Hi everyone and welcome back
to another print on demand video.
Recently, if you have been around,
I made a post asking
what were your biggest questions
in regards to print on demand?
There were over 350 comments
with really good questions about print on demand.
I found that some of them were repeat questions
and other ones,
you guys were able to like them
and push them to the top,
meaning that they were really important questions.
When everything was said and done,
I boiled this down
to the top 50 questions that you guys had
in regards to print on demand.
So in today's video,
I wanna start answering those questions for you.
Now, 50 questions is a lot to answer in a video.
I actually spent yesterday recording it
and it was a super long video.
So what I'm going to do
is break this up into two videos
and make it easier to digest for you.
Today's video is going to be answering
the first 25 of these questions
and whether you are new to print on demand
or if you have experience,
I still think you're going to be getting
a lot of value from these questions
because some of them,
I simply haven't talked about
on the channel before.
So with that said,
I think this video and the next video
are going to be one of the really big staple videos for you
if you wanna learn
a lot about print on demand very quickly.
So without further ado,
I wanna get right into these 25 questions
and start getting you guys' answers.
But very quickly,
I just wanna say, if you are new to the channel,
welcome to the channel.
My name is Greg and I'm an online entrepreneur,
sharing the resources
that I wish I had along my journey.
So if you're interested in making money online,
feel free to look around the channel
and consider subscribing.
Secondly, to all of you guys
who are returning to the channel,
as you guys know,
I really appreciate all of your support.
So thank you for all the support
you've been showing me.
I know I say it in every video
and that's because I mean it.
Thank you guys so much.
So with all of that being said,
let's go ahead and jump right into this video.
Starting with the first question.
The first question is,
I'm new to print on demand
and I'm overwhelmed by all of the videos
that are on the channel.
Where should I start?
The short answer here is,
recently, I've actually been getting this question a lot.
So I spent a ton of time putting together
one fully updated comprehensive print on demand tutorial.
I'll link this down in the description,
but I'm trying to put it
on the face of the channel
or somewhere where it's easy for you guys to find.
It's called Something to the Effect
of Full Print on Demand Tutorial
and on the thumbnail, it says, start here.
This is where I would recommend for you to start
or anyone who is new to print on demand,
because it will walk you
through adjusting videos like this
and screen recordings
all the way from the idea
of starting in print on demand,
all the way to scaling your business.
Then once you've watched this video
and you've started to put this process in motion,
then you can go through the playlist
and the other videos throughout the channel
and you can find the details breaking down
certain aspects of the process
that you may want more information on.
Moving right along,
let's get into question number two.
And this is why do you recommend Teespring,
Redbubble and Merch by Amazon,
as opposed to some of the other big players
like Printful, Printify and Etsy.
Now there's three main reasons
that I recommend Teespring, Redbubble and Merch by Amazon.
First is that they are completely free.
You're never going to be charged
to upload a design to sell.
There are no monthly fees.
There are no listing fees or anything like that.
The second reason is because
they do all the marketing for you.
Some of these other sites,
you have to upload your designs
and then you are responsible
for getting people to see them.
If you don't do any marketing yourself,
you're not going to get any views on your listings.
On the three sites that I recommend,
Teespring, Redbubble, Merch by Amazon,
they actually traffic to your listings for you
so it turns it into a very passive business model.
And the third reason is that Teespring,
Redbubble and Merch by Amazon are all non-exclusive.
So if you create one T-shirt design,
you can upload that exact same design
to all three of these sites.
It creates three separate listings
and you get three different versions
of marketing done for you.
So you get triple the exposure
and it just leads to a lot more organic sales.
Moving right along to question number three.
This is on Teespring.
Why are there high shipping costs right now?
So this is actually temporary
and it's just current to the time
and the world climate that's going on right now.
Teespring has posted a notice to sellers
on their website just saying that
in order to keep their operations running smoothly,
they had to temporarily increase their shipping rates.
Now, yes, this is an inconvenience
but it is temporary so it's going to pass
and you can rest assured knowing
that people still are making purchases.
I'm watching steady sales still come in
and Teespring has made a statement saying
that their website traffic is higher than ever
and sales are continuing to come through.
So don't be discouraged by the high shipping price.
It is temporary and it will go away.
Question number four,
can I use quotes from people in my designs?
This is a great question
and it brings us into copyright, trademark
and right of publicity and privacy.
Now this is the first time in this video
that I'm going to mention that.
A lot of these questions I have answered
in much more detail
on that other videos on this channel.
So I've made a video about copyright infringement
and print on demand before,
which goes into a lot more detail,
but surface level for you in broad strokes,
my short answer for you would be no,
I don't recommend using quotes from people
in your designs
simply because it opens you to protected content
and it then brings in the risk
of your designs being taken down
and your trust score lowered
and all of the things that come along with that.
Simply I would avoid designs
that have quotes from celebrities
or famous people altogether
because you don't know which ones of them
are going to take action
and what your design taken down.
Moving into question number five.
And this is,
can we use celebrity images in our designs?
If it's a direct image of the celebrity,
no, you can not use it
because they're protected by all of the things
we just mentioned before.
If it is considered fan art,
where it's content where you created yourself,
so you drew the image of them,
or you altered it or you modified an image
to make it your own,
then you technically own the copyright on that.
So although fan art in itself
is slightly a gray area,
the general rule of thumb that I would give you
is as long as you are creating
or customizing that image, you can use it.
Moving to number six.
This is, do we have to pay for the item
when it is ordered?
This is a really good question
and it is commonly confused.
If you are using Teespring, Redbubble
and Merch by Amazon, the ones that I recommend,
you don't have any fees like I mentioned before.
This also means,
you do not have to pay for the items
when a customer orders them.
On some of the other print on demand platforms out there,
when a customer orders a product,
they charge your card to pay for the item
and then after the customer's item has shipped,
you get your money back plus the profit.
So that's where this confusion comes from
and just know that if you're using Teespring,
Redbubble and Merch by Amazon,
you will never have to pay for any of the items.
The customer's payment pays
for the entire cost of goods sold.
You don't have to pay for anything.
Question number seven,
can we promote T-shirts with Facebook ads
or Google ads like drop shipping?
This is a good question.
And although you can have success using paid advertising
to sell T-shirts,
I do not personally recommend it.
The main reason is that it's not beginner friendly.
So I would say the vast majority
if not 99% of beginners,
if you're spending money
on a paid advertisement to sell T-shirts,
you will get a lot of views,
you'll get a lot of clicks,
but it's very rare that you'll actually get a sale.
So my recommendation is no,
I do not recommend using paid Facebook ads or Google ads
to try to sell T-shirts like drop shipping.
Alternatively, watch the footprint
on the mandatorial I was mentioning before,
that will be linked in the description
and that will show you
how to do your marketing completely free
so you're not paying for any ads.
Question number eight, this is a good one
and it is how much competition is on print on demand.
This is a great question
because if you are going into any new business venture,
it is smart to look around and say,
hey, how saturated is this?
How many competitors are there?
So this is a cool answer.
And I don't know that I've talked about this
on the channel before.
And that is that yes,
there are a lot of people in print on demand.
That is by no surprise
and it's because it's a really good business model.
However, there are not many people
in print on demand doing it properly.
The vast majority of people in print on demand,
they're going to create a couple designs,
upload them, run paid ads to them
and find out that they're not profiting from it
because of what I just explained.
And then they're going to stop altogether
because they lost money
and they're not making money in this new business.
This is by far going to happen
to most people in print on demand.
And not many of them are going to use the proper strategy
and stick around for the long run.
This is why you see a lot of designs out there,
but people aren't actively creating new ones
because they don't know the proper strategy.
So with that said,
if you're doing print on demand properly,
you're using the right strategies
and you're in it for the long run,
you can absolutely succeed
no matter how many temporary competitors try
to get into the space.
Number nine, is print on demand
still good to start with now?
The short answer here
without going into too much detail is yes.
I've been talking to a ton of people in the comments
and you guys have been sharing your experiences
where you've started a week ago,
you already got your first sales
and it's starting to snowball.
I hear this in the comments probably once per day
and when I see a really big success story,
I like to pin it to the top of that video.
So I can absolutely say
from all of you guys that I've been talking to
in the comments,
using this strategy is still working extremely well
for beginners getting started in print on demand.
Number 10.
This is, can you lower your price of your items
in the beginning
in order to get those first few sales
and get the ball rolling?
Yes, technically you can do this.
However, I think it's more work for you
because once you get past those first few sales,
you have to go into all of your listings
and change the prices back to normal.
Psychologically, a consumer may be more apt
to buy your design over someone else's
because it's a few dollars cheaper.
However, I think it really comes down
to just making great designs
and people will pay the normal price for them.
So I would say it's kind of a wash here.
If you wanna try this out,
you can try lowering your prices in the beginning,
but just know that it's going to slow you down
down the road
when you have to go back into your account
and change the price on all those listings
back to normal.
Number 11,
how long does it take until you get your first sale?
This is one of the most common questions I receive
and it's because starting a new business venture,
you want to start seeing success
so you can reassure yourself that it was a good decision.
Just know that on average,
it's somewhere from a few days to a few months
until you'll see that first sale come in
and things start to happen.
This largely depends on what niche you're going into
and how competitive it is.
And a little bit of luck
of getting in front of the right person
who's ready to buy in those first few days.
So with that said,
I've heard from some of you guys getting your first sales
literally on the first day that you've started.
That is very rare, but it's very awesome.
So don't be surprised
if it takes somewhere like a month or two months
to get your first sales started.
With that said, my biggest challenge to you
is if you are in this phase,
it's kind of the waiting phase
to get your first sales,
I really recommend just staying
as positive as you can and optimistic
and really just pushing for the light
at the end of the tunnel
because once those sales start,
the ball will start rolling.
Question number 12.
Can you do print on demand from anywhere in the world?
The short answer here is yes,
you can do print on demand
from any country or region in the world.
And if you don't have an option directly
to select your country in an application or on a site,
I'll show you at the end of this video
how you can get around that
and still apply for that site.
Question number 13,
can we use T-shirt quotes on our designs?
The short answer here is no.
T-shirt quotes, movie quotes, song lyrics
are all protected content.
The people who came up with them
are able to profit on them
and unless you have written consent from that person,
you are not able to profit from them as well.
Number 14, I'm not getting sales
and I'm even using the Instagram strategy.
My answer and my recommendation comes back to
how long it takes to get your first sales.
So I would say, just keep pushing.
It sounds like you're probably
in the beginning first couple of days or weeks
when we have doubts about if it's going to work,
keep pushing, be positive
and a couple of questions I would ask you back are,
how many designs have you made?
How long have you been posting on Instagram?
How many posts have you made there?
Have you tried out different hashtags
to get more people looking?
And overall it comes down to,
how long have you been doing it?
How long have you been trying?
And I recommend keep pushing until those sales come.
Number 15.
This might be one of my favorite questions
that you guys have asked.
So thank you for asking.
It's a really good question.
The question is, why do I share these tips online?
Wouldn't that create more competitors to myself
and print on demand?
The short answer here is I get a lot of fulfillment
from sharing this information with you guys
and talking to you in the comments.
Otherwise, if I kept it all to myself,
I wouldn't know any of you guys
and I wouldn't talk to any of you guys in the comments.
And there was a book that really changed my mindset on this.
Initially, I thought the same thing.
I'm just going to be creating more competitors
and I will get less sales,
but I actually haven't seen that correlation.
In the beginning, I shared a lot of my own stores
and yes, a lot of those designs were copied.
So I learned my lesson
and I don't share my own stores anymore.
And I've had no issues.
I read a book a couple of years called
"The Go-Giver" by Bob Burg.
And I highly I recommend
anyone who's asking this question
of why share this information to read that book.
It's a short read,
but it really moved me
and got me to start sharing this information
with the rest of the world.
Number 16, how do you send T-shirts to influencers
without being scammed?
So first things first,
I would not recommend actually sending an item
to an influencer,
that would be along the idea
that they wear the item and they take a photo with it.
I don't think that's your best way of doing a shout out.
Rather I would create
a mock-up of a model wearing your design,
send that image to the influencer
and just pay for a shout out that way.
This is going to be a lot safer
and I think a lot more cost effective
if you are going to use Instagram
or social media shout-outs.
Number 17, which of the three print on demand sites
should I be promoting Instagram?
So this is a good question in regards to
when you make your items on Teespring,
Redbubble and Merch by Amazon,
which link do you put on Instagram
because you can only put one link.
The answer here is that that Instagram page
is solely for Teespring.
Teespring has what's called a trust score
so we need to drive a few of our own sales.
Merch by Amazon and Redbubble, they don't have a trust score
so they start doing marketing for you right off the bat.
So keep that in mind that the Instagram page
is only for Teespring.
Additionally, once you get those first few sales
and your trust score on Teespring,
you no longer have to do Instagram pages at all.
Number 18.
How do other print on demand sites compete with Amazon?
This is a really good question
and it comes down to Amazon being so big
that how do other sites compete?
The answer here is that other sites compete
with advertising and their organic traffic.
So sites like Teespring and Redbubble get
a fraction of the traffic that Amazon gets.
However, they have organic traffic
from SEO built up over years
that both of those sites
are literally getting millions of visitors
to their site every month.
So although Amazon is the biggest,
the other ones definitely bring in
literally millions of people to their site
every single month.
Number 19, is the Teespring trust score account wide.
The short answer here is yes.
On Teespring, you can get your sales from anywhere,
any of your listings, any of your storefronts.
You just have to get those first two to 10 sales yourself.
Once you get those sales,
then you get your trust score
and it is for your entire account on Teespring.
So all of the listings you currently have your account,
no matter where they are in whichever storefronts
and all of the future listings
that you upload to Teespring
will all have that trust score marketing done for you.
Number 20, how do you find a good niche
to sell T-shirts in?
Well, you're going to need a niche research tool
specifically for print on demand.
There are a ton of
different types of keyword research tools out there,
but many of them
are going to be using general Google search data.
The one that I personally use
is called Merch Informer
because they use solely print on demand data.
You type information about a keyword or a niche,
they're going to run the numbers
on just print on demand search data
and tell you if that is a good niche to go with or not.
So the short answer on that one
is use a good niche research tool
that's specific to print on demand.
Number 21.
What kind of laptop do I need for print on demand?
So I don't know these specific specs
that you need on your laptop,
but it just has to be powerful enough
to load the print on demand websites
and your design software
along with your niche research tool.
I would venture to say, you can get an entry level computer,
but definitely just try out these sites
and if they aren't loading properly for you,
then you may need to upgrade your computer
to something faster.
Number 22, how many designs is considered a lot?
So if you guys have been watching this channel,
I always say that the key to succeeding in print on demand
is creating an uploading a lot of great designs.
So this question comes in and how many is that a lot.
this a lot for you is going to be different than for me,
it depends on your financial goals.
I would say the first goal
that I would set for everyone out there
is to create at least 50 different designs
and upload those 50 designs
to all three of the websites.
That'll give you a total of 150 listings out there.
Once you've done that,
then you can kind of step back and look at the business
and see how it's going.
But if you've only created a couple designs,
I'd say, keep pushing yourself
until you've hit at least 50
and then look at where your financial goals are from there.
Your next goal may be 100
and then 500 and then 1,000.
You can keep going as big as you want to
and create as many designs as you need,
depending on what your specific financial goals are.
Number 23, my design was taken down immediately.
What happened?
This is probably because of copyright infringement.
These print on demand sites all have filters in place
so if they see something as copyrighted or trademarked,
it will be removed immediately.
Sometimes a design that's copyrighted or trademarked
will slip through, but then it will be removed later.
However, if your design was removed immediately,
it's likely because it had protected content on it.
I would go back and look at that listing
and look in the design, the title and the description
and see if anything is copyrighted.
If you want a way to search this formally
and see if something is protected,
you can go to tmsearch.uspto.gov
and then you can type in a word or a phrase
and see if two things,
see if it is actively protected
and if it's protected on apparel.
If it is both of those,
that means that was the reason that it was taken down.
Question 24, Payoneer or PayPal for Teespring.
When you're in Teespring and you go to the settings,
you connect how you want to be paid out.
But they give you two options,
they have Payoneer and PayPal.
What's the deal with both of those?
So the answer here is they used to use only PayPal
but since PayPal is not available
in every country or region around the world,
they've integrated also with Payoneer.
So it just gives you an option.
If you live in a country or region
that does not support PayPal,
then you can use Payoneer to be paid.
And lastly, question number 25,
for both Payoneer or PayPal,
do I need a personal or a business account?
This is a short answer.
You only need a personal account on both of these.
You do not need to create a business account on either.
Now there were a couple of extra questions
that I really wanted to throw into this video
because I think they will help a lot of you guys right now.
So there are two bonus questions
I wanna throw in here for you.
The first one is Merch by Amazon
does not have my country in the application,
what should I do?
This is what I mentioned previous in the video.
So if you are in the application,
you don't see your country or region there,
you can go to payoneer.com,
which we were just actually talking about,
create a free account
and then go to their US payment service tab.
This will give you banking information
for a US located bank.
This way you can go back to Merch by Amazon.
You can select United States
as the location of your bank
and put in the bank details of that Payoneer account.
I've seen a lot of people succeed with this
so I highly recommend you try it
if your country or region
is not in the application on Merch by Amazon.
And last question, this is the last one for this video
is on Merch by Amazon, they ask for a tax ID.
What if in my country or region,
I don't have one of those?
If you don't have a tax ID,
then just put in any identification number
that you do have in your country or region.
If Merch by Amazon needs more information
or a different ID number,
they will contact you for the application.
So guys, that's the first video.
There's going to be a part two to this.
I just wanted to separate them
so you can digest all of the information
a little bit better.
So keep an eye out for that video.
Once it's ready, it will be linked down
in the description of this one,
but I hope this video has been helpful for you.
And as always, if you have any questions
that were answered here and you need more details,
let me know down in the comments
and feel free to look throughout the entire YouTube channel.
There are actually a ton of videos
with details on a lot of common questions
throughout this channel
so feel free to search through the channel
and you might find your answer there.
All right, guys, that's it for this one.
I hope you enjoyed it.
And I will see you all in the next video.