Unethical business practice
Based on my personal experience with Threadless as both a designer and customer, I've witnessed concerning unethical business practices. As a designer, I had work approved and used on greeting cards sold in Target stores. However, Threadless refused to pay me for my work and ignored my communications until I was forced to involve a third party to recover payment. Even then, the compensation I finally received was well below industry standards for nationwide retail distribution. Recently as a customer, I ordered a t-shirt that was priced above average market rates. After three weeks, I discovered they hadn't even shipped the t-shirt. When I contacted customer service, they promised a refund, but failed to follow through until I had to contact them twice to actually receive it. I attempted to address these concerns directly with founder Jake Nickell but received no response. Based on this pattern of behavior - refusing payment until forced, ignoring communications, taking money for products they don't ship, and failing to fulfill basic business obligations - I have serious ethical concerns about their business model. They appear to exploit their designers by withholding rightful payment, mislead customers by charging premium prices and sometimes not delivering products, and given this treatment of both designers and customers, I question whether the staff manufacturing their t-shirts are being fairly compensated(?).