One thing that will be detrimental more than beneficial is selling designs that are both for and against something.

No matter what type of design you sell, try to keep your store on one side of the proverbial fence. For example, if you have a site that is dedicated to designs about hang gliding, it would certainly turn off people who like hang gliding to see the equivalent of “hang gliding sucks” designs mixed in.

Sure, you might think that you are going to get more business by selling “pro” and “anti” this or that designs in the same store but one of the things that is going to help drive your business is if people can relate to you, your shop and your mission (which is to promote your passion and yes, make a little money too!). If you seem uncertain about which side of the fence you sit about any issue from a love to a sport to politics you will lose the hard core enthusiast who is most likely to spend and spend big by insulting them.

This is not a cut and dry rule, but it will be true far more often than not.

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J.J. Jackson is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. and Cafepress “Top Shopkeeper”. He has been selling t-shirts on-line since 2004 and is the owner of the T-Shirt Entrepreneur, a site dedicated to helping people get involved in the T-shirt Economy. He is also the owner of Funny When Wet T-shirts, American Infidel Tshirts, Uber Gamer T-shirts as well as many other online t-shirt and gift stores.