Hey, everyone. So recently, a lot of people have been asking me a very good question.
"Sarah, with everything going on right now, is it really a good time to open an online store? Are people actually buying anything?"
And I genuinely think that this is a very good question to be asking.
To be honest, if I was an industry outsider just reading the news, all I'd see is this.
We're in a recession, maybe a depression. Businesses are going broke. Nobody is making money. Businesses are, instead, losing money.
But here is the thing, e-commerce, it's in a really unique position right now.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, e-commerce was set to erode and take over more and more of offline retail and grow by about 50% from 2020 to 2023.
Instead, what has happened is that the coronavirus has sped up that process,
which is why e-commerce is one of the only industries set to grow in 2020 rather than shrink.
Basically, if you're selling the right products right now, you can make a lot of money.
In fact, I'm going to be showing you one brand new product that you could be selling
with the print-on-demand service, Printful, that's making millions of dollars a week.
But here's the thing. You can't just sell anything and everything in this new bizarre world that we're living in.
Nope. A good example of that is Ratio Clothing. They sell mid-range professional clothing for men.
Ratio's clothing sales are absolutely tanking, but you know whose sales are through the roof?
Amazon, whose stock prices have completely soared, and it's not because of mid- to high-end clothing that they're selling. Oh, no.
It's because people are buying baking and cooking equipment, so that they can make their own bread at home.
It's because people are buying their pets new products as they spend time with them at home.
It's because people are buying new gaming gear so that they can play Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy VII at home.
Home, Home, Home!
People are at home.
I have a friend who has a moderately large Amazon brand of cooking utensils,
and he said that right now his sales on Amazon are like Christmas sales.
So thus, it's honestly not really a shock that Ratio Clothing is struggling, since well,
who needs a nice new dress shirt when you're now working at home in your lounge?
And it's not exactly a shock then that as long as you're selling the right products,
people are snapping them up, even if they have less discretionary spending.
As of me filming this video, I've been in a pretty serious government enforced lockdown
here in New Zealand in my house for the past three weeks,
and the only way that I can get anything is if it's delivered.
So my wonderful viewers and subscribers,
how can we take these new trends and cultural shifts
in the strange new world that we are now living in
to make even more money online in the e-commerce space?
Well, that's what we're going to discuss today,
and I'm going to be giving you 10 print-
on-demand products that you could be selling
right now in super hot niches.
And the first one we're going to discuss, it is huge.
Product one, neck gaiter from Printful.
So this is their first product that I
discussed earlier in the video that's made millions
of dollars in its first week of launch.
Printful have released neck gaiters.
Now, this isn't a mask, of course.
It's kind of like a tubular bandana, so normally in
going on, say, a trek through the desert.
But now, of course, you wear it when you go on a trip to the supermarket.
At the very beginning of the pandemic,
selling something like this was actually really
risky, because first of all, it made it look
like you were trying to profit from the health crisis.
And second of all, you risked getting accused
of spreading health misinformation by spreading
false health benefits of masks, and so you were really
risking getting your store shut down and your ad account
shut down. But now in Facebook, ads for things like masks
and neck gaiters are everywhere, and frankly, it's
because they have to be.
More and more face covers are being mandated.
Selling something like this is no longer profiteering.
It's an essential good now and a standard clothing item.
But of course, just because you are mandated by law to wear a
facial covering doesn't mean that everyone wants to have to wear a surgical mask.
Buying a face mask right now in New Zealand is practically impossible,
and plus I didn't want to buy surgical masks and take them away from
healthcare workers, so I asked my mother to make me one, and
it's super cute. And to be honest with you, wearing something
cute like this is way more uplifting and way more fun, which
is why I'm honestly not surprised that this has been such a hot item.
I've been in touch with Printful who recommended to me that I
start selling this, which I definitely plan to. They told me
that in the first week of launching this product that their
merchants have sold over 100,000 units of it in just one week.
That is millions of dollars in sales, and so this is by far
their biggest product launch ever, I'm fairly certain.
Now, for all of my new viewers out there, Printful is what you
call a print-on-demand company. All you do a sign-up for
a free account with them, choose which products you want
to sell, such as this, and then upload a piece of artwork
that you want to be placed onto it. For neck gaiters
patterns work really well, and so once you've uploaded
the artwork, Printful then creates and keeps a digital copy of your product.
You can then list the product in your store, and when
someone buys it for, say, $24.95, Printful would then
automatically receive the order and your customer's details.
The factory will then print the design onto the product,
package it up, and ship it out to your customer. They'll
charge you the base price of $12.95 for it, leaving you to keep the difference as profit.
This service is called print-on-demand because, well,
that's literally what it is. Products are literally made
for customers on demand as they order them by buying
them. And so all of the products that I'm going to be
discussing in this video are print-on-demand products
because they're very easy and low cost for anybody to
start selling online. So let's move on to the next one.
Product two, Cooking Aprons from Printify. Man, it's been
an absolutely crazy time right now for anyone who is in
the cooking niche. I already mentioned my friend. As I
said, his Amazon business, which might do around $100,000
to $150,000 in sales a month, is currently doing $300,000
plus right now. His biggest problem is meeting the insane
unexpected demand, and that's a problem I bet a lot of people would like to be having right now.
To be honest, I don't think anyone is particularly
surprised that cooking has exploded right now. There are
so many societal shifts that mean that cooking is going
to be exploding as a niche for a long time. Firstly, for
many the only activity that they're really allowed to do
outside is grocery shopping. So buying baking supplies is
something that people can actually still do.
Secondly, a lot of food is selling out.
I know in New Zealand there has been a bread shortage, so if people can't buy their favorite foods, they'll bake them instead.
And of course, it's literally just another way that you're able to pass the time at home.
So looking at products related to this niche is definitely something that you should be doing,
and cooking aprons are a great option. Printify are currently printing these and shipping them out very fast
with their supplier, MWW, and this is a product that I'm also looking at adding to my selection.
I'm still not quite sure the best way to handle selling neck gaiters.
I'm going to be very careful with it because I don't want to offend anyone,
but aprons are extremely inoffensive, and yet they're in really high demand.
So for me, they're kind of a no brainer to sell.
With neck gaiters, patterns work very well, and the same goes for aprons,
although with aprons they also benefit from full length designs too.
too. So you've got lots of options if you want to create a unique, quirky, and fun niche specific design,
so that people can buy it for their friends and family members as gifts or even as a present to themselves.
And actually, I really feel like there is an awesome opportunity
for someone to take that craze of putting your image of your pet onto socks, but instead of putting it onto aprons.
I have no intention of selling this product myself, but I bet people would love it.
And by the way, if you're enjoying learning about print-on-demand, and you'd like to learn even more free
information about starting a print-on-demand business, then be sure to download my free ebook,
The 6 Steps That 6 Figure Online Stores Follow to Make over $10,000 a Month,
and you'll find a link to download that ebook in the video description below.
Product three, chopping boards from Teelaunch. Print-on-demand isn't just limited to clothing. There are so many
quirky and unique products that you could print onto, such as the unique products available over on Teelaunch.
Now, this is a pretty well respected and popular print-on-demand service
that I have yet to fully feature on this channel. I've personally never used them myself,
but I've heard really good things from friends that have,
and they have some pretty unique products, including this, chopping boards.
This is a really unique way to piggyback off of the baking and cooking trend.
They're basic wood chopping boards to print a design onto,
and they have wooden chopping boards that come with a handle, which I personally really like.
And they also have a glass chopping board, which will work best for full color designs,
as the entire white area can have a full-width design printed underneath the glass.
And Teelaunch have an app to automatically add products into Shopify,
and they have an app to add and connect products to Etsy too.
So if this has sparked any entrepreneurial ideas for you, you should be sure to check them out.
Product four, latte mugs from Printify.
Yes, the sales in the coffee niche have absolutely exploded.
Coffee roasters and grinders across the board are seeing an exponential surge in demand for coffee.
And that's good news for e-commerce sellers out there, because basically what's happened in our new shelter-at-home era
is that people are trying to replicate their normal lives, but at home,
which means that while previously, if you wanted to have a nice espresso drink, you'd head on out to your favorite local cafe.
So for example, my favorite espresso drink is this, a Long Black,
and yes, that is what it's actually called.
A Long Black is an exclusive drink to New Zealand and Australia.
We pour a double shot of espresso over 150 to 200 mils of boiling water. It's delicious.
But of course, if I want my Long Black fix, I can't go out for it anymore. Nope. Instead, I had to make it here at home.
And that is why selling espresso latte mugs is a fantastic way to piggyback and take advantage of the surging sales for coffee.
And Printify actually have a great latte mug that you can print onto and sell passively on demand.
And to me, the coffee niche, it's a great example of how to pivot your business.
Two months ago, takeaway coffee cups were a very hot item, but now no one wants them.
If you go to your local cafe, even if it's still open, none of them will use your takeaway coffee mug anymore
because it's not considered hygienic. On the other hand, at-home cafe experiences are surging in sales, and so the
key to keep pumping out sales and making money in our new era
is to see the changing trends and then to pivot the products that you are offering to meet the new demand.
And by the way, if you are watching this, and you've had any questions about print-on-demand,
e-commerce, or coronavirus and e-commerce, then you should be sure to join in
on my live Q&A hangout session on my Instagram page at 7:00 PM Eastern USA time tonight,
as in the day that my video goes live.
So if you've got any questions, be sure to join me at 7:00 PM Eastern USA time tonight. But anyway, back to the video.
Product five, headphones from Teelaunch.
So as I said earlier in this video, the gaming industry is absolutely booming.
In fact, tech products as a whole are absolutely crushing it right now.
Good luck trying to get a webcam in New Zealand at this moment.
Basically impossible. Americans are bartering in toilet paper, we're bartering in webcams.
Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of gaming print-on-demand products to take advantage of,
but Teelaunch does have two interesting ones, and that is of course headphones.
Now they have cheaper headphones, which sell for $24, and they have the more expensive headphones,
which sell for $69. Now, this is not a product that I have enough experience with to sell personally,
but I still wanted to showcase it, because I'm sure some of you out there who understand this niche better
than me might be able to get some cool creative ideas from it.
So the part that you get to customize is the outside of the headphone earpiece.
So if this is giving you any creative ideas, you should be sure to check it out.
Product six, sports bras from Printful.
So you would be absolutely forgiven for thinking that because everyone is stuck at home
that all they're doing is bingeing Netflix and YouTube, but actually that's not the case as shown by this graph.
It turns out that people are keeping themselves entertained and productive
by becoming, somewhat ironically, more active, which is also reflected by the fact that fitness equipment,
such as resistance bands and exercise bikes, have had their sales skyrocket at the same time.
I have a YouTuber friend who has a fitness channel. She's been doing it for years.
At the start of this year, she hit a new milestone. She had 2 million subscribers, and then four months later,
she's hit 3 million subscribers.
And one piece of print-on-demand clothing to take advantage of is Printful sports bras.
For this one, it's a full print design as in you don't just slap a picture on top of it.
You can actually print over the entire sports bra so you can create some pretty interesting designs.
And to me, this is another great example of how, as an e-commerce store, if you pivot your items correctly,
you can meet new demands even in the middle of a pandemic crisis, and you can see your sales soar and grow.
Product seven, sweatpants from Printful.
So if we go back to their clothing graph, you'll see that there is another type of clothing item that has exploded in sales,
and that is the opposite of active wear. It's lounge wear, and I'll be honest,
I pretty much am exclusively wearing sweatpants and t-shirts right now when I'm not filming videos.
In my clothing store, I've seen demand drop off for trendier clothing items that I sell,
but demand increased for the lounge wear products that I do sell,
which is why I'm looking at ways of expanding those product offerings,
and this is one of those products that I'm looking at.
Printful sweatpants, pajamas, and products like this are absolutely on the rise.
People are working from home, they don't want dresses, they don't want high heels.
They want comfy pajamas, and they want comfy clothing to lounge around in,
and this is a trend that we're going to be seeing for a long time too,
as it's likely that even when shelter-in-place orders are lifted,
that businesses that can have their employees working from home will be asked to have them still work from home.
So be sure to take advantage of this.
Product eight, baby onesies from Printful.
Now, on first glance, this does seem strange.
After all, it's not like anything has changed. You had your baby before lockdown, and you have the exact same baby now.
It's not like anything new has happened.
But really, when you think about it, because of the fact that people are spending more time at home
with their babies, they're on their mind more. So when they're doing online shopping, that's what they're thinking about.
And Printful actually have a really unique product that has a surprising amount
of opportunities to make money with, and that is baby onesies or bodysuits.
So the reason why these have so much potential is because this is a great product
to sell simple text-based designs that you create. You don't need artistic abilities to create a top selling baby onesie,
as shown by this one, which is one of the top selling onesies on Etsy.
So I went and I recreated it for free using, as my subscribers know,
my number one favorite online graphic art tool, Canva. It was super simple.
It was literally just text, and I am sorry in advance for that language.
I then came and I uploaded it to Printful. Now the margins on these products,
they aren't as great as, say, adult t-shirts, but it's still a really nice item
to either add into a preexisting store that you have as a cross-sell item
or to add it into a low cost online marketplace like Etsy. The selling fees on Etsy, they're very low,
and it has free internal search engine traffic and product listings only at cost, just 20 cents.
Creating simple tech space word designs like this is something I do inside my print-on-demand store,
and so something that I also teach how to do inside my premium e-commerce video course, The Ecomm Clubhouse.
If you're interested in seeing if that course is right for you, I'll have a link to it in the video description.
Product nine, baby t-shirts from Printful.
Of course, this is the tried and true humble t-shirt, but for babies.
It's true. While neck gaiters right now might be currently out-selling t-shirts,
outside of those, t-shirts still remain the number one most popular print-on-demand product,
and one of their biggest advantages is that they also work really well with simple text-based designs.
This is one of the top selling baby t-shirts on Etsy, and of course recreating this design on Canva
using their free open-source fonts was incredibly simple.
And so, as you can see, even if you aren't an artist, you can still start a print-on-demand business
by utilizing clever word-based designs, especially if they are funny like this one is.
Product 10, dog bowls from Teelaunch.
Something that pretty much no one is talking about right now is the huge surge in demand for pet products.
Just like with the huge surge in demand for baby clothing, it seems a little odd, doesn't it?
I mean, not much has changed. You still have the exact same pets prior to lockdown,
but again, just like with baby wear, more people are spending time with their pets,
and so they're on their mind a lot more, which means that when they're doing their online shopping,
this is what they're thinking about. And for this, Teelaunch have you covered with this pretty unique product, dog bowls,
and something that's pretty cool is that the design wraps around the entire product.
It's just like a mug print, so you've got lots of flexibility to create a cool unique product to sell.
So did you learn something new? If you did, be sure to subscribe and hit the little notification bell,
so that you don't miss out on any of my videos.
And because YouTube likes it when I recommend more videos, that's what I'm going to do.
So the first video gives you 10 different websites that you can use to make money online for free,
including how to start your own print-on-demand business for free.
And the second video gives you five different Teespring t-shirts that have made over $100,000 each.
So choose which video you want to watch, and I'll see you on the next one.