I have been selling something on Etsy since I was old enough to have my own bank account (approximately 12 years, yikes..) I’ve sold everything from clay figurines to found vintage to wooden peg dolls. Although I love hands-on creating, I have always struggled to keep up with an Etsy business due to all of the time demands involved, especially related to packaging and shipping products. All of this changed when I discovered… print on demand!
What is print on demand?
Print-on-demand is basically a term for online services that allow you to design t-shirts, baby clothes, mugs, home decor, (virtually anything!) from your computer/mobile device and sell those products in your own corner of the internet (in our case: Etsy) without ever touching any inventory. Print on demand is completely legit on Etsy, as long as you make your production partners known in your profile and as long as your designs are your own.
Benefits of Print on Demand
- No up- front cost. With POD, you do not purchase any product until it’s already sold in your shop.
- No inventory. You don’t have to store 100 mugs on your dining room table until they sell.
- No shipping products. That’s right, you don’t have to go out and buy poly mailers and bubble wrap.
- Mostly passive source of income. Although POD does require quite a bit of work initially, it’s pretty passive income once you have a shop filled with products.
Challenges with Print on Demand
- You don’t actually see the product. This can give Type A’s some serious anxiety. With POD, you must trust that your fulfillment partner is doing a good job creating your orders. Sometimes you may not know that there is an issue with a product until you receive an unsatisfactory review. Ouch.
- Some amount of design / trend savvy / tech skills are required. These skills can be easily learned!
Step 1: Decide on a product and POD platform.
There are several POD platforms out there and this number is steadily climbing. The ones that I am most familiar with are Printful, Printify, and Gooten. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. You will want to look at prices for the items you will be selling, quality reviews, shipping costs, and order fulfillment times when deciding on a POD partner.
I advise starting your POD journey by designing and selling one product. This will allow you to really niche down on one target audience to get in the swing of things. Many people start with mugs or t-shirts but there are truly hundreds of POD products out there to choose from.
Step 2: Create your designs.
Canva is super easy and intuitive to use for designing!
A great design is the key to success with print-on-demand. You will need to hone in on what is trendy and in demand when considering the designs you want to create. Remember, you can create designs that YOU love all day but if there is not a customer base wanting those designs then you’re not going to be very successful with your shop. Consider designs that customers are after (and check out my free Trendspotters’ Field Guide for help with identifying trendy designs!)
Think you need a fancy software setup to make awesome, money-making designs? Negative! I make all of my designs directly from my phone. Apps like Canva, Bazaart, and PicMonkey are great for this! Some of my best-selling products are simply TEXT! If you want to add images, one thing to remember is that you cannot use any copyrighted images in your design. Creative Fabrica is a great place to get images and even has an entire category of designs that are deemed okay to use on POD products. Just be sure to check the licensing info on each image when you download and ensure that it’s okay for your purposes.
Update: I recently discovered Kittl and I’m in love! There is a small fee, but it’s so worth it. I have been able to make beautiful designs on Kittl with very little effort. You can even make mockups (covered in the next step) within the Kittl app.
One other thing to remember when designing for your products- make sure that there is no background on your image. Otherwise, when you upload the design on a product the white background will be there too! Many design apps will remove the background for you.
Step 4: Make a Mockup of your Design
Maybe you’ve heard the term “mockup” if you have dabbled in the print-on-demand space, but a mock-up is basically just a photo showing your design on a product. There are tons of ways to create a mock-up photo, but essentially you will just need a photo of a blank product along with the transparent (background-less) image of your design to put on the product.
Your mock-up should look as close as possible to how the actual product will appear, otherwise you may have some unhappy customers!
Step 5: Put your designs on your product and in your store.
Once your designs are created, it’s time to put them on your product and out into the world. Most POD platforms make this very easy- you simply upload your design and can instantly see what it looks like on your product. From there, you may choose variations of your product that you wish to offer in your store (like color, size, etc). Remember to carefully consider the variations that you offer. For example, if your design text is black then offering a black shirt as an option is probably not a great idea since the design would not show up.
Once you upload your product to the POD site, you will then need to add it to your Etsy shop. If you’re using a POD platform that integrates with Etsy then this is super easy. Most of the popular platforms do integrate, meaning your products will automatically be pushed to your store. And more importantly- your orders will automatically be sent to the POD for fulfillment. Once you have your items added to your shop from the POD platform, make sure to upload your mockup photo(s) as the default photo. Most POD platforms offer a “mockup photo” but they are usually very bland, so I advise making your own (as discussed in the previous step).
Even if your POD platform integrates with Etsy and automatically pushes orders from Etsy to the POD, I recommend keeping an eye on this! I have had orders not pull from Etsy to the POD platform before, meaning the customer ends up waiting a very long time without receiving their order and they are usually not very happy!
Step 5: Keep your business sustainable.
Although this business is mostly passive once your products are posted, you still need to attend to any customer service issues that may arise. There are times customers may need the address changed after a purchase or the color of a t-shirt they ordered is out of stock. It’s important to monitor your shop / POD platform for these issues.
And most importantly… keep creating! Success doesn’t happen overnight and the more you practice, the greater your POD skills will become. Great designs are the key to standing out!
If you have questions about Etsy and Print on Demand, feel free to leave them in the comments.