The story behind Day of the Shirt’s Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale list

Nov 23, 2017 — Over the next week we’re posting more than 40 different sales covering pre-Black Friday, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. That’s everything from nearly-free mystery 🎁 shirts to 50% off sitewide coupons. Most only run a day or three, but I started collecting them months ago.

Several years ago, posting holiday sales was a manual affair. I’d make a spreadsheet of the dozen or so websites we followed. I’d code up the list in HTML, stay up till midnight (no joke) 👨🏻‍💻 and press “upload” at 12:01 AM Friday. Edits would be made directly to the website over the next few days. Same deal for the newsletter templates too.

As we added more and more t-shirt websites, and they added more and more sales 🗣(“pre- pre-Black Friday”) 🎅 the spreadsheet and updates got more and more crazy and I was spending less and less time with family 😩 during the week.

Last year I helped myself by integrating the sales into the website’s content management system. That way I could schedule individual sales with start- and end- dates, and queue them up 💪 long before the holidays kick off.

This year we started reaching out to our now huge list of t-shirt websites in October. As they finalized their sales, we scheduled them out and now the website robots 🤖are handling it.

…which freed me up to write this story.

A new day, a new and improved iOS app

Sep 17, 2017 — Hey all! We’ve been hard at work over the summer building and launching a new iOS app that just landed in the Apple App Store. Behold, Day of the Shirt 2.0, new and improved and – as always – free to download. Now you can browse and find your favorite shirts. Fast.

Our app boasts a new interface that’s flat, modern, and ready to enjoy.

Swipe left or right to browse shirt designs up close, view artist and merchant details, and see the price all in the same view.

Find the same great deals in the app as on our website, and sort shirts by merchant, the lowest price, or by how new the listing is.

Got questions or feedback? We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line [email protected] or, heck, leave us a review in the App Store.

Getting more emotional (and explanatory)

Jul 3, 2017 — We’re adding more color and emotion to Day of the Shirt. Looking at our front page with fresh eyes, we realized it didn’t really reflect how excited we are about t-shirt sales. (We’re really excited about t-shirt sales.) So we’re fixing that.

You’ll notice better usage of color and emoji. We’re also integrating feedback to better explain what Day of the Shirt does (collects t-shirt sales), and how to benefit most (check every day for new designs). This may seem obvious to longtime users (us included!) but not so obvious to new visitors. Everyone benefits from more obvious features and wayfinding 🎉

Drawing a line for new t-shirts

Apr 23, 2017 — We improved our front page by adding a line to separate the newest daily t-shirts from older multi-day and weekly sales. We kept it subtle but made it easier to quickly browse the latest t-shirts.

Any designs above the gray-bubbled “Todays Shirts” line were posted less than 24 hours ago. We add 30 to 50 new t-shirts a day (whew!); a little orientation and wayfinding make it even easier to discover a great shirt today.

New feature: Receive today's t-shirt sales via email

Jan 17, 2017 — We’ve launched a new feature for users of Day of the Shirt: a daily email of t-shirt sales. Never miss out on today’s t-shirt sales again.

In your account on Day of the Shirt, you now have the option to subscribe to a daily list of sales and/or a weekly rollup of insights and trends. By subscribing to the daily email, you’ll receive the list of today’s sales customized according to your filters.

This email feature is a great way to stay up-to-date with the latest sales. Just like our website, the email is comprehensive yet quick to scroll (or swipe) through. With so many new designs for sale each day, getting them into your inbox helps make sure you don’t miss anything.