One of the most common questions we receive from Threadless artists is, “How do I get my designs in the Threadless Marketplace?” A significant step in this journey—and often the game-changer—is the design scoring process. This is where the greater Threadless community weighs in, helping to determine which designs have the potential to thrive.
Understanding this process is key, as high scores can significantly boost your design’s chances of grabbing the Threadless team’s attention and ultimately earning a feature. Follow along as we map out the critical steps in a design’s journey from the initial Artist Shops upload to shining in our marketplace.
First Thing’s First—Opting into the Marketplace
Before anything else, you need to set the stage for your designs to be eligible. This action happens in your Artist Shop’s settings. Here, enable the option labeled “Allow my shop’s products to be considered in the Threadless Marketplace.”
While this is a necessary step, it’s just the beginning. Inclusion is not automatic; it’s based on a mixture of factors such as design quality, sales data from your Artist Shop, product tagging accuracy, and search relevance. These elements help ensure that only the most suitable designs make it through to the next phase.
Submitting Your Art for Consideration
After opting in, submit your designs for consideration either through the general Threadless Design Challenge or our rotating themed challenges. Each of these challenges offers a unique pathway to highlight your work and opportunities for you to win additional rewards, like cash, gift cards, and more.
When submitting designs, consider current trends and how you can interpret the challenge’s theme with your signature aesthetic. Detailed, vibrant, and original designs tend to stand out, attracting more attention and potentially higher scores in the community scoring process.
Design Scoring: Your Time to Shine
Design scoring is where the Threadless community’s power truly shines. Anyone from artists to casual browsers can score designs, influencing which ones rise to the top. Each score reflects the community’s interest and the design’s potential market appeal.
Though not the only metric for selection, high scores increase your design’s visibility to the Threadless team and contribute to its credibility and desirability in the marketplace. Engaging actively in this community, both by scoring other designs and promoting your own, is crucial. It’s a vibrant exchange that fuels the selection process.
Review and Selection by the Threadless Team
Once the community has voiced its opinions, the Threadless team steps in to review the top-scored designs. This review process involves assessing each design’s creativity, quality, uniqueness, and its fit within the current market trends and customer preferences. Only the designs that meet our high standards and resonate with our audience make it through. This final curation ensures that every design added to the marketplace is poised for success.
Success! Earning a Feature in the Marketplace
If your design is selected, it will be featured in the Threadless Marketplace and become available to a vast audience of art enthusiasts and shoppers. Furthermore, featured designs often make it into Threadless’s marketing channels, including emails and social media posts, significantly boosting their visibility. Getting featured is not just a milestone but also a potential launchpad for your design to become a top seller or a customer favorite.
BONUS TIPS: Increasing Your Opportunities
The more designs you submit to challenges and publish in your Artist Shop, the more opportunities you create for the community to notice and score your work. Here are some best practices we’ve seen make a difference in marketplace performance.
Maximize Your Submissions
- Frequent Participation: Regularly engage in Threadless’s general and themed challenges. Each submission is a new opportunity for exposure and feedback. Please note, this doesn’t mean simply flooding the platform with your designs. Frequent participation is only good when you’re sharing quality content. Make sure each design you upload fits the theme and is the best showcase of your work.
- Diverse Portfolio: Show the breadth of your creativity by uploading a diverse range of designs. This not only captures a wider audience but also showcases your versatility as an artist.
Keep Your Art in the Public Eye
- Consistent Publishing: Regularly update your Artist Shop with new designs. This keeps your shop fresh and engaging for repeat visitors and increases the likelihood that shoppers will score your designs.
- Engage with the Community: The more familiar the Threadless community is with your work, the more likely they are to support it through scoring. Interact on social media, comment on other designs, and share your design process to build a following.
- Share Widely: In addition to promoting on social media, don’t hesitate to share your designs with friends and family. Encourage them to visit Threadless and score your designs. Their engagement can significantly boost your visibility and scoring, helping your work stand out to the Threadless team.
Leverage Feedback
- Use Scoring Insights: Pay attention to the feedback and scoring trends from the community. This information is invaluable for understanding what resonates with your audience, allowing you to tailor future designs to better meet market tastes.
The journey your designs take to become a featured design in the Threadless Marketplace involves several key stages, with design scoring playing a pivotal role. By engaging with this process and leveraging the power of the community, you can significantly enhance the chances of your designs making it into the marketplace. Remember to check your shop settings, submit your best designs, actively participate in the scoring process, and encourage the community to support your work. Your next design could become the next big hit!
Additional Resources
- Get Your Incredible Art Featured on Threadless!
- Trends, Tags, and Driving Sales in Your Shop
- The Secret to Winning Over Retail Partners
- 25 reasons why Artist Shops by Threadless is better for artists than marketplaces like Redbubble
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