How to Prep Your Artist Shop for Summer

When the seasons change, so should your Artist Shop. That doesn’t mean completely reinventing your brand every three months, but rather making slight tweaks to better fit the upcoming season. It’s a signal to your customers that you have something fresh and new to offer them. As spring winds down, refer to this post for easy tips on how to prep your Artist Shop for summer.

This part of the year is for being outdoors and relishing the warm weather. With those higher temps comes the need for cooler clothing, lively colors, and related accessories!

1. Theme what I mean?

Focus on a theme that relates the season, but get creative with it. Is it simply a beginning-of-summer sort of thing? Or does it live somewhere in the middle or even the end? Does it speak to pool time or an epic road trip? And then, how can these decisions manifest themselves in your Artist Shop? Designs and products, certainly, but think about your shop itself. Consider custom collections, a new banner that ties the theme into all branding aspects, or maybe even a special homepage collection complete with lifestyle imagery.

Cabin Supply Co.
The Cabin Supply Co. does a wonderful job of tying everything together thematically – from its logo, banner image, colors, designs, and photography. What is your shop’s version of this?

2. Get trendy.

The internet is a wonderful place filled with very smart people who share things. So leverage this breadth of knowledge and trends to your advantage! Namely, color trends for summer. You may have a limited palette with which you already work—and that’s perfect—but if you’re looking to spread your wings a bit, you can reference these lovely swatches both in terms of the color of products you offer AND the designs you create. OR do you have a unique take on a color palette for summer thanks to your aesthetic choices? Let’s see what you got!

While these trends show a wide range of options, they may not be quite right for your shop. How can you tweak them to make them your own, while still leaning into these trends a bit? See more color trends on Pantone’s site.

3. Put the PRO in promotion.

Short version: plan ahead AND for the entirety of summer. How often will you add new designs? How often will you promote these designs as well as your existing ones? Jot down your daily and weekly schedule. Stick to your posting frequency while switching up your promotional imagery and copy.

Can you post once a day? If you’re slammed, try for every couple of days at least. Save yourself time by reading this article for tips on mapping out a timeline for a 5-day promo. Ensure your posts feature a mix of promotional material and normal content showcasing your art.

When creating your posts, focus on why your followers follow you. Play the empathy game and consider what THEY’D like to see and what will best resonate during warmer months. How can you change up your lifestyle photography to reflect those summer vibes? Answer these questions and start forming a promo plan that not only works for you, but works for your art AND your customers.

Download our helpful infographic on how to plan a 5-day promotion.

4. Come sale away.

Whether you run sales on your own or have Threadless do it for you, discounts work wonders for your shop. While planning around holidays such as the Fourth of July, think about offering free shipping, a sitewide sale, or perhaps a discount on specific summer essentials, such as tank tops and beach towels.

If you’re opted into Managed Pricing, we’ll automatically run promotions in your shop for you to align with the bigger sale initiatives Threadless has going on. That means you don’t have to worry about manually raising and lowering your prices when promotions start and end. Just keep an eye out for alerts in your Artist Dashboard about upcoming sales in your shop.

5. Limited time only!

How can you leverage your Artist Shop to create something that’s limited? While there isn’t a way for you to limit the product inventory yourself, you can limit the amount of time a particular design is available and what products that design is on.

Do you have a new design that’s perfect for summer and would look great on a lightweight tee or tank? Offer it up as part of your Summer Sale, but only make it available for a week, a month, or the season. Note the timeline in your design description and match that same language in any promotions you do. This will help create a sense of urgency.

Archie Comics
Archie Comics has frequent limited time sales on unique designs, and it’s worked incredibly well for them – both for that specific designs, not to mention add-on sales.

There’s no one right way to make summer in your Artist Shop memorable and profitable, but we hope these quick tips will make it at least a little easier for you. The important takeaway is to entice and delight your fans with art and products that are truly yours. Make sure that all of your promotional messaging and your shop itself are cohesive and representative of YOUR version of summer.

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