It should be no surprise from our many night excursions that one of the sub-cultures of our company and T-shirts deals with house and electronic music.

I’ll explain the association at another time because, well, I gotta head out. In the meantime here’s an early draft of an upcoming tee based on Fedde Le Grand’s tune Put Your Hands Up For Detroit.

Can anyone guess what movie the character is from?

ps: was hoping to give an update from the previous post but looks like today’s not the day. Appreciate though the people who commented.

The good news is that the site is complete. But all is not rosy. As we test the ordering process, we realise that Paypal’s standard merchant service is not as flexible as I thought it was.

We essentially want Paypal to only take the credit card details, but it seems the system also allows the user to complete the shipping details. We don’t want that as we are collecting that info on our site as we are only shipping to certain countries and have different rates for each.

We are now faced with three options:

1. Go ahead with the current system: in this scenario, we get to launch right away but we’re concerned the payment process might be a bit confusing. If we do go ahead, we’ll have to think of the right blurb to put before sending our customers to the Paypal site.

2. Get a Paypal Pro account: to do so, we have to open a US business banking account. This might take an additional week to complete as long as the US banks allow someone else to act on our behalf.

3. Get a regular internet merchant account: this is what we were ultimately aiming for, but the process is onerous and lengthy (2-3 weeks) especially for a start-up. Fortunately, Business Partner received his Canary Wharf-sized bonus today so I doubt we’ll have any problems passing the credit check. This option also means that we will have time to release our other sets of T-shirts (we’ve got a quite few in the pipeline).

Time to put on our thinking caps.

We’re pricing our T-shirts at $28 (USD), roughly 15 pounds, 23 euros or 3,000 yen. We think it’s a reasonable price for what we’re offering – a slick eye-catching design printed on an American Apparel T-shirt. It’s more expensive than what some better known companies (practically everyone at this point!) like Graniph and Threadless charge, but more affordable than others.

I’m pretty sure we can make more money by pricing it higher, but we just don’t like spending more than $30 for a T-shirt. And we feel that you shouldn’t too. Because once it starts getting expensive, I start worrying about staining or damaging the T-shirt, which then defeats the purpose of wearing it in the first place, that is to wear it carelessly.

The $28 price tag includes sales taxes, but excludes possible charges that are tacked on at customs like duty fees and VAT for international shipments. FYI, I didn’t pay any extra fees for the 3 orders (packages of 2 tees, 4 and 20) that were shipped from our supplier in California to our address in London. In the UK, any package under 18 quid sent from outside the EU is exempt from these fees.

We also didn’t bother with using a psychological pricing approach ($27.99 or $28.99) because we think it’s something that’s silly for us to do and we like to keep things very simple.

This is how we want to run Swiftlabel:

1. Make great T-shirts
I always have a tough time expressing this. When people ask me what I do, the usual follow-up question is what’s so special or unique with the T-shirts. I’ve seen so many unconvinced expression from my explanation since I’ve embarked on this project that I sometimes just tell people I’m looking for work to avoid the issue altogether. I wonder how musicians, DJs, or other artists who are starting out convey their taste or style. I think this will become clearer once you see our forthcoming pipeline of printed cotton.

2. Keep customers and designers happy
The Litmus Test, to us, is when a customer is not happy with his or her order. We’re fickle customers too, so if there’s anything you don’t like with your purchase please tell us. We will make sure the situation is handled swiftly, professionally and properly, and, if possible, that it doesn’t happen again.

But addressing a problem is only part of the equation. We also have to find ways to keep people excited by our products and brand by having a different approach and going that extra mile to do things well. That, to me, will be very fun to do.

As for our wonderful artists that collaborate with us, it’s quite simple. If we pay them fairly, treat them well, and promote their art, we believe they will continue to do outstanding work for us.

3. Preserve the brand
It’s very important that we stay true to the brand. No personal insults or crass humour on our T-shirts, even if they would sell well. No visible logo on the T-shirt (and maybe not even on the inside). It’s the design not the brand that makes it cool. No discounts or coupons (sorry but we prefer to reward people differently) as it would cheapen the brand. If the T-shirts weren’t good enough to sell out then we shouldn’t have printed it in the first place. I’d rather give them away to good clients or to charity. And no selling to retailers unless the price is kept at a reasonable level (no more than $30 in North America, 30 euros in continental Europe or 20 quid in the UK).

If we can do these three things very well, I’m pretty sure we will have a very successful brand, and not a swift one in existence.

I can’t believe the number of headlining DJs that have played in London the past few weeks. Big names that have delighted London clubbers and are also featured on our Vinyl T-shirt include Sebastian Ingrosso (Swedish house mafia fame), Nic Fanciulli (Lucky Heather), and Junior Jack (Stupid Disco and E Samba).

Tonight, Berliner Paul Van Dyk (not on our House T-shirt as he plays trance) will unleash a set worthy of his DJ-of-The-Year honours at Turnmills. Tomorrow, Pete Tong (Essential Mix fame) and David Guetta (Love Don’t Let Me Go and The World Is Mine) headline at the Ministry of Sound, while Wally Lopez, known for his remix of Guetta’s Just A Little More Love, plays at Canvas.

I probably won’t make it to any of these beat-thumping, fist-pumping nights. Yup, Flatmate went back to Deutschland for a week.

The Tee Room will launch its inaugural collection at the London streetwear tradeshow Margin… Lee Jeans has partnered with 3 UK bands (Block Party, Doves, and Kaiser chiefs) and the Whatever It Takes charity to design limited edition jeans and T-shirts (plug from One Week To Live). You can buy them online at Bread & Honey… Split The Atom, an online T-shirt shop and contest, was recently named a Yahoo Finds of the Year winner… LaFraise is looking for an ambassador to develop the UK market (Gumtree or Craigslist?).