Shirt.Woot

There has been discussion recently about problems with quality control at woot. In particular, there's been mention in the "Side Sale Feedback" thread that woot has consistently been using the design size for the men's shirts on women's shirts. This causes two problems: first, it makes the design disproportionate to the shirt size, which looks odd, but more importantly, it makes the shirts unwearable for (at least some) women: the portion of the shirt that's covered by the design doesn't stretch as much as the "blank" part of the shirt, with the result that the shirt no longer fits one's bust.

I'd noticed this problem on several of my shirts - blamed myself for gaining weight (weighed myself for the first time since September: down 0.5 pounds, so it's not me) - and finally decided to grab a measuring tape. To offer a balanced perspective, I decided to measure every t-shirt that I've purchased from side sales since the weekly side sale was launched in January. Of the nine shirts that I've purchased in side sales, seven had the men's size design on a women's blank (in one case, on a kids' blank): that's a 78% error rate on design size. Of the two shirts that were correctly sized, one was printed crooked. Overall, that's a 89% failure rate.

I've spent about two hours rounding up shirts, taking pictures and uploading them, and cross-checking my measurements with woot's. I'm also annoyed that I just spent two hours out of my life to present woot with evidence that they've messed up 89% of the shirts that they've sent me. (And yes, I felt like I "had" to: I'm asking woot to give me a refund on eight shirts: I assumed they'd want some evidence.) More than anything else, I've been convinced that I can't afford to order anything else from woot because of the time that it's taken me to show woot that they've made mistakes so I can get a refund: I can no longer afford to take the risk on ordering stuff from woot, because I don't have the time to pursue refunds for 90% of what I order.

With so many shirts, I decided to post links instead of images. Below, I've included my measurements as well as a link to the shirt with measuring tape horizontally; if you view the album, I also uploaded images of the vertical measurements as well.

All of the shirts below are WM, except the last one (K12)

Straw, Sticks, & Bricks BBQ
Design Size:
3X – S: 15.01” x 10.72”
WXL - WS: 11.25” x 8.04”
my shirt: 16.5"x10"
note that the print extends onto the right shoulder and nearly to the left shoulder

I Like Them on the Grill
Design Size:
3X – S: 12” x 10.35”
WXL - K4: 9” x 7.76”
my shirt: 12"X10.5"

Donut Panic
Design Size:
M – 3X: 11.75” x 9”
S – WS: 8.81” x 6.75”
my shirt: 9"x7"
This is only shirt that is printed correctly without a mistake

A Peculiar Discovery
Design Size:
3X – S: 12” x 5.66”
WXL - K4: 9” x 4.24”
my shirt: 12"X6"
In addition, Peculiar Discovery was supposed to be printed on AA and arrived on Anvil instead.

One Flight Per Customer
Design Size:
3X – S: 12” x 7.97”
WXL - K4: 9” x 5.98”
my shirt: 11.75"x8"

Sub-Lime
Design Size:
3X – S: 10.5” x 9.78”
WXL - K4: 7.87” x 7.33”
my shirt: 10.5"x10"

Aztec Sunset
Design Size:
3X – S: 15.00” x 11.78”
WXL - WS: 11.25” x 8.83”
my shirt: 14.75"x10.5"

Sugar BSOD
Design Size:
3X – M: 13” x 4.51”
S-WS: 9.75” x 3.38”
my shirt: 9.5"X3.25"
This design size is correct. However, if you take a look at this image, where I stretched the measuring tape from armpit to armpit, you'll notice that the design isn't printed straight.

Cooler Than You
Design Size:
3X – S: 12.00” x 5.05“
WXL - K4: 9.00” x 3.79”
my shirt: 12"x5"
(this shirt is a K12)

Yup, I agree that the prints are now too big on women's and kids' sizes.
Did they used to have a couple different screen sizes and now they just use one? Is this an intentional cost-cutting measure? Only woot can (probably not) tell...

ochopika wrote:Yup, I agree that the prints are now too big on women's and kids' sizes.
Did they used to have a couple different screen sizes and now they just use one? Is this an intentional cost-cutting measure? Only woot can (probably not) tell...

Unless they trash the screens after a shirt is reckoned (which maybe they do I have no idea how feasible it is to store them long term), they should already have men's and women's screens at least for all of the shirt they're bringing back. But even if they do trash the screens, they are still advertising a specific print size for women's shirts that is smaller than the men's and they should be printing it that size no excuses.

mrwednesday wrote:Unless they trash the screens after a shirt is reckoned (which maybe they do I have no idea how feasible it is to store them long term), they should already have men's and women's screens at least for all of the shirt they're bringing back. But even if they do trash the screens, they are still advertising a specific print size for women's shirts that is smaller than the men's and they should be printing it that size no excuses.

What is the storeageablility of the material? Would it last 5 years?

I wonder if this is not them trying to do too much, but an after effect of splitting the staff between Seattle/Texas (at least I think tgentry is in Seattle, I don't recall seeing the others mentioned).

mrwednesday wrote:But even if they do trash the screens, they are still advertising a specific print size for women's shirts that is smaller than the men's and they should be printing it that size no excuses.

It's not just the side sales as far as I've noticed. Every Anvil shirt that I've received has come with the same size print. I have a WS with the same size print as a MXL (I'll take pictures tomorrow). I even got a K4 that had the same size print as the MM. I don't have the K4 anymore so you'll just have to trust me on that one.

Has anyone else noticed this with the non-side sale shirts? It really looks like they're making one screen per shirt now, is it true?

ochopika wrote:It's not just the side sales as far as I've noticed. Every Anvil shirt that I've received has come with the same size print. I have a WS with the same size print as a MXL (I'll take pictures tomorrow). I even got a K4 that had the same size print as the MM. I don't have the K4 anymore so you'll just have to trust me on that one.

Has anyone else noticed this with the non-side sale shirts? It really looks like they're making one screen per shirt now, is it true?

I can't say for sure, but it does seem like shirt.woot been doing a lot of arguably bad things to maximize their profit any chance they get. To make one universal screen size is a lot cheaper than making 3 (maybe even more), so I wouldn't be shocked...

Still, hope its not the case

mrwednesday wrote:Unless they trash the screens after a shirt is reckoned (which maybe they do I have no idea how feasible it is to store them long term), they should already have men's and women's screens at least for all of the shirt they're bringing back.

After the production run ends, the screens are cleaned off and reused.

But even if they do trash the screens, they are still advertising a specific print size for women's shirts that is smaller than the men's and they should be printing it that size no excuses.

Absolutely agreed. You advertise it that way, you deliver it that way too.

blanked wrote:I wonder if this is not them trying to do too much, but an after effect of splitting the staff between Seattle/Texas (at least I think tgentry is in Seattle, I don't recall seeing the others mentioned).

The staff has always been split; before Seattle, they were in St. Louis.

-----
My side sale issues ...

- TCIAL long sleeve. - sold 129

Replacement #001 LS, #001 LS, and #20667 T-shirt. Note the missing ink.

- Spring-ATRON R.E.S.U.B. - sold 46.
.
Over saturation on the black meant it came out fuzzy.

- The Aviator long sleeve - sold 42

Left side "double printed", or rather, shifted when it was being screened. The replacement looked better, so I'll chalk this down to a one-off issue.

ochopika wrote:It's not just the side sales as far as I've noticed. Every Anvil shirt that I've received has come with the same size print. I have a WS with the same size print as a MXL (I'll take pictures tomorrow). I even got a K4 that had the same size print as the MM. I don't have the K4 anymore so you'll just have to trust me on that one.

Has anyone else noticed this with the non-side sale shirts? It really looks like they're making one screen per shirt now, is it true?

This happens a lot with the regular shirt sales not just on the side sale. When I bought a copy of my Schrodinger's cat design 2 years ago, I got the larger man's version print on the ladies shirt. Also for Firefox shirt and the Scrub My pretty shirt. I actually had to buy extras of the Scrub My Pretty shirt to get a small sized girl print since I needed to see how the halftones would shrink(I was testing out making the halftones differently than before) and I keep getting guy sized versions.

I actually have really good/bad luck in getting man sized prints on ladies shirts I have a ton of them and usually I like them better. You tend to get them if you order early in the sales of the shirt and I tend to buy my shirts midnight to 1AM. The only one that was a problem was the good bunny bad bunny shirt I got as trade in a side sale. And even though it makes it look like I have a good boob and a bad boob I'm still okay wearing it. My friend won't wear hers though. So yeah.

I wonder if they don't burn the other smaller screens later in the day? Not sure how woot's process works for that.

After reading dianasprinkle's comment I realized that more than half of my shirts have the wrong size print, oh dear. It doesn't look bad on most of them, especially the ones that are supposed to cover the whole shirt.

I took pictures of my most recent prints because they just happen to be my most recent woots that have the print size problem. I think the large print looks too big on the WS shirts. The print quality itself is great, but I can tell the print is too big.

I ordered this one on 6/19, it's a WS. The design size is supposed to be 9.00"x 5.37".


I ordered this on 5/28, it's a WS. Design size is supposed to be 8.00"x 7.73"


If you need more examples I'll take some more pics. I hope that helps .

Ochopika and Diana: for the shirts you've received with the men's size print on them: do they still fit you? As I mentioned, I've been kicking myself for months that I must have gained weight because my new shirts were suddenly too tight in the bust (I'm so glad that I don't know any of you, because I am so embarrassed to post that). I'm wondering if the men's-size print (and loss of stretch) would make less of a difference the less one needed the, um, room across the chest.

neuropsychosocial wrote:Ochopika and Diana: for the shirts you've received with the men's size print on them: do they still fit you? As I mentioned, I've been kicking myself for months that I must have gained weight because my new shirts were suddenly too tight in the bust (I'm so glad that I don't know any of you, because I am so embarrassed to post that). I'm wondering if the men's-size print (and loss of stretch) would make less of a difference the less one needed the, um, room across the chest.

heh... wellll... the new WS doesn't fit me and it's not because of the large print...*grumbles*. I wear mine as night shirts now.

I can see how a large print would make the fabric less stretchy if you need the stretchiness in that area. Some designs are intentionally larger though... so you may just want to avoid designs that have a lot of solid ink on them. Personally, I try (not always succeed) to make and buy designs that have a lot of space between the solid ink because I like light, soft shirts.

It's interesting you bring these problems up. I just ordered and received Let's All Go to the Blackhole, and I thought the design looked too small for the shirt -- a MM. So with that in mind, I just measured it and sure enough, my shirt has the women's design dimensions! I find that really strange...

I had a different issue. I ordered UN3 in WXL and the print area is way too small. There are also quality issues, the square print area has an opaque ink in a square around the design (doesn't photograph well), the lines in the design details blur together and my ninjas either have pinpoint pupils or none. I *did* send my stuff to service and was told it was the print style and that it printed as described. I don't think so.





What do you guys think?

thumperchick wrote:I had a different issue. I ordered UN3 in WXL and the print area is way too small. There are also quality issues, the square print area has an opaque ink in a square around the design (doesn't photograph well), the lines in the design details blur together and my ninjas either have pinpoint pupils or none. I *did* send my stuff to service and was told it was the print style and that it printed as described. I don't think so.


What do you guys think?

That is what my heat transfer unit does if I leave the shirt on for too long. Good news (Maybe) is that it tends to come out in the first wash if that's what it is.

Definitely a print error.

This problem is definitely not limited to side sales. Here are the anvils I've gotten since they were introduced. I haven't bothered to go through my husband's shirts yet:

Trivial Matters - WS - Purchased on the debut night. This one is almost unwearable, the print is so large (4 inches wider than it should be):


After All This Time - WS - Purchased on debut night. I wear this, but the print is definitely too big. (3 inches wider than it should be):


Free Hugs - WS - Purchased for me before it was reckoned. Another large print. (2.5 to 3 inches wider than it should be):


The Last Cupcake - WS - Purchased from side sale. (3 inches wider than it should be):


2/3 of the shirts I've bought for myself this year have been misprinted. Some are more livable than others, but in the cases above, they're all technically wrong.

I've given up writing in about this. I don't like being the person who does nothing but complain -and worse, gets ignored. I'm definitely ordering less, though.

The last email that I sent (with link to photo)about the size of the print on the shirt "New Waves" from the side sale was just completely ignored.

Woot did send me a replacement hoodie for a stitching error (about an inch and a half where the seam line just wavered off the hood-right at the front) which was totally awesome. but seriously, you should not be sending stuff like that out. When you get to $30 hoodies, or $37+ after upgraded shipping and tax you've moved from cheap tee shirt into "quality" hoodie territory, price wise-the standards are higher and you aren't meeting them.

I've also noticed print size inconsistencies. I've got two copies of "The race". One has the smaller print, one has the larger. That was just an "ordinary" shirt. One of the "Not like the others" K4's I received had the men's print on it-looked ridiculous. (this has been replaced already, but not because the print was wrong-the shirt size was different than the size chart stated)
To the best of our knowledge, none of my husband's shirts have been wrong size-wise. His Apt B shirt seemed a bit off and not as crisp a print as I expected but it wasn't bad enough I was quite sure it was really wrong or just the design.

Anyway, all in all rather discouraging.

Hey guys, please keep posting and sending your pictures to tgentryatwootdotcom: I suspect the printing department has been running somewhat amok and I get the sense that the shirt folks really didn't understand/know the extent of the problems. I've previously said that I sense woot has extremely poor interdepartmental communications (i.e., service doesn't tell shirt what service is hearing, and at least a couple of the shirt folks are in Seattle, which makes it a little difficult to keep an eye on printing in Texas... I think service is in both locations, so there's probably not even any water-cooler or monkey-toss talk between the various people who are hearing about these problems and the ones who can do something about it) - and I think we're seeing one symptom of that.

wanderbug2: I'm sorry that service hasn't been responsive to you. It took them a few days, but they did get back to me about the shirts that I posted. If you didn't receive any response at all, I'd suggest emailing again. It seems like they do respond, even if they're not going to do anything to help a customer, based on the number of posts saying "service told me my shirt was the correct size in Anvil and sent me to the forums to ask questions."

neuropsychosocial wrote:Ochopika and Diana: for the shirts you've received with the men's size print on them: do they still fit you? As I mentioned, I've been kicking myself for months that I must have gained weight because my new shirts were suddenly too tight in the bust (I'm so glad that I don't know any of you, because I am so embarrassed to post that). I'm wondering if the men's-size print (and loss of stretch) would make less of a difference the less one needed the, um, room across the chest.

Well, I'm not particularly large in the bust compared to the rest of me and I fit a Anvil Women's Small just right. But in the old AA shirt sizes (WM) sometimes the large size print was a little constricting if there was a lot of ink on the design.

I'll take some photos here in a bit.

wanderbug2 wrote:I've given up writing in about this. I don't like being the person who does nothing but complain -and worse, gets ignored. I'm definitely ordering less, though.

The last email that I sent (with link to photo)about the size of the print on the shirt "New Waves" from the side sale was just completely ignored.

Woot did send me a replacement hoodie for a stitching error (about an inch and a half where the seam line just wavered off the hood-right at the front) which was totally awesome. but seriously, you should not be sending stuff like that out. When you get to $30 hoodies, or $37+ after upgraded shipping and tax you've moved from cheap tee shirt into "quality" hoodie territory, price wise-the standards are higher and you aren't meeting them.

I've also noticed print size inconsistencies. I've got two copies of "The race". One has the smaller print, one has the larger. That was just an "ordinary" shirt. One of the "Not like the others" K4's I received had the men's print on it-looked ridiculous. (this has been replaced already, but not because the print was wrong-the shirt size was different than the size chart stated)
To the best of our knowledge, none of my husband's shirts have been wrong size-wise. His Apt B shirt seemed a bit off and not as crisp a print as I expected but it wasn't bad enough I was quite sure it was really wrong or just the design.

Anyway, all in all rather discouraging.

Did you get a confirmation email from Woot? If not--that means something in your email was picked up and never made it through the queue. Happens sometimes, more often when files are attached.

My UnNinja hoodie appeared on my doorstep today. Unfortunately, my UnNinja doesn't have eyes. On either the front or back of the shirt. And the print has cracks in it. Several cracks (didn't bother taking more pictures of the cracks). But weirdest of all, the print is actually peeling off. I don't know enough about screen printing to even understand how that happens!

Also received "Secret Love" and discovered that the print is, like, burned through the shirt or something. There's even red ink visible on the inside of the shirt (it's much more obvious in person; I couldn't get a good photo), which I've never seen before. However, the shirt was printed with the women's-sized design. Yay?

neuropsychosocial wrote:My UnNinja hoodie appeared on my doorstep today. Unfortunately, my UnNinja doesn't have eyes. On either the front or back of the shirt. And the print has cracks in it. Several cracks (didn't bother taking more pictures of the cracks). But weirdest of all, the print is actually peeling off. I don't know enough about screen printing to even understand how that happens!

Wow ... that's just horrible! I've seen much better results from folks hand screening in their garages! - especially with regards to the peeling part. Was it because of something on the hoodie, or due to improper flash/cure (mixed fibers = different time/temperature versus 100% cotton), I can't tell from here.

And either someone shed a lot of their hair while printing, something else got into the screen, or just too much "I don't care" going on. Which is really really really sad for a $35 product ...

Also received "Secret Love" and discovered that the print is, like, burned through the shirt or something. There's even red ink visible on the inside of the shirt (it's much more obvious in person; I couldn't get a good photo), which I've never seen before. However, the shirt was printed with the women's-sized design. Yay?

More QC issues, yet again ...

I am really wondering what's going on down there in the shop; it seems to have gotten to the point that for every side sale, there's at least something sent out that has some serious flaw.

On a personal note, I don't expect that every shirt will always end up 100% perfect; slightly off center (like my replacement copy of Life Choices, as opposed to my first one which was way off center), a stray hair (Something I Must Do and one of my Schrodinger's Equation), and slight color registration (a couple of my UnNinja copies) ... fair enough. But it seems that in recent times, it's not these minor issues, but much more major ones ... and frankly, shouldn't the production team address this in the first place, WHILE IN PRODUCTION, instead of shifting the burden to the customer service team after the sale?

We spend our $$ because we actually want the product, produced and delivered as specified in the sale page. No doubt that many of us absolutely appreciates CS (thanks Tyler, Phil, and Kelly, and everyone else at Woot CS!) sending out replacements (that are sometimes equally defective) or issuing refunds as a resolution, but I still can't see how sending out goods with defects in the first place, then having to address it afterwards at an even greater cost, is a proper way to do business.

Narfcake wrote:I am really wondering what's going on down there in the shop; it seems to have gotten to the point that for every side sale, there's at least something sent out that has some serious flaw.

I'd guess the run rate is too high.

thumperchick wrote:


What do you guys think?

That's something that can happen when you try to reverse print small details. That is, use the shirt color rather than an ink color. When printing light ink on a dark shirt, Woot prints an underbase first (gasp! a secret 7th color!) so the colors are opaque. This second pass can introduce something called "dot gain", or ink spread. That's why the pupils are closed in. Usually you "choke" the underbase, so it's slightly smaller than the top color to help with dot gain and registration. Maybe Woot needs to choke the top colors too?

Personally, I wouldn't design anything with a smaller than 2 pt reversed element.

Also, I just got Inconceivable and Pip-Squeak in the mail. Incon was printed with the "correct" sized screen, however, at 15" wide on men's M, Inigo is in my armpit. Pip-squeak was printed with the women/kid screen on a men's shirt. Thank goodness! It's just the right size for my taste. I'm glad I didn't get the bigger screen. But it's an error none the less.

In the case of Incon, there's an almost 4" difference in width between the M screen and the W screen. That seems excessive to me. In my opinion, anything wider than 13" is too wide, unless you're doing one of those all-over Threadless type designs. I had the same problem with Dark Side of Oz. It's also overly huge (but "correct") at 15".

Maybe print men's S & M (no whip jokes please) with the women's screen? I guess I'll have to check the print dimensions before ordering now. But even then, who knows which size you'll end up with?

orabbit wrote:That's something that can happen when you try to reverse print small details. ...

True, but the kicker is that historically, it has not been an issue with Woot ... so why is it happening these days?

Well this does explain why my Cat Nouveau and Almost Free tee prints are so wide.I got the men's print on a ladies tee. I remember at the time thinking the print looked too big but didn't think to check.

I ordered Huddle in a Flurry in a side sale...



When I received the shirt, the light gray ink was the same color as the shirt resulting in it losing the polar bear illusion. It just looks like some random dark blobs that are hard to see that they are animals. I emailed service@woot and got a replacement shirt that was printed exactly the same. I didn't try again after that. I wish it had printed better.

Narfcake wrote:True, but the kicker is that historically, it has not been an issue with Woot ... so why is it happening these days?

Maybe not for guy prints but on the women's size prints fine details closing up in designs that use the shirt color as a color has been an issue for a long long time. I have a fablefire shirt from two years ago with this problem. Dot gain is an issue in printing in general it's not a recent woot thing. My O M G double rainbow shirt has no face and my Fablefire falling star shirt has no faces on the tiny stars. This is a problem more from the designer side than woot but since woot is the one shrinking the designs, woot themselves could help a lot by being on the look out for this.

DianaSprinkle wrote:Maybe not for guy prints but on the women's size prints fine details closing up in designs that use the shirt color as a color has been an issue for a long long time. ...
This is a problem more from the designer side than woot but since woot is the one shrinking the designs, woot themselves could help a lot by being on the look out for this.

Yeah, there's even mention of it FROM WOOT, in some of the Half-tone instructions.

Well, I guess service isn't going to respond to my 2nd email about my shirt. So I'm stuck with blind ninjas and overall poor printing.

See what happens when I bend my principles and buy an Anvil shirt?

thumperchick wrote:Well, I guess service isn't going to respond to my 2nd email about my shirt. So I'm stuck with blind ninjas and overall poor printing.

See what happens when I bend my principles and buy an Anvil shirt?

That's really odd; I've never had service ignore an email completely. When you sent it, did you receive a confirmation email (almost immediately) with a case number? And if not, did you check your spam folder, just in case?

They responded to me within one business day and are sending out a new UnNinja hoodie and a new Secret Love. My confidence in the printing department is currently subterranean, but service has always been wonderful.

Is it just me, or is that print crooked?

ThunderThighs wrote:Thank you, ochopika. Could you please email those in as well to service@woot.com just to make sure it gets to the right people?

Thank you!

Hey, TT! It happened to me as well. I ordered another "In Addition to Your Radishes..." or whatever the twisted Peter Rabbit tearing out Mr. McGregor's heart was called and was pretty darned surprised & a tad disappointed at how much bigger the design was from the original. Can't off the top of my head say if the newer one was printed on an Anvil. I wear it, but the print is no where as nice as my daughter's older shirt.


Edit---And NOW after posting my comment I see goldenthorn's photos of the shirt. Yep. That's exactly what mine looks like!

goldenthorn wrote: Though I haven't worn it much, actually, now that I think about it. Because I know it's off-center. Hmm. Maybe I should write in about it? Anyone want to offer an opinion?

I just got out my squeeze hoodie to see if it was the same-- I didn't have a measuring tape handy, but I am nearly certain from just tracing the center seam of the hood, that mine is NOT shifted like yours is. I would write in, if I were you.

neuropsychosocial wrote:That's really odd; I've never had service ignore an email completely. When you sent it, did you receive a confirmation email (almost immediately) with a case number? And if not, did you check your spam folder, just in case?

They responded to me within one business day and are sending out a new UnNinja hoodie and a new Secret Love. My confidence in the printing department is currently subterranean, but service has always been wonderful.

Yes, I received a confirmation email. I also regularly check my spam. It is odd for me too. Service up till now has been really great about resolving any issues I've had, be it shirts, shipping, damage, anything.

I also got "In addition to your radishes" from the side sale this spring and had the same men's sized over-saturated print on an AA WM shirt.

I also got "Some BBQ" with a men's print on AA WM. Both of these I reported to Woot.

And I only just realized that my "Free Hugs" and "Family Portrait" shirts also have the men's size print on AA WM and WS. I never reported these because I didn't know.

My "Playing Koi" that I got at the most recent random sale has the larger print as well as terrible print quality, with the colors all blending into an ugly orange. It loses all the beauty of the original art. I didn't know if I could report this since I got it in a random sale (but shouldn't those be the same quality?).