THREADLESS: COMMUNITY TO PLATFORM

1) What do designers do? Why do they show up?

Threadless designs are created by and selected by an online community. Each week,
about 1,000 designs are submitted online and are put to a public vote. After seven days
the staff reviews the top-scoring designs. It is customer friendly Based on the average
score and community feedback, about 10 designs are selected each week, printed on
clothing and other products, and sold worldwide through the online store and at their
retail store in Chicago. Designers whose work is printed receive no cash, but receive 20%
royalties based on net profits paid on a monthly basis, and $250 in Threadless gift cards,
which can be exchanged for $200 cash. Each time a design is reprinted, the respective
artist receives $500 cash.

2) What motivates the company customers? What do they do?

Customers embraced the concept of being concerned within the style, the choice and also
the getting of the product that they had a hand in making. As a result, the Threadless.com
community exploded so much on the far side atiny low cluster of net designers
to many thousands of zealot customers. the concept of getting designers
submit ideas for jersey styles, and so giving customers a take what gets sold , stricken a
nerve. A big, profitable nerve. within the company’s 1st 2 years, the Threadless.com
community proud to over a hundred,000. Since then, it's fully grown to over one million
members. It’s the company’s advanced sense of client engagement that
actually appears to line Threadless with the exception of similar competitors. The
company’s customers, by nature, square measure actively concerned within
the new development method, yet because the method of choosing that T-
shirt styles square measure sent to the printer.
This model of client management incontestable by Threadless reflects the correct of the
individual’sparticipation. And with the ever-emerging quality of social media in today’s
day and age, that right of individual participation is changing into all
the additional necessary and relevant for corporations, particularly once it involves the
subject oflatest development. Through the medium of the
planet Wide internet, it's conjointly progressivelyd additional} easier and easier
 for corporations to include an interactive piece that
might instantly afford more client involvement.

3) What is the company’s role in the community?

 Host competitions that turned T-shirt designing into an engaging sport
a) Threadcakes – Transforming Threadless designs into edible works of art
b) Win20k Challenge – $20,000 to whoever creates the most awesome T-shirt design
c) Minimalism Challenge – A challenge to communicate an idea with as little as
possible
d) Threadwars – A one-on-one themed design competition to see who’s the best

 They built a fun and loyal community where designers can challenge each other to get
better.
a) Platform to create, compete, and share: Having a platform where designers
can have some healthy competition and getting the rest of the world to see and
vote on their designs. This is something artists and designers didn’t really have
before.
b) Healthy competition: Design competitions with prizes encourage designers to
give their all, thus improving the overall quality of all designs. Threadless then
becomes a place where people can go to check out the best in graphic design.
c) Voting rights: Users are given a voice, where they get to have their say in which
designs they prefer.
d) Recognition: Designers get recognition for their works, gain followings, and
winners get paid antheir T-shirts made. Indonesian-based artist Budi Satria
Kwan mentions how his designs are recognized in the US, even though he’s never
been there before.

 Featuring popular artists and Threadless community designers regularly to promote

their work.
Threadless contains a section on their web site referred to as “Artist Shops’.
All designers got to do is produce a store, transfer their styles, and
Threadless can handle theremainder. It acts as associate degree ecommerce platform,
like Shopify, except for styles and T-shirts. But what’s cooler is their “Artist
Spotlight”, wherever Threadless options artists and designers that
people ought to comprehend. a number of them square measure well-liked artists,
like Tim Seeley, the one accountable
 for the design of man and therefore the Masters of the Universe, whereas others are
literally designersfromthe Threadless community!
Those who have a store on Threadless have an opportunity to be featured on
the creator Spotlight,whichis great for obtaining them recognized.

 Partnerships with bigger brands, so designers can reach out to an even wider
audience.
Over the years, Threadless has had numerous partnerships with companies like: Gap,
Dell, Griffin, Unicef, Thermos, Blik, etc. This provides a bigger platform for
creativity and for designers to share their work with the world,
beyond just the Threadless community.

4) Is this exploitation?

All new designs are submitted entirely by the community, which includes hobbyists, but
also many professional graphic designers. The company exploits a large pool of talent
and ideas to get new designs. New designs regularly sell out fast, but are reproduced only
if a large enough number of additional customers commit to purchase a reprint first. This
process of getting the market's exact feedback first before committing any resources in
final product development, manufacturing, and sales has been called "collective customer
commitment". It exploits the commitment of users to screen, evaluate, and score new
designs as a powerful mechanism to reduce flops of new products. By creating an open
line for their customers, manufacturers get access to ideas for new products or even
complete designs. Supporting customers to organize themselves as a group and to express
commitment for a specific design turns market research expenditures into sales. Once
this commitment is explicit, manufacturers can exploit this collective demand and serve
the market very efficiently without the conventional costs of identifying this segment and
the risk of developing and producing a not appealing offering.