need major fulfillment strategies
  • Code has to be written or money spent

44:16 - Other lessons learned

• Queues would be good here
  • Sometimes you had to wait 3+ seconds for the confirmation of shipping
• No one reads, it was pre-order
• Don’t buy shipping right away — people email about incorrect addresses
• Over-order by a few each (out of 1550 orders, five got partial refunds and three got full refunds)
• Pre-order is great because you can offer many sizes
• Async JS to do things at most 50 at a time

Links

• Wyze Plug

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

• Scott: Pixeleyes AutoMounter
• Wes: Baratza Encore Conical Burr Coffee Grinder

Shameless Plugs

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