Internal · For discussion
Building the shop.
Three ways we can sell tees and caps in the Netherlands and Europe.
What each one costs, what we control, what we have to set up, and where I think we should start.
Three ways we can sell tees and caps in the Netherlands and Europe.
What each one costs, what we control, what we have to set up, and where I think we should start.
We are not picking a supplier this week. We are picking an operating model. The supplier follows from that.
They differ on cash at risk, on how much of the product we control, and on how much work lands on us.
Legal obligations are the same whatever we choose, so they should not drive the decision. More on that later in the deck.
A partner prints and ships each order as it comes in. No stock, no storage, no cash upfront. We design, they handle the rest.
A supplier makes a batch to our spec and delivers it. We hold the stock and post the orders ourselves. We need somewhere to put it.
Same production, but stock goes to a Dutch fulfilment partner who picks, packs and ships automatically from Shopify.
Gelato prints in the Netherlands. Printful runs from Riga and Barcelona. Both connect straight to Shopify.
A Shopify store. Around €32 a month.
The print partner app. Free.
Artwork files and product photography.
Good for finding out whether people will buy. Not good for building the brand. The product is fine, but it is not ours, and the parcel it arrives in says nothing about Velvet Pages.
GSM is fabric weight. 140 to 180 is standard promotional weight. 220 to 260 is the heavyweight range we would want for a €45 tee.
Our supplier, our blank, our GSM, our labels. The open question is physical: the stock needs a home.
Someone's flat. Free, works up to roughly 50 orders a month, but it means boxes at home.
A small storage unit in Amsterdam. €60 to €150 a month, and we go there to pack.
The supplier holds and ships for us. I need to ask every one of them. Some do this, and it solves the problem outright.
The right way to do a drop, especially if we sell it as a pre order. That way we only produce what is already paid for, so the cash risk is close to zero. It works at our volume. It stops working if merch ever gets big, and that is a good problem to have later.
Landed cost assumes a premium organic blank at 220 GSM, a one to two colour print, our own labelling and packaging, at roughly 300 units.
Stock goes straight from the factory to a Dutch fulfilment partner. Shopify talks to them automatically and we never handle a box.
They bill a floor amount every month, whether we ship 5 orders or 500.
At 40 orders a month, a €500 minimum works out at €12.50 an order, for about €5 of actual work.
It is a fixed cost, so it only starts making sense once the volume absorbs it.
Not for now. The economics only work well above 150 orders a month, and we are nowhere near that. Worth keeping on the list, but it is a 2027 conversation at the earliest, and only if merch turns into a real business line.
Partners to look at, none vetted yet: Bleckmann, Active Ants, Monta, Green Logistics. Worth one search before we rule this out, because a few smaller Dutch partners work with early stage brands without a monthly minimum. If one exists at our size, Route C changes completely.
| A · Print on demand | B · Own production, we ship | C · Own production, warehouse | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash upfront | None | €7,000 to €9,000 | €7,000 to €9,000 plus setup |
| Cost per tee | €8.50 to €13 | €13 to €17 | €13 to €17 |
| Margin on a €45 tee | ~€20 (55%) | ~€19 (51%) | ~€19 less the minimum |
| Fabric weight | 140 to 180 GSM | Our choice, 220 GSM plus | Our choice, 220 GSM plus |
| Garment branding | None | Full | Full |
| Custom packaging | None | Full | Full, at a fee |
| Where stock lives | Nowhere, no stock | Unsolved. Flat, storage unit, or the supplier | Their warehouse |
| Who packs the orders | The print partner | Us | The warehouse |
| Time to launch | 2 to 4 weeks | 8 to 14 weeks | 10 to 16 weeks |
| Works at our volume | Yes | Yes | Not yet |
| Customs admin | None | Yes, if the supplier is outside the EU | Yes, usually outsourced |
| Legal obligations | Identical | Identical | Identical |
The last row is the one that catches people out. Print on demand outsources the work, not the liability. Gelato and Printful both state that an EU based seller is the manufacturer of record.
EU retail prices have to include VAT. At 21% Dutch VAT, a €45 tee earns us €37.19, not €45. Every margin in this deck already accounts for it. It is the most common mistake in a merch business case, so worth saying out loud once.
| A · Print on demand | B and C · Own production, 300 units | |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price | €45.00 incl. VAT | €45.00 incl. VAT |
| Net revenue after VAT | €37.19 | €37.19 |
| Cost of goods | − €11.00 | − €12.00 |
| Fulfilment | − €4.50 | − €5.00 |
| Payment processing | − €1.33 | − €1.33 |
| We keep, per tee | €20.36 (55%) | €18.86 (51%) |
Print on demand wins per unit at low volume. Own production overtakes it past roughly 500 units of one style and keeps improving. So the case for own production is not really about margin. It is about what we are selling.
Nothing to decide here yet. This is the background I am taking into the supplier conversations, because the country a garment is made in sets the duty, not the country we pay. A quote may assume China unless we say otherwise, and that is a 12% difference.
| Made in | EU duty | Why | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greece, Portugal, EU | 0% | Internal market | No customs at all, and the fastest reorders. Simplest option by far. |
| Tunisia, Morocco | 0% | Association Agreement | Three to five days by truck. Strong nearshore option. |
| Turkey | 0% | Customs Union | Needs an A.TR certificate with every shipment. |
| Bangladesh | 0% | Everything But Arms | Easiest origin rules, but the scheme ends November 2029. |
| Vietnam | 0% | EVFTA, fully phased in | Chinese fabric disqualifies it. Four to five months to first delivery. |
| China | 12% | No agreement available | Plus a sourcing transparency problem we do not want to have. |
| Switzerland | 12% | Printing does not confer Swiss origin | Roughly 20% more landed than the same job inside the EU. |
We are the importer, so if an origin claim fails, the back duties and penalties land on Velvet Pages, not on the agent. Ask every supplier: which country, which factory, and can you supply an EUR.1 or REX statement of origin?
We charge 21% Dutch VAT. Once EU sales outside the Netherlands pass €10,000 a year we have to charge each country's own rate. Without OSS that means registering for VAT in every country we sell to. With OSS we register once here and file one return a quarter listing sales per country, and the Dutch tax office pays each of them for us.
Before launchWe are the manufacturer of record, including on print on demand. Our name, address and email go on the product or packaging, plus a batch reference, care instructions and the two year EU warranty.
Before launchSelling clothing in the Netherlands makes us a producer. Register with Stichting UPV Textiel, sign the contribution agreement, report volumes before 1 August each year. The 2026 rate is €0.24 per kilo, about five cents a tee.
Before launchBasic business liability cover starts around €10 a month. Ours will cost more, because most insurers exclude own brand products and anything imported from outside the EU, which is exactly what we would be selling. Get both written into the policy.
Before the first garment shipsFibre composition on a sewn in label, in the language of every country we sell to, plus care symbols. The supplier normally handles it. We carry the liability, so we check it.
In the production brief14 day right of return, a returns policy, terms and conditions, privacy policy, cookie consent, and VAT inclusive prices shown before checkout.
Before launchThis one is essential and it is free. If an artist's work goes on a garment, our contract with them has to cover merchandise. Standard editorial contracts cover the magazine only, so we would be selling something we do not have the rights to.
Before any artwork is usedAn EORI number, an import declaration per shipment, and an Article 23 licence so import VAT goes through our VAT return instead of leaving the bank. Keep the customs paperwork for seven years.
Routes B and C onlyOn the trade mark: not legally required to sell, so it does not hold up launch, but we would be putting the name on a product and class 25 covers clothing. EUIPO is €850 online for one class, Benelux only is cheaper, and the EUIPO SME Fund reimburses 75% of either. Worth doing this year, not this month. Packaging we can ignore: the Netherlands exempts anyone under 50,000 kg a year.
The revised EU Product Liability Directive applies in the Netherlands from 9 December 2026. It widens who can be held liable to include importers, own brand sellers, warehouses and platforms. We would be the importer and the manufacturer of record at the same time. A t-shirt is low risk, but under a VOF that risk has no ceiling and it is personal.
What I would do: not let this hold up the pilot. Run the test and the first drop as a VOF with product liability insurance in place, and look at the BV again once we know whether merch works. Worth 30 minutes with an accountant, since the tax side depends on our profit split. This is not legal or tax advice.
The always available tee and cap. Live in weeks, costs nothing to run, and it tells us which designs people actually want. Treat it as research that happens to make money.
A timed pre order window on our own shop. We only produce what is already sold, so the cash risk is close to zero. Proper fabric, proper labels, proper packaging. This is the piece people keep.
Route B only works if we know where the boxes go. Ask each supplier whether they can hold stock and ship for us. If one can, that is the whole problem solved and Route C never comes up.
Print on demand is easy to run and gives us nothing to put our name on. Own production gives us the product we actually want but ties up cash and needs somewhere to live. Pre orders remove most of that risk, and they fit us: we sell the drop, then we make it. That is a more honest version of scarcity than pretending stock is limited when it is not.
The compliance list is identical whichever route we take, so it should not influence the choice. It is about two weeks of setup and roughly €50 a year in fees. We do it once and forget it.
Country and factory. Whether they can issue an EUR.1 or REX statement of origin. Blank brand and GSM. Custom labels and packaging, with setup cost and label minimums. MOQ per style, colour and size. Lead time and reorder time. Incoterms, quoted DAP Rotterdam.
Can you hold our stock and ship orders for us, and what does that cost? If any of them says yes, Route B becomes straightforward and we can stop worrying about warehouses.
Once the quotes are in: duty, freight, lead time, cash tied up and break even for each option. That turns this into a decision rather than a list of options.
Nobody should sign off a €45 product from a spec sheet. Ask for sample cost and turnaround at the same time as the quote.
OSS, UPV Textiel, insurance and the EUIPO class 25 filing do not depend on which route we pick, so they should not wait for it.
Under GPSR our address gets printed on the product and shown on the site. If Willemsstraat is a home address, worth sorting before we print a few hundred swing tags.
Everything else follows from that. If it is merch, print on demand is the right answer and we can stop here. If it is something people collect, we accept slower and more expensive, and we start building the pre order habit now.
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