Recently on the YouTube channel I did a review of three different styles of phone cases available through Printify and then discussed some niche opportunities as well as pricing. In this episode I want to dive into a little bit more about my strategies and thoughts on selling phone cases in your print on demand shop. They are a great opportunity that you could build an entire online store around if you wanted to, so let’s talk about it.
In the review video I started with a review of three styles of phone cases. Let’s start with that and I’ll throw in my thoughts on a couple additional styles that I didn’t cover in the video.
Phone Case Styles for Print on Demand
Currently print on demand phone cases are available from Printify, Printful, and Gooten, but Printify has the largest selection, competitive pricing and they are also my preferred platform for most items so I reviewed three styles all from Printify. The first one was a clear case from provider WOYC. That stands for Who’s On Your Case and they actually make all three of the options I reviewed. Printify also has phone cases from a couple additional providers but WOYC has a few different choices and the best prices on the platform so that’s why I went with them. They also have multiple fulfillment centers in more than one country so international shipping is not a problem for them.
The clear case I ranked third overall out of three, so I guess you’d call that last place. It was not by any means a bad product. In fact, it had the tallest lip of protection around the camera lens area out of the three cases, which I found interesting because otherwise it’s a pretty basic case that doesn’t offer what you would call substantial protection. If you like the clear case look and just want a case that doesn’t add a lot of bulk to your phone, it’s not a bad option. Quality of the case itself was very good although the lip around the front screen wasn’t too tall. It does prevent the phone from resting flat on the screen but if you have an uneven surface, the screen will have some contact. All the ports were clear and buttons were lined up accurately. The reason I ranked it third was because of the print in comparison to the other two. The print is applied to the clear case with the feel of a heat-transfer decal so there is a textural difference between the case and the print area. You can feel that the print is sitting on top of the case, and that can make it feel like something that might wear off or scratch off over time. The print also had some fine lines in it when you look at it close-up, which surprised me because my print file was estimated at over 800dpi in the Printify designer view. It did not have a poor-quality appearance, just not as nice of a print quality compared to the other two cases I reviewed. The printable area is only on the back of the case, it does not wrap around the sides. The price point of these cases is the very competitive, so that does help make the case for offering them in your store.
The second case I had was the Flexi-Case. This is similar in feel to the clear case in that it’s a slim case that offers basic protection, however this one is a different material. It’s a bit more flexible than the clear case, it has a frosted semi-opaque appearance, and the print is applied differently. The full back is the printable area so it also does not wrap around the sides, but the way the print is applied is that it becomes part of the surface of the case rather than sitting on top of it. There’s very little difference in what the case feels like if you run your fingers over the edge and into the print area, it just all feels like part of the case. The colors are also vibrant and print quality is sharp with zero of the fine lines I saw in the clear case print. The lip around the camera lens area is a little less pronounced compared to the clear case but it still does extend beyond the lenses. The lip around the front screen I think was the shortest out of the three but it still kept the screen off the flat surface of my desk effectively. Again, all the ports and buttons were lined up perfectly with my iPhone. The price on these is also very competitive so if I was looking to expand my offering of affordable, basic cases in my shop, I’d probably go with these because the print quality looks great.
My favorite of the three cases was the tough case. This one is two pieces, a flexible TPU liner for shock absorption, and a harder plastic shell for extra protection. It definitely was the most protective out of the three, but at the same time it still isn’t one of those really bulky, thick cases that makes your phone not fit in your pocket. The camera area and front raised edges were somewhere in between the other two styles, offering good protection for both areas. Again all the ports and buttons were lined up correctly. These cases are available in a glossy or matte finish, and I got a matte finish. Even though it’s not shiny, the print quality on this case is exceptional. I think the dpi on my print file was estimated around 600 in the Printify designer view and it came our really sharp and colorful. It just looks like a professionally made product, which is a great indicator that customers will like it. The matte finish can help reduce the look of fingerprints especially on darker colors, so I like to go for the matte finish unless the specific design just looks better with a glossy finish. Overall I had really no complaints about the tough case and I do sell them in my Etsy shop. I have not gotten any negative reviews on them and I’d be happy to have one on my phone too. The price on them is also quite competitive, if you have a Printify Premium account you can price them in the low $20 range and get 30% profit margin, I think the regular price would bump suggested retail to around $25. If you charge for shipping instead of going with free shipping, you can drop that list price a couple dollars and charge that amount for shipping because the shipping cost on all these from WOYC is only $2.50.
Now lets talk about a couple other options you have that I didn’t have time to work into the video. I think that actually came out to be my longest video to date and probably was a stretch for what someone wants to watch on YouTube because it came in around 28 minutes. But there was a lot of information I wanted to share and I didn’t want to skimp on the review of the products. I had filmed a segment covering additional options in the Printify catalog but it didn’t make the cut. One of the other cases that WOYC offers is a biodegradable case. I think these things are really cool. They’re made from compressed PLA plant polymer and bamboo fibers. PLA or Polylactic Acid is a thermoplastic polymer derived from natural sources like sugar cane or corn starch. It’s a renewable product and biodegradable, which makes it a terrific option if you have a print on demand shop focused on eco-friendly products or niches. These things will literally disappear if you put one in the ground for just 160 days! Of course, that means their useful life as a phone case is not going to be as long as one of those tough cases. They offer basic protection similar to the Flexi-cases and the general expectation for useful life is 1-2 years. This means they won’t be for everyone and that’s ok. It’s truly a niche product but someone who is interested in having a phone case that is safe for the environment won’t mind having to get a new one every year or two. Some people also get a new phone every year or two so they’d need a new case anyway. One thing to keep in mind with these cases is that they are not a standard black or white color. They are a natural color similar to a canvas tote bag, like a beige color. The print area is the full back but the base color will at minimum be visible around all the sides. Gooten also offers these same cases and Printful offers a biodegradable case made of compressed recycled materials and plants, but their base color is like a dark grey or black with some speckling from the various ingredients. So you’ve got a couple options out there for biodegradable cases and I think they’re worth looking into if you think that type of product is a good fit for your store. The pricing for them on Printify is similar to the tough cases, but because they are a specialty product you can probably get away with a little higher profit margin than a volume product. It’s probably start with a price based on 40% profit margin and adjust up or down from there based on what the competition is offering.
Search Volume & Phone Manufacturers
Normally I would just do some analysis of search volume at a high level using both Google Trends and Sale Samurai to get an idea of the online demand for the product I’m discussing. But with phone cases, there’s an interesting complication because of the way the smartphone market has developed since the early 2000s. While there is search volume in general on google and on Etsy for the simple phrase “phone case”, that’s really not how people search for a phone case when they’re looking to buy one. You probably already know where I’m going with this. Phone cases are specific to the kind of phone you have, and there are two main categories of smartphones: iPhones made by Apple and Android phones made by several companies like Samsung. But customers often search for the exact model they have in their search phrase, not just the manufacturer name. So it’s more likely that someone will search for “iPhone 13 case” or “Samsung galaxy s22 case” rather than just “iPhone case” or “Samsung case”. This presents a bit of a problem for us as sellers of phone cases, because we can’t enter dozens of different keyword phrases in our title and tags to match the specific models that people are searching for. However, one of these is easier to work with than the other. I did mention this in the video but I want to explain it a bit more here.
Let’s first consider some things that impact Android phone cases in the print on demand space. Print on demand providers do offer cases for Samsung phones. They often have less variety compared to iPhone cases, but Printify has some good options available for Samsung phones. I’ve seen a couple options for the Google Pixel phones as well, and in the US at least Samsung and Pixel phones are probably the most popular Android phones. But in other countries, there are some other companies that also have popular Android phones and your selection of print on demand cases for them doesn’t seem to be very large currently. So that’s one consideration – when you target Android phone users, you have to target smaller segments of the market at one time with your keywords. Think of it like this – if all phone case searches are represented by a pie chart, the first split of the pie is between iPhone and Android. But within that Android portion, the searches are going to be further split between multiple manufacturers who all offer different phone models. Each split means you’re targeting a smaller portion of the overall market. Another important consideration, especially for Etsy sellers, is how long your keyword phrases are going to be. Generally with your keyword tags and title you are combining a few words specific to the design niche with words that describe your product. Let’s pretend the design was pizza. You made a pattern or graphic that is perfect for pizza lovers. You of course need to have pizza in your keyword phrase but you also need to be specific to the product to show up in relevant searches. So one of your keyword phrases might be “pizza Samsung phone case”. Of course we’d want to research the search volume and competition but let’s assume that this is a good phrase to use. I’m sure it’s not. This might work for your title, but wait a second, we can’t use this in our tags on Etsy. Etsy only allows 20 characters per tag and this one is 21. We could shorten it to “pizza Samsung case” and probably still match some searches so that will do. But if we ever wanted to throw in a phrase specific to the newer phone models, we’re going to be over 20 characters every time. “Pizza Samsung galaxy s22 case” is just way too long because of how long the names of their phone models are and there’s nothing we can do about that. So we have to keep it shorter and more general in the tags, but that might not yield the best results. These are some of the reasons why I tend to only offer my print on demand cases for iPhones.
In the US, as of Q1 2021 (yes that’s last year) iPhones held a 55% market share of the smartphone marketplace. That’s a huge chunk of the consumer base to market phone cases to with just a few keywords. Let’s use our example of pizza. “Pizza iPhone case” has no problem fitting within the 20 character limit for Etsy tags, and I can create several variations of that to fill up all 13 tags. I can even target the most recent phone models by adding things like “pizza iPhone 13 case” because the names of apple phone models are so short. Again I’m sure that specific phrase is a terrible example but the point is, the iPhone name is much easier to work with when it comes to keyword phrases, and it happens to align with over half the consumer base in the US smartphone market. I have nothing against Android phones and I had them for years before I got an iPhone, I just find it easier to sell to iPhone users.
There are two caveats I want to add here. First, if enough sellers follow my thinking on this then the Android phone case market will be under-served, presenting good sales opportunities. Just because I haven’t figured out a way to successfully target Samsung phone case shoppers at a consistent volume doesn’t mean it can’t be done – in fact I’m 100% sure it can be done. Like I said, I just find it easier to market to iPhone users on the Etsy platform. The second caveat is that I’m fully aware that outside the US, the iPhone does not have the majority market share of the smartphone market. Android has a much larger market share in several other countries around the world. But I can’t help but point out that even though phones running Android OS might have a larger market share than iPhones in other countries, there are still multiple manufacturers making those Android devices. So the market for android phone cases is still fragmented because people simply don’t search for “android phone case”. The only market fragmentation for iPhone cases is the phone model, there is no extra layer due to multiple manufacturers.
Mockups
One other topic I didn’t get to discuss quite as much as I wanted to in the YouTube review video was creating mock-ups for your print on demand phone cases, so let’s take a minute and consider that now.
Phone cases can be a difficult product to find really good mock-ups for, especially because the default mock-ups provided by a lot of platforms are not really the best. They’re usually on a plain white or transparent background, and they usually don’t provide very good context mock-ups meaning the phone case, like in a scene, in a setting. However, there are some good quality phone case mock-ups out there there are just a couple of things to watch out for. The primary thing is just to make sure that you take into account what customers are looking for when it comes to phone cases. Phone cases tend to be one of those products that customers really pay attention to detail.
When they’re looking at the product photos, you know, they’re looking at the corners of it, they’re looking at the print of it, they’re looking at the texture of it. They’re looking at all of those details when they select a phone case, because those are the main features of the product. So don’t fall into the trap of just creating a mock-up photo with any old phone case if it doesn’t actually accurately represent the product that the customer’s going to get. For example, the tough case, my favorite phone case out of the three that I reviewed from Printify – that case has a two layer design. It’s made of the flexible inner layer and the hard shell outer layer. Now the softer inner layer is actually visible on the top and the bottom of the case, the hard shell doesn’t completely wrap over the top and the bottom. So if I use a product mock-up image that I find on, on a site, like Placeit, or if I purchase an individual mock-up from Creative Market or something like that, then I don’t want to use one of those mock-ups if it shows the hard shell, the hard outside of the case, completely wrapping around the top and the bottom because that’s not what the customer will receive. They may even notice that that mock-up doesn’t match the other mock-ups that are in the listing. And that doesn’t make a customer feel very confident about purchasing the product if not all the mock-ups look the same. So really keep an eye out for mock-ups that accurately represent whichever model or style of phone case it is that you’re offering in your listing.
If you can’t find any of that work, one thing that I recommend doing is getting creative using either Canva or your photo editing software to take the plain white background mock-ups that you get from your print on demand platform and place the phone case into some type of context. For example, on websites like Pixabay or Pexels they offer a lot of free commercial use photos and scene settings and things like that, a lot of really good commercial use images. And Canva has a huge catalog of them as well. So look for some photos that are just basically like the surface of a desk or the surface of a table with a little bit of context in a scene, and then take the mock-up photo that’s on the plain white background from your print on demand platform and use your photo editing software or use Canva to delete the white background, just get rid of it so it’s completely transparent around the phone case. Then take the photo that you want to use as the background and resize, you know, the size of the phone case image so that it looks like your phone case is sitting on a desk or sitting on a table, something like that.
So that’s one additional way you can get some more context type professional looking mock-ups into your listing if you can’t find a good mock-up that’s a perfect match for the actual product on Placeit or on one of the other sites where you can make a pre-made mock-up.
Conclusion
And that’s it for this episode, I hope you found some of this information helpful because I wanted to share a lot of this in that video I did for the YouTube channel, but really just didn’t want to make that video super, super long so I thought this would be a good place to add some of that additional context that I didn’t get to share. Don’t forget to subscribe to the POD Insights podcast on your favorite platform and head on over to podinsights.net. There is an article transcript for every episode so you can read through it and use the links to get to resources if you’d rather read any episodes instead of listening. And don’t forget to check out the POD Insights YouTube channel as well.
Thanks for reading.