You could decide you want to start a print on demand business by
Monday, get your website up and running by Tuesday and start making
sales by the end of the week.
Welcome back to learn with Shopify.
I'm your host Michelle.
And in today's video, we're going to learn how you can start
a print on demand business.
Print on demand is a low risk simple way to
start a hugely profitable business with no inventory.
Whether you're an artist, writer, designer, or entrepreneur,
physical products can be a great way to monetize your creativity.
You can put your own original spin on everyday products like
t-shirts, posters, backpacks, books and sell them online.
However, if you do go the traditional route of buying
and holding your own inventory, you may be left with a pile of
products that just aren't selling.
Print on demand services are a good way to avoid this problem.
You won't have to invest a ton of money on holding inventory,
and it'll save you time and dealing with logistics.
Print on demand also allows you to start selling really quickly
and at a fraction of the cost.
Here are the things that we'll be covering in this video.
We're going to define what print on demand is.
We'll discuss the pros and cons.
I'll give you a list of services to choose from and what they offer.
We'll also talk about how to get your designs into the real
world, even if you have no design experience and then we'll finish
off with some expert tips for making your business profitable.
Print on demand is a process where you work with a supplier to
customize white label products.
White labeling is when a purchaser or a marketer uses
its own branding rather than the manufacturer's branding.
But what makes print on demand so enticing is that you can
sell the products on a preorder basis under your own brand.
That means that you don't have to pay for the product until
after you've actually sold it.
So there's no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory.
And the nice thing about print on demand services is that everything
after the sale is handled by your supplier, that includes everything
from printing to shipping.
We're going to go over how to get all of this setup in
detail, but once you do make a sale, it'll only take a few
clicks to fulfill an order.
Depending on your purpose, you can use print on demand
services in a few different ways.
You can use it to test a business idea without fronting
money for inventory, you can test a new product line
for an existing business.
Again, without holding any inventory at all, and you
can use it to monetize an audience you've already built.
Printing on demand is also a great option if you're an artist or
an influencer, but you'd rather focus on doing what you love
rather than fulfilling orders.
It's also a great business model to create original products
for a niche of customers.
So for example, you can create apparel for people who are
passionate about gaming.
There are some Pros and cons when it comes to print on demand.
Print on demand sites can be used to build a business based
off of a drop shipping model where the products and shipping
are all handled by third party.
It's one of the most accessible ways to source products or
start an online business.
But you should know that there are perks and limitations
before you dive in.
Print on demand is great for creating products quickly.
Once you have the design, you can create the product and
put it up for sale in minutes.
This helps you be nimble and it helps you capitalize on trends.
Another plus is shipping.
Shipping is fully taken care of.
Shipping and fulfillment is basically out of your hands.
And it's up to the supplier to take care of that.
After the sale, you're just responsible for customer
service and marketing.
Additionally, since you're not physically carrying
products, your cost to run your business will be lower.
And finally, there's less risk involved.
It's easier to add or move products, test ideas,
and pivot your approach.
Now let's take a peek at the cons.
So naturally, your cost per item is going to be higher than
if you were to buy in bulk.
On demand products are known to have thinner profits.
So depending on how you price them and how you acquire
customers, making real money is going to require
volume with print on demand.
Another con is that you'll have less control over your shipping
costs and your options may also be limited if you want to create
a standout unboxing experience.
There are also limitations to customization.
Your ability to customize products is going to depend
on the vendor and the product.
You'll have to see what base costs are, what customization
options are available, as well as printing techniques and
size options when deciding on which product customize.
Okay.
So by now he should have a better idea of whether print
on demand will work for you.
Now we're going to hop into the services that I recommend.
It might seem like all print on demand services are
similar at first glance, but that's actually not the case.
You're going to want to carefully consider who you go with based
on the products you want to create, where you'll be shipping
to the retail prices you're gonna offer among other factors.
So for example, well, you might be tempted to go with a company
that has a low base cost for their products, but then you might
realize that it takes 21 days for customers to get their orders.
Do your research and make sure that you're weighing
out all the factors.
Here are some of the most popular services that
all meet different needs.
By the way, all of these services are free to set up and you
only pay when someone places an order for one of your products.
And I should mention that they do integrate with Shopify.
Printable is a popular Shopify app because of its wide selection of
products and brands to choose from.
It allows you to mock up your designs easily.
You can add your own logos stickers, custom notes and
inserts for a more customized unboxing experience.
For apparel products in particular, printable offers a
number of printing techniques.
One of the more common techniques that they have offer is direct
to garment, which prints ink directly onto the material.
This is good for simpler designs like slogan tee's.
You can do a cut and sew.
Also known as that the all over print, the article of clothing is
printed on in many pieces, and then it's sewn together for seamless
print across the entire piece.
The base costs will be higher for this technique, but it also
lets you create a more premium product at a higher price point.
Embroidery is perhaps the most complex printing technique because
the final product is actually a threaded design with a 3D effect.
This is best for simple designs that involve only a handful
of colors and for products like hats that traditionally
featured embroidered designs, you should also be mindful of
how additional customizations will affect the price.
Printing on the sleeve for example, will usually mean
paying on top of the base costs.
Besides apparel printable also offers mugs pillows,
framed posters, beach towels, aprons, and more.
Lulu is a self publishing print on demand service for books.
With Lulu express Shopify app, you can choose from a wide selection
of books, sizes, binding types, and page quality for your books.
You can't design your book within Lulu express, but
they do offer downloadable templates to get you started.
It even has a transparent pricing calculator to help you cost
out your project, including various shipping options.
There are also discounts if you'd like to order in bulk.
Like Printful, gooten is a Shopify app that offers a wide range of
products that you can customize.
They have unique products like calendars, mugs, and dog beds.
However, it, since Gooten uses an international network of
vendors to print their products, there's also a lot more variance
between their items in terms of quality and shipping.
But that also means that your product prices and shipping
prices are lower as well.
Gooten has an intuitive image editor that gives you
a good sense of what your final product will look like.
Printify is another print on demand Shopify app that
features the usual selection of tee shirts and hoodies.
But what's notable about Printify is that it has an
international vendor network with a number of unique white
label products, that you're not likely to find anywhere else.
They have items like jewelry, clocks, and shoes, and the
platform actually has over 200 products that you can print on.
While Printify is free to use, you can pay $29 a month for a premium
subscription that gives you 20% off all of their products, and
this is a pretty solid option if you're looking to scale up later
and improve your profit margins.
This list is by no means exhaustive, so for more
print on demand options check out the Shopify app store.
You don't need to be a full time designer to have a successful
print on demand business.
In the best case scenario, you have a designer friend that you can
work well with, but if you don't, that's what outsourcing is for.
You can find designers to work with on Behance, 99 designs or
other freelance sites who can produce designs as long as you
provide clear instructions.
Here's how you can add clarity and context for a design project.
You'll want to begin by sharing insight into your audience, tell
your designer what it's for and who your audience is, showing
them your website will help give more context and make sure
that you're clearly explaining what it is that you want.
You'll have time to explain this in your initial introduction,
andthrough revisions.
By the way, you're going to want to include or two revisions in
the scope of the project and be clear by over-communicating
what it is that you're looking for and provide guidelines.
And finally give examples of inspiration.
It helps to show them a reference to base the design on or point
to other works that you like.
When working with designers, you should specify that
your design is for printing.
This tells them that it should ideally be 300 digital
pixels per inch and have a transparent background.
The designer will know how to properly prepare these artwork
files for prints, so you won't have to worry about that.
Note that the print file specifications will change
depending on the printer and the printing technique used.
So when in doubt, send the designer, the print specs for
the specific product and any printing guidelines so that
they understand the context.
The designs you upload should be large enough for the
printing area of actual product.
Keep in mind that resizing a smaller image to make it bigger
will result in a loss of quality, so you want to avoid doing that.
And if you want to take a crack at designing and you
don't have access to Photoshop, try using Pixlr for free.
I'll also drop a link in the description box for another 16 free
photo editing tools, if you're not interested in paying for Photoshop.
All right.
So we've got you covered with a couple of expert tips.
Firstly, always order samples.
The best way to ensure quality is to be your own customer so that
you can experience firsthand what it's like to receive your products.
That said you're going to want to always order samples before
sending product out to customers.
It's always possible that something gets lost in translation
from the design you see on your screen to your printed product.
And by ordering samples, you can double check the overall
quality of how it looks and feels.
If you do find any discrepancies, just reach out to your vendors'
customer service support for advice on how to fix any issues.
And beyond ensuring product quality samples are also good
to have on hand for taking your own product photos for
your website and social media.
Even when you're not shipping products yourself, you're
going to want to make sure that you're setting the right
expectations with your customers about costs and shipping time.
Make sure that you're accounting for how long it takes for something
to print, first of all, and then adding that to shipping time.
Rule of thumb is to add anywhere from two to
four days for production.
It can sometimes be more depending on the product, always
be up front about your shipping times, or you're going to get
customers with questions and complaints and outline what
to expect on your FAQ page.
Or you can consider creating a separate shipping page to
explain lead time customers.
If you can try to partially or fully absorb your shipping
costs into your retail price.
Year after year, studies show that surprise shipping
costs, added at checkout deters customers from buying.
On the flip side, you can use shipping deals as a tool to entice
customers to make a purchase.
Free shipping is a great sales sweetener.
So try using conditional free shipping to encourage customers
to add more to their cart, to reach a certain threshold.
You can use free shipping to justify longer wait times.
At that point, you can go for less expensive,
slower shipping services.
As many consumers will wait a little bit longer for an
order that they know will save them money on shipping.
Mock-up pictures help drive sales, but mockups are also
an effective alternative for your product photography.
Many print on demand services can help you create your own mockups
by showing your products on a person or as a flatlay, but there
are other services and plenty of free mock-up templates that can
help show your product clearly.
These mockups are what will sell your products to
customers, so it can literally pay to go the extra mile.
Placeit is an easy to use mock-up generator that
lets you create photo and video mockups for $8 each.
Check out mock-up world or Behance for Photoshop templates, if
you're comfortable in Photoshop.
Marketing is what ultimately determines the
success of your business.
But if you're targeting everyone, you're not really
marketing to anyone.
That's why niching in is so important.
Having a clearly defined audience, like specifically
targeting dog owners, for example, can actually help you create
products that are in demand.
It lowers the cost to acquire customers and maximizes
your potential profits.
Often people think that if they niche in they're going to
lose potential customers, but the opposite is actually true.
If your audience is too broad, you'll appeal to no one and lose
potential customers in that regard.
There are countless possibilities for acquiring a niche audience
with marketing, but here's some ideas to get you started.
First start an Instagram account and create or curate content
for your target audience.
Get followers and build relationships among your
prospective customers.
Next, try running Facebook ads targeting the interests
of your target customers.
You can also use Facebook ads to test out your designs for as
little as $10 to see which ones resonate with your audience.
One of my favorite tactics is collecting emails from visitors.
Once you start to pick up some steam so that you can continue
to market to them for free.
And finally get your products into the hands of influencers who can
introduce your products to their audience and help you make sales.
Print on demand services offer an accessible source of inventory for
new entrepreneurs or for anyone who just wants to test out an
idea before they invest in it.
If one of your online business ideas pans out and you start to
generate a meaningful number of sales, you can always graduate
from using a print on demand site to holding your own inventory.
So that should give you a pretty good head start and some
insight in to print on demand.
In today's video, we covered what print on demand is.
Some services you could use, how to work with a designer and some
strategies to keep your business running smooth and profitable.
I'm curious to know why you clicked on this video.
Let me know in the comments, what you plan to use print on demand
for, I'm excited to see all of your creative ideas, and if you've
already launched, drop me a link to your store so I can check it out.
Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any
future videos, and remember, we're a channel for small
business owners with big plans.
I'm your host, Michelle.
Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one.