What is a print on demand business? Is it the same thing as drop shipping? And how do you get into print on demand to sell your designs? In this episode I’m going to answer those questions and more about what is involved with a print on demand business and what you need to get involved in print on demand in 2022.
What is Print on Demand?
Years ago, if you wanted to sell a product with a design on it, say a t-shirt, you had to have a manufacturer (domestic or overseas) make your product in all the necessary sizes and colors and ship them to you so that you could offer them for sale in a physical store or list them for sale online. You had to pay up front for the inventory, have a place to store it, and handle shipping if you were selling online. This traditional retail model presents several barriers to an individual looking to sell their designs on a product, many of which are financial barriers. A print on demand business model does not, by default, alleviate all of these barriers.
Print on demand does not have to be a drop shipping business, but print on demand combined with drop shipping has become so popular in the last 5-10 years that people tend to associate the two now. However, print on demand by itself really just means that instead of having an inventory of finished products, you have an inventory of blank products and print designs on them only after you receive an order. This makes your inventory more flexible, because if one design is selling more than another, you’re not stuck with a finished product that’s not selling. You just print the design that people are ordering on your inventory of blank items. However this does mean you need the printing capabilities to do this, because you don’t have a manufacturer doing it for you. Can you do this yourself without being a large commercial business? Technically you can, but the scale of your business will be limited. There are products available now like the Cricut system for printing on apparel as well as methods like heat-transfer decals that are not high cost when compared to a commercial garment printing setup like a Kornit Atlas DTG system, and they’re also fairly simple to learn how to use. However as I mentioned, if your business starts to grow, scaling up will be challenging with these at-home methods. There are some Etsy sellers that do their own print on demand production though, and this type of business fits in well with the “handmade” culture of the Etsy platform.
So now we come to print on demand combined with drop shipping. This has become a very popular business model in the last few years because online platforms have emerged that eliminate almost every barrier for an individual to offer designs for sale on a multitude of products without requiring any of the overhead expense of the traditional retail business model. This is what platforms like Printify and Printful allow us to do, and in the earlier episodes from this season I’ve reviewed several platforms and discussed how they work.
This business model combines the best elements of drop shipping and print on demand for you, the business owner. A platform like Printify offers you a catalog of blank items you can list for sale in several online selling platforms like Etsy or even your own website. You upload your designs on any number of products and publish the listings in your online store. When a customer buys something, the order is transferred to Printify which they then pass along to the print provider, a company that specializes in printing custom designs at high volume for individual orders. They make each item to order, pack and ship it directly to your customer. All you have to do is pay for the order. Then you take the revenue from your selling platform and keep the profit. Now, there are definitely things that come into play that you could consider overhead, such as seller fees on platforms like Etsy, advertising fees for things like Facebook ads, and potentially hosting fees if you’re selling on your own site. However when compared to the expense of the more traditional retail model it’s like night & day. With a platform like Etsy, there is no up-front cost at all, it’s only when you make a sale that you incur seller fees. You also don’t have to have any physical space to manage inventory or risk buying finished products that may not sell. An additional perk is that because you don’t own any inventory, you don’t have to do any complicated inventory tracking for tax purposes. You still have to pay income tax on your business profits, but it’s less complex without the inventory piece. Essentially this business model is like working as a designer for your own company, but you have other partners that handle the physical part of the business for you. It makes it possible for any individual to act as a sole proprietor and sell high-quality printed items through several online platforms without the risks of starting a traditional retail business. This means it’s a terrific opportunity for literally anyone.
You don’t have to be a designer by trade to be good at creating designs that will sell, and you don’t have to have a lot of business knowledge to get started. In fact, the business model works so well that larger companies have taken notice and started whole print on demand platforms to attract artists & designers to offer their designs for a commission. This would be platforms like Redbubble and Merch by Amazon. Now’s a good time to address those models and the difference between them and starting your own business.
Types of Print on Demand Platforms
Essentially there are two types of print on demand business you can participate in. The first is one that you run entirely yourself, where you control the products, pricing, advertising, branding, customer service and selecting who fulfills your orders. This type includes selling on some existing online marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon Seller Center. Selling through your own website is also in this category, and many people do this with services like Shopify to power their online store. This type of print on demand business gives you lots of control and potential to make healthy profit margins because you decide which print on demand companies to work with, what products to sell, and what price to charge customers. However with more control also comes more responsibility and effort required. Selling through existing online marketplaces means you don’t have to create shopping traffic because it already exists, but it also means you will pay seller fees to the platform. For example, Etsy charges transaction fees, payment processing fees, and listing fees when you sell an item, which reduces your profit. However there’s no escaping fees if you’re selling online, because even if you sell on your own website by using a service like Shopify, you still are charged fees for payment processing. You may have overall lower fees on your own site, but you have to generate shopping traffic since the general public is not already aware of your site. Both options can be terrific business opportunities. Some business owners begin selling their designs on a marketplace like Etsy and then start their own online store once their brand acquires some recognition and a customer base.
The second type of print on demand business you can participate in is basically a print on demand “program” for designers. Sites like Redbubble, Teepublic, Spreadshirt, and Merch by Amazon fall into this category. They provide an existing online marketplace with a set of products and a user interface for designers to upload designs. All you have to do is create an account and start uploading designs. If someone buys an item with your design, you earn a commission or royalty. These sites give you some control over the amount of commission you earn – for example, Redbubble lets you adjust the percentage commission you want to earn for each type of product. Merch by Amazon lets you change the actual listing price for your products. However, this is a little bit of a false sense of control because your items will simply not sell if you set your price or commission rate too high, as there are hundreds or thousands of other designers with similar products at more competitive prices. You have no control over the cost of the product, so offering a more competitive price to hopefully sell more volume means you have to accept a lower commission. Because these programs are open to anyone, the platforms can be pretty saturated with designs that are similar, or sometimes outright copies of other original designs. However, there are some benefits. The platform handles everything for you – advertising, listing management, mockups, order fulfillment, and customer service. This means you can focus on creating & uploading designs and collect the royalties with less of the admin work. It can be difficult to get into some design niches because of the sheer volume of competition on these platforms though.
Can you do both? Of course you can. I personally sell on Etsy as my main business but I also list designs on Redbubble, Teepublic, and Spreadshirt. My Etsy business takes up most of my print on demand time and effort but I do get some monthly royalties from the other sites so when I have the time I also upload to them.
Types of Print on Demand Products
One of the great things about the print on demand seller platforms like Printify and Printful is that they offer a huge catalog of products you can sell. That doesn’t, however, mean you want to offer hundreds of different products in your store.
Generally speaking, there are some “core” print on demand products that work well for all types of designs. This is because the printing methods available today work really well with the type of product and customers will have a hard time telling the difference between a print on demand product and one that was mass-produced at a large manufacturing facility. These would be items like t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, posters, and art prints. When it comes to apparel items, the types of commercial printing equipment that print on demand companies use have come a long way in the last 10-15 years. Most are using a Direct-To-Garment or DTG printing system that sprays ink directly onto a garment like a huge inkjet printer using high-definition print heads. These machines turn out high quality images that look great and last a long time. This means the graphic t-shirts you sell online look just as good as the ones a consumer sees in a store at the mall. Mugs commonly use a print method called sublimation printing, where the image basically becomes a part of the mug’s finish so it looks great and stands up to repeat washing. Again, customers won’t be able to tell the difference between your mugs and the ones they buy from a major retailer. This “core” set of products are also items that consistently sell well with many types of designs. Everyone loves t-shirts, a comfy sweatshirt, or a classic mug and they make great gifts as well. These products also lend themselves to repeat purchases because they’re not considered to be expensive by customers (depending on your pricing of course). No matter what niche you sell in or who your target customer demographic is, you can most likely sell these items.
Then there are lots of products that can be printed on demand, but cater more to specific niches or types of online stores. In Printify’s product catalog, you can find items like wireless phone chargers, headphones, all-over-print bathrobes, shower curtains, car seat covers, and lots more. However just because they offer these products, it doesn’t mean they’re a great fit for every business to sell. Customers tend to be a little more choosy over some of these products, either because they buy them less frequently or because they tend to cost more. For example, I’ve never bought more than one shower curtain in a 12-month period. I just don’t need a new one that often and I don’t think that’s only me. So I wouldn’t build a whole online store of just shower curtains because people don’t buy them nearly as often as they buy a t-shirt or mug. Some other products, like the wireless phone charger, isn’t a good fit for all types of designs. If you create designs for niches that include customers who are likely to buy wireless phone chargers, it might make sense to offer a few. But let’s say you create a lot of text-based designs that are funny sayings about retirement or being retired. Those designs are not a good fit for a wireless phone charger because text based designs don’t work well in small formats and generally speaking, very few people would look for that design on a phone charger vs. a t-shirt or mug.
The bottom line though is that you will have a large variety of products to choose from for your print on demand business with these platforms.
Selling Without Seeing
Can you really sell these types of products without ever seeing them? That is, after all, the whole idea of a drop shipping business model, but something may seem a little odd at first about selling apparel items this way. Well, in short, this type of business has exploded in popularity in the last few years for one main reason: it works! Several online business with thousands of sales (I personally have over 5,200 sales in my Etsy shop) use print on demand drop shipping for apparel items and show no signs of slowing down.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you never run into a customer service issue. Selling apparel comes with some inherent risk of customers purchasing the wrong size or not liking the product when they receive it. However, one of the main drawbacks to the print on demand drop shipping model is that it’s not a good fit for the process of returns or exchanges. In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s the worst part of the model. Why? Because every item is made to order, your production partner does not want any finished item back. Most of them will hold a returned item temporarily in case it needs to be shipped out to a different address but after a short time, they will discard it. And because you likely operate out of your home, if you have a customer send you something directly that means giving out your home address. But the biggest issue is that you have to pay for a return shipping label, erasing the profit you made on the sale, just to receive an item back that you probably can’t re-sell (because it’s most likely been worn). This does not mean you can’t be successful, you just need to know a few strategies to avoid getting bad reviews from customers. That’s a conversation for another episode, but the bottom line is that it’s not a deal-breaker.
Conclusion
Ultimately, print on demand is a great business opportunity for anyone interested in starting their own business who likes to create designs, even basic ones. You have multiple options for getting into the print on demand business model, but the great thing is that none of the options require a high up-front investment to get started. In fact, most of them are completely free to start. If you want to know more about getting started in print on demand for free, check out the previous episode of the podcast. And don’t forget to check out the POD Insights YouTube channel as well.
Thanks for reading.