What is Print on Demand and How Can I Make Money With It?
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I don’t know whether you have ever heard of print on demand, but it’s one of the best types of E-Commerce businesses available to entrepreneurs right now. People are making relatively easy money selling designs placed on everything from t-shirts to beach towels.
What Do I Need to Start With Print on Demand?
If you’re interested in making extra money selling products with a little work and even less cash, read on! If you are interested in making a full-time salary selling with print on demand, get ready to roll up your sleeves my friend and keep reading.
With print on demand, you sell your products with the design of your choice, either on your own website, through a web-based print on demand company, or some other platform.
You can either create or pick a design you’ve purchased, choose the items you’d like to sell, publish the items for sale, and whether you decide to open your own store or not, market your products.
That’s it. Granted, this is a 10,000 foot high overview, but this is basically a simplified version of the process. The best thing of all? There is no inventory because the products you are selling don’t even really exist until an order is placed. Is your mind blown yet? Either way, let’s take a deeper dive into this.
How Do I Start a Print on Demand Business
1. What is a Niche?
Before you open your store you may want to consider choosing a niche. A niche is a group of people to whom you plan to sell and market your products. It’s better to be a big fish in a small pond, than to be a small fish in a big pond. If you sell to a large group, like people who love wildlife, for example, you are speaking to a huge demographic.
Scale that down to people who have an affinity for dolphins and you have an audience that is small enough to wrap your arms around. I mean, how many people are targeting the dolphin niche? By the same token, do not choose a niche that is too narrow. A group of people who love dolphins living off of the coast of South Carolina may be too narrow.
You want to make sure you have a viable group of buyers available to you in large enough numbers to bring you a profit. You don’t have to choose a niche for print on demand but it is much easier to market to a group that you belong to, or a group that you know something about.
Do you have any hobbies or passions that you can talk about all day? Think about creating products for people in those groups. As an insider you know that these people want, need, think and talk about. Use that to your advantage.
2. Print on Demand Products: What Can I Sell?
Since you do not have to manage inventory, the sky is the limit here! Do you love baseball caps? Mugs? Puzzles? Flip flops? Well, all of these items and way more can be sold using the print on demand model. All you have to do is find a supplier that sells these types of items.
If you decide to create your own store and website you need a supplier like Printify, Printful, Gearbubble, or Gooten. There are many others but these are a few to get you started with your research. Be sure to select one that carries the types of products you would like to sell. If you find products from multiple sites you can use more than one supplier.
Just make sure you are able to arrange shipping from multiple suppliers in a way that will not confuse your customers.
If you have your own website the print on demand company you choose will allow you to select a product, upload your design, and ship the items directly to your customer.
Your customer pays you and you in turn pay the company to begin processing the order (depending on the print on demand company you use, this part may be automated and processing will begin once the order is placed).
You do not have to ship the items yourself and you do not have to actually make the product. You do have to e sure the customer does actually receive the product and you will be responsible for any customer service issues that may arise.
What if you decide you do not want to create a website? This may be the best decision for newbies. With your own website you will have to drive traffic to the site. This can be tough unless you already have an audience.
If you for example, using the dolphin niche, offer dolphin excursions to tourists, you have a “warm” audience who may be very interested in purchasing dolphin merchandise. If you don’t have that audience, you will have to get that audience to your website with free and paid advertising. That’s where print on demand companies come in.
3. Print on Demand Companies
Print on demand companies like Redbubble, Zazzle, Teepublic, and Spreadshirt offer the ability to begin selling your print on demand products without your own website. The first two steps are the same, you may want to select a niche and you’ll have to decide what you want to sell.
But after that, all you have to do is upload your designs to the respective website. With companies like Spreadshirt, Zazzle, etc. you will have the opportunity to design your own store on their platforms. I would suggest you take the time to do this to show potential customers you are taking the business seriously. An unfinished store can turn customers away.
Turn to free resources like Canva, Creative Market, Creative Fabrica, and Placeit.net to create a simple logo and background to upload to your store. Each website will give you the proper measurements so you can be sure your designs are properly optimized.
Once you have designed your shop and uploaded your designs, you wait on that first sale (the most exciting part!). The print on demand company will then create the product, ship the product, and handle customer service if necessary.
The best part is they handle marketing so you don’t have to spend a lot of money to drive traffic to your products. You can and should spread the word about your products, but even if you don’t, these companies attract millions of customers every month due to their own marketing efforts.
The larger sites spend their advertising budgets to help you get sales. The down side is you only receive a small commission for each sale. The commissions you receive vary by company and by product type, but this information is laid out on each company’s website.
Should I Create a Print on Demand Business?
Without a doubt I would suggest using a print on demand company if you are just starting out. Sure, your profit margin will be smaller but this will allow you do three things:
1) learn what types of design sell before committing to the costs and energy it takes to launch a website;
2) learn how to market your products. Even if you are selling on another platform you can and should advertise your products using social media and whatever other free traffic you have at your disposal; and
3) Since none of these sites require exclusivity you can upload the same designs to many print on demand company platforms. Start making sales, gain an audience, get a grasp on marketing and then I would consider a stand-alone store.
Whichever you decide, the main thing is to just get started. You will learn as you go and trial and error will guide you.
Is Print on Demand Profitable?
Print on demand can be profitable and like anything else, the more time you put into your print on demand business, the more you can make. The amount you make depends on how you set up your business.
Commissions with Print on Demand Sites
If you’re selling print on demand products through a print on demand platform you’ll be paid a small commission for each product. Different products tend to command a different percentage and while some print on demand companies give you the flexibility to increase or decrease the percentage, the commission for each product is still relatively small.
If you do increase the commission, you’ll receive more revenue for each sale, but the product will also be more expensive. Be careful not to price your products so high that nobody wants to buy it!
Selling Print on Demand On Your Own Website
If you want to make the most revenue, selling on your own print on demand website is the way to go, but (and this is a big but) you will have to bring in your own traffic. One of the biggest benefits to selling on a print on demand site is the fact that you benefit from their traffic and marketing efforts. If you open a store with Shopify for example, you will have to use marketing to attract customers to your shop.
In addition to marketing, you will also have to handle customer service for the products. Depending on your refund policy, customers who want a refund will be looking to you for resolution so consider this before opening your store.
Selling Print on Demand With a Shop Like Etsy
If you don’t want the work of having to handle marketing but want to be able to earn more revenue for each sale, selling with an Etsy integration may be your best option. An Etsy integration means you open an Etsy shop and link it with a print on demand company like Prinftul or Printify.
It’s free to open a store on Etsy but there is a .20 cent charge to list each item. Etsy also charges a 5% transaction fee on the sale price (including the shipping price you set) and if you accept payments through Etsy Payments they also collect a 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee when an item is sold. Not bad because you don’t have to pay anything above the .20 when you list your item.
This way you can benefit from the millions of visits the Etsy marketplace receives every month. You’ll still have to handle customer service but you can set your own prices and share links to your shop to bring in the most traffic possible.
10 Best Print on Demand Companies
There are many print on demand companies out there to choose from. There really is no best company, it depends on what you want to sell, where you and your customers are located, and the terms and conditions of each platform.
The following print on demand companies are 10 of the most popular and widely used. Some of them give you the option to sell on their platform with your own shop. Some of them only work as the supplier of goods and must be used with either your own website or through an integration with a platform like Etsy.
Selling on Redbubble
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
Feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration
Selling on Printful
No platform for selling products
No feed to share your products on your own website
Etsy integration
Selling on Printify
No platform for selling products
No feed to share your products on your own website
Etsy integration
Selling on Spreadshirt
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
Feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration (you can integrate Spreadshirt’s SPOD app to your Etsy shop through Shopify)
Selling on Zazzle
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
Feed to share your products on your own website using RSS
No Etsy integration
Selling on Teespring
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
Feed to share your products on Facebook
No Etsy integration
Selling on Teepublic
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
No feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration
Selling on Cafepress
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
No feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration
Selling on Sunfrog
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
No feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration
Selling on Society6
Platform for selling a wide variety of products
No feed to share your products on your own website
No Etsy integration
So what is print on demand? For you it can be a great way to start a new business with little to no investment up front. If you need help deciding which business to start, try this fun 3-Day challenge! Come away with the perfect business idea..