Ask HN: Entering a saturated market full of low quality competition?

[symptic]

I'm involved with a new startup company (http://anticlothes.com) and one of the main goals of the company is to take on the huge leaders in the field already, who the founder feels deliver almost insultingly low-quality products: Snorg Tees and BustedTees.

Our products are already receiving favorable reviews and compliments, most notably on the style and feel the brand has, and we only print our shirts on American Apparel shirts (regarded as the most comfortable tees you'll ever get your hands on).

My question is: What do you think about joining a particular industry where the competition is HUGE, but you feel it is sloppy and poorly run? Is there a chance, or is it a sort of situation where the odds are just too unfavorable?

[unalone]

How is Busted Tees low-quality? It churns out constantly-amusing shirts that manage to hit every trend that youth cares about. And they do a pretty good job at it, too.

They print on American Apparel, so you're basically the exact same there.

And you have competition from sites like Threadless, Veer, TurnNocturnal (my personal favorite), so I would find it a bit insulting that you think your designs are better than those of the other companies. One of your shirts rips off a 4chan meme: hardly original. Some of yours look nice, but if I saw them in Busted I wouldn't think they were particularly better than the ones already in the store.

In short: if you've got a truly new product, you've got a chance. But - all due respect - it doesn't look like you do.

[mrtron]

I began writing this and its easier in pseduocode

  if you know how they are executing poorly
   if you know how to execute better
     you could kick ass
   else how are you not going to end up doing the same?
  else are you just being cynical?

[maxklein]

There is a chance, and you know what - there is a market! A huge market that just keeps growing! So why would it fail?

Let me give you an example: There are restaurants everywhere. EVERYWHERE! So is the restaurant business saturated? No, it's just mature. Some come, some go. It's all a matter of financing and marketing. People need to eat, people need to buy t-shirts.

So if you are well capitalized, there is no reason why you cannot capture a significant share of the market. If you have no capital at all, you will fail.

Pick your competitive advantage (slightly cheaper T-Shirts, more mainstream stuff, etc), then create your business based off advertisments. Think of ways to innovate and improve, and there is no reason why you should fail. The market is there, it's certainly not a winner-take-all business.

[cookiecaper]

This is good advice. A big mistake a lot of people make is believing that they have to contribute something groundbreaking to be successful. That always helps, but even if your product represents a revolution in your field, there's no guarantee that you'll do well; it all comes down to marketing, in reality.

If your shirts and practices are at least on par with the competition and you can provide designs that people like, there's plenty of room and no reason you can't do well with an enterprise like this. Good luck.

[abijlani]

I don't really see how you stand out from the rest. That said, a t-shirt company in today's environment doesn't seem all that groundbreaking. What Threadless did was something groundbreaking other than that I have just seen your run of the mill t-shirts.

[halo]

Being very successful in a saturated market is definitely possible, especially if you have a product that's much superior to your competitors. However, I don't believe that you do, especially as fashion is quite subjective and you'll struggle to have an empirically better product.

The t-shirt space is very crowded - it sometimes feels like everyone in the world now owns a t-shirt company - so there really is a hell of a lot of competition.

I don't see how your company differentiates itself from the others and its branding, something I perceive as quite important in the fashion industry, seems quite weak, despite the quite catchy name, especially when you're competing with bigger long-established names in the area that advertise heavily.

You'll likely be a modest success, but your designs are, in my view, largely quite forgettable. I think the high-quality arty designer t-shirt angle is a better, more profitable, higher-margin long-term direction than the more passé low-end "cartoony" or "humour t-shirt" market that you're focusing on since they both utterly sewn up by big names, overly saturated and a completely cliché. I do quite like the zombie t-shirt though.

[tstegart]

Busted prints only on American Apparel, and Snorg prints some on American Apparel, so how is the quality different?

Your question is somewhat rhetorical, since entrepreneurs usually are the ones who take on industries that are sloppy, poorly run and delivering inferior products. So yes, its been done before. You just have to figure out where all the unsatisfied customers are, or where the cost savings are, or how to run things better.

[lacker]

There's plenty of opportunity there, but I think you're asking the wrong question. I'm concerned that you don't really understand your customers well enough. It's not obvious to me how Snorg Tees and BustedTees are "insultingly low-quality", and I am part of your target market since I buy the occasional t-shirt on Threadless.

Personally, I don't care that much about the feel of a t-shirt with a joke on it. I care if the joke is funny. In fact, I never even try on t-shirts before buying them, so the feel of the t-shirt really doesn't matter. I suspect a lot of your target market agrees with me.

So, are you sure that your competition is poorly run? Or do they actually understand better what their customers care about.

[vaksel]

You need some sort of gimmick to stand out from the rest of the competition. And no design itself won't work.

As an example of a gimmick look at http://200nipples.com (the founder posts on here). His approach will get him the necessary exposure and get people talking about it, and once he gains traction he can put up more designs and expand it.

[evgen]

The real question you should be asking yourself is this: how hard will it be for the competition to change direction or spin-off a new line to solve the same problems we have identified but which can leverage their existing market presence?

If it is easy for your competition to copy any successful niche you identify then you are probably in trouble. This is not to say that the venture is doomed, because there are lots of good examples out there of entrepreneurs who have followed this route (e.g identify problem in market, introduce solution, profit) but unless you can build your brand identity quickly or tie your competition's brands to the problems you are solving then you may have trouble.

Seriously, how hard would it be for either of the big players to offer a new line from a different shirt supplier? Given their existing market presence they might even be able to convince people to pay a larger markup on the upsale to the quality goods than you can get by only offering the good stuff.

[wheels]

Some questions to think about:

- Are the customers genuinely frustrated with the low quality of the products currently on the market? How do you know? How can you convince them you're better?

- Will you create new markets? If not, can you differentiate yourself enough that you're not competing purely on costs? Can you beat your competitors on costs? How long can you sustain that? (i.e. as your costs rise can you stay competitive)

The typical books here are:

http://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Strategy-Techniques-Indust...

...about competing in markets, and...

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Uncontested-Compet...

...on creating new markets. (At this point I've only read the latter. The other one is on my queue. :-) )

[petercooper]

we only print our shirts on American Apparel shirts (regarded as the most comfortable tees you'll ever get your hands on).

Really? I thought they were so common just because they were giving printers a good deal or something - they feel average. They're certainly not up to the feel of, say, bamboo t-shirts.

[jaydub]

See search circa 1997

[aneesh]

Or budget web-hosting today.

[thorax]

These companies are heavily advertised, too. (At least I know their names, and besides Threadless, I don't know many clothing companies.)

I think it might be difficult to beat them without coming up with a way to get your brand out there better than they do.

Another key thought: I worry that a lot of the t-shirt market isn't really about quality, but about the type of cleverness appreciated by the demographic that likes T-shirts. The risk is that it's a little like selling "high quality bumper stickers"-- people might not be looking for quality there.

[corentin]

> The risk is that it's a little like selling "high quality bumper stickers"-- people might not be looking for quality there.

Unless you're selling to a niche (e.g. surfers, skateboarders, etc. and more generally people who want to put stickers on their non-flat gear without having friggin bubbles, faded colors due to UV, stickers that peel due to water/salt and so on).

[comatose_kid]

I'd focus my energy on making a deal with a large bricks and mortar retailer for the top n shirts, possibly as a loss-leader just to advertise my site (on the clothing tag) to drive traffic there. Basically something different than what your competitors are doing (focusing on design and t-shirt quality).

[timcederman]

What, like Google did?

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/09/googles_first_s...

[acro]

Three basic competitive strategies: cost, differentiation, focus. All these seem identical to your competitors when looking at your site.

[edw519]

2 things: Know Your Market & Find Your Niche.

My guess is that you haven't done either yet.

The apparel industry in incredibly brutal and very often without logic. (Comfort is probably not enough of a competitive advantage in this marketplace.)

You look like you have some cool stuff. Find your place and stay under the radar of the big boys. But don't think you're selling clothes. You're selling something else. You could make a very nice living there.

[tstegart]

I agree, comfort isn't a competitive advantage. Selling the idea of comfort is something you can charge money for though. If you charge $20 more for it, people will feel as if its more comfortable.