THREADLESS CASE STUDY.

"MAKING GREAT TOGETHER"

Threadless(stylized as threadless) is an online community of artists and an e-commerce website based in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 2000 by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart.Threadless designs are created and chosen 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. 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 the northside of Chicago in 2007. Designers whose work is printed receive no cash, but 20% royalties based on net profits paid every month, 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.

Jake Nickell Founder Threadless - Business Insider

Jake Nickell Jacob DeHart

1. Is threadless a success or failure?

= According to me, threadless is a success as a company because it allows the designer to show his skills on an online platform, and the selected designs are brought up with the help of the voting system. Designers whose work is printed receive no cash, but they receive 20% royalties based on net profits monthly and $250 in threadless gift cards, which can be exchanged for $200 cash. This way both the company as well as it’s users(designers) make money, it’s a win-win situation for all.
Another reason for its success is that it’s been successfully functioning over the past two decades( I.e. 20 years). The company has over 20,00,000 registered users on its website. It has one of the largest designer-user community, thanks to it’s crowdsourcing strategy.

2. How does today’s digital world impact (both positively and negatively) Threadless’ co-creation strategy?

= POSITIVE

i) Since threadless is an online platform, it’s users require the internet. As of April 2020, 4.57 billion people were active users of the internet. Thus threadless’ reach has become huge as more and more people are active users of the internet. ii) A lot of tools can help a user to design for free on the internet. So basically with a low setup cost, one can earn money with the help of their designs. Most importantly, you can do this at your convenience.

iii) As more and more users join social media platforms, it has become easier to market one’s design and with word of mouth marketing strategy, companies based on co-creation strategy such as threadless bring up a positive environment.

NEGATIVE

i) With an increase in users of the internet, a business model such as threadless can be easily replicable. With this, the competition increases significantly.

ii) With more platforms emerging, existing users of threadless tend to shift to another platform to obtain better opportunities thus reducing the number of users on threadless.

iii) Larger and more successful companies like Amazon have entered the market and users tend to join a bigger platform for a better reach.

3. How could threadless improve its co-creation strategy? What tactics or tools could they use to enhance their success?

= As a company, threadless can improve themselves in certain areas. These are some of the tactics and tools which can be used:-

Ask the customer using a poll to what theme they want and then the designers can bring up innovative designs to satisfy customer’s needs.
As of now, threadless provides 20% royalty and $250 gift card to it’s selected designers. They can increase the royalty by which their designers will stay loyal to the company.
As a clothing company, threadless must work on improving their fabric quality thus providing good quality of products to its customers.
Start an offline campaign to promote its designers as well as their designs to generate more customers.