Working from home and living with that it’s the greatest achievement of every person in the world, we think.
You just need a laptop and a bunch of creativity and you can become the boss of yourself.
Today, Print On Demand represents one of the best ways to make this dream happens.
You can make money with Print On Demand in three ways:
- Selling through Worldwide Marketplaces
- Launching an eCommerce Store
- Selling through Print On Demand Services
You don’t need inventory either a physical store or fulfillment. Your store is online and you can control it with your laptop.
All the supply chain is handled by the chosen marketplace. You just have to take care of uploading great designs and promoting them through socials.
As you see, all these tasks can be done directly from home. And that’s what we really like!
What Does Print On Demand Mean?
The Print On Demand process implies the personalization of white-labeled custom items such as t-shirts, shoes, hoodies, or mugs, which will be printed and sold after an order has occurred.
It’s a completely automated and outsourced process. Your effort is limited just to creating a storefront and uploading your catalog.
All manufacturing and shipping processes are handled by the Print On Demand service. And once sales come, a percentage of the revenue will be given to you.
It’s important to set up correctly your storefront, create a valid listing of products, and choose the right prices for each.
Then, run the right promotion even if, in some cases, it’s not even needed. Many marketplaces already have millions of customers on their own and provide the visibility you’re looking for (just think about Amazon).
Which Product Is Possible To Sell?
You can choose among hundreds of types of customizable products to print. It’s the result of the progressive development of the Print On Demand industry and of a well-established trend of the fashion industry so far.
Usually, we associate Print On Demand with t-shirts but it’s not only this anymore. The massive amount of products available today seems to know no boundaries anymore.
The common items that can be currently personalized are apparel (t-shirts, hoodies, tank top, shoes, socks, sportswear, etc.), accessories (mugs, cups, bags, stickers, mobile cases, etc), home decor (posters, pillows, towels, etc), and much more.
Is It Profitable?
There are several methods to run a profitable Print On Demand store, and one of these contemplate the option to create a great design and to upload it in many marketplaces. In this way, you will higher the possibilities of getting new sales, exploiting the unique features that each provider has.
Which design should you create? It could be something simple like one color background with a text or a more elaborate graphic.
The first solution maybe it’s not so professional but if you find some great quotes that went viral on socials, you could use them as your own and get some crazy sales.
The second solution is more connected to your brand if it’s your goal to have one.
In this case, you could create a very cool and unique design (we recommend seeking the help of professionals as you can find in Fiverr) and use the same one for each category of products you’re willing to sell.
Let’s Run Your Print On Demand Store!
Everything starts with the selection of the appropriate platform. The first screening will save you a ton of money and time and will give you higher chances to succeed.
Please read carefully each of these methods and be patient with choosing the right for you, depending on your goals and your availabilities:
- Selling through Worldwide Marketplaces
- Launching an eCommerce Store
- Selling through Print On Demand Services
Each of these options has its cons and pros. You can switch from one to another, depending on time and financial availability.
We personally tested each of these, and we know that they actually work.
1. Selling Through Worldwide Marketplaces
You can take advantage of a famous marketplace platform due to the high traffic volume of its users every day.
The exposure guaranteed will boost the visibility of your products, which usually doesn’t happen with a Shopify store.
This strategy is valid for newcomers who want to run a new Print On Demand business without taking care of execution and shipping orders as the whole supply chain is demanded to that marketplace. Furthermore, the promotion is quite guaranteed and you don’t need to pay for running Facebook Ads.
First of all, you need to account for a Print On Demand provider. Previously, we mentioned the most important ones, Printify and Printful.
Once done that, you can choose the most fitting marketplace, which provides the best exposure possible to your listings. Obviously, at first glance, the choice could fall on Amazon. The problem is that the bigger the marketplace you refer to, the lower will be your percentage on future sales.
Pros & Cons
To sum up what we said, the main pros of this method are:
- Higher organic traffic
- No startup costs
- No need for paid ads
While the cons are:
- Higher fees (10-15% per sale)
- Deal with the return policy
- No engagement with customers
- Pay for orders upfront
2. Launching an eCommerce Store
This method requires building from zero a brand new website to host your Print On Demand store.
To do that, you need to buy a new domain name and create a listing of products you’re going to sell.
If your intention is to create a unique brand, we think this method is right for you.
You are the owner of your store, you control everything from the listing to the shipping to the customer service.
It’s more time and money gaining, but way more rewarding and lucrative after a point.
The big advantage is that you can create your own audience and establish a durable engagement with them through email marketing.
The biggest disadvantage is that you have to spend a lot upfront in promoting your store and running Facebook ads.
This method fits most with anyone who has already a well-established engagement through socials. In order to make things less passive, you would still take control of all customer support.
This is why influencers usually create their store simply because they have already tons of followers and they don’t need to run Facebook ads or paying other influencers to promote their products.
On the other hand, we wouldn’t recommend it to newcomers, because often comes out only as a waste of money and time.
Creating Your Website
Creating a brand new shop usually is associated with Shopify. This is still the best platform where to build your store, especially if you want to sell Print On Demand products.
The main Print On Demand services integrated with Shopify are Printful and Printify, and you can easily add them to your store through the Shopify App Store.
Another popular way is to run a wordpress.org website and to self-host your store from there.
Other similar and reliable websites are Woocommerce, Bigcommerce, and Wix.
Pros & Cons
To sum up everything we said, the main pros of this method are:
- Building a customer email list
- Full control of the business
- Bigger margin per sale
- Higher brand awareness
While the cons are:
- No organic traffic
- Higher setting and promotion costs
- Active management of your store
- Higher learning curve
3. Selling Through Print On Demand Services
The third and last strategy is probably the simplest and immediate to adopt.
The problem, however, is that we are facing a completely saturated market like the Print On Demand is right now.
The fact that this is completely free, allowed the creation of new storefronts all over the world.
You just create designs and upload them to these Print On Demand platforms, and they will take care of everything else for you.
On each sale made, you will receive a percentage on royalties, which can vary on the service chosen.
It’s the quintessential form of passive income because once your storefront is ready you don’t have to think about anything else.
However, unlike the previous method, you have to deal with online promotion.
The reason is that those platforms usually don’t have a massive amount of visitors, like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy.
But, however, we truly don’t know a better way to get started like this.
The main task is to create fancy and unique designs, as they will be the only differentiation mark from other sellers.
To do so, our advice is to contact great professionals on Fiverr or on other freelancers’ websites.
Pros & Cons
To sum up what we said, the main pros of this method are:
- Passive Business
- No expenses for orders
- No startup costs
- No customer service
While the cons are:
- Saturated market
- No direct contact with customers
- Copyrights issues
Conclusion
Remember that no matter which method you will choose, if you want to have success you need to develop an entrepreneurship mentality.
It means that you need to put hard work, dedication, and time into what you are doing, no matter what will be circumstances.
Only in this way, you will achieve durable results over the years.
Are you ready to launch your store?
