- Hey friends.
So as my subscribers know,
there are two things that I'm obsessed with.
The first thing is making sure that I do not forget
to thank everybody who takes a moment
out of their very busy day
to give my videos a like and subscribe,
because seriously, every time you do that,
it genuinely supports me, so thank you so much.
But the second thing, of course,
that I am very much obsessed with in life is passive income.
Yep, and of course, as my subscribers know,
one of my sources of passive income
is my print-on-demand e-commerce business.
Thanks to that, every single day,
I am earning passive income like this
from the products that I sell.
But, of course,
there are hundreds of print-on-demand products
that I could be selling,
so a super common question that I often get asked is this:
Sarah, what products are you actually selling?
So I thought it'd fun to do a bit of an update video
and reveal five of my top-selling items right now.
And as you will see,
if you've been a longtime subscriber to the channel,
some of the items that I am selling these days
have definitely changed from what I was selling last year,
and that's because I am always learning as a business owner,
and there are some new things that I have learnt this year,
plus some new trends that I've hopped on.
So I thought it'd be fun to kick this video off with a bang
and reveal the number one top-selling product on this list,
and that is this item here,
the Bella + Canvas 3001 T-shirt.
This one will probably be less of a surprise
to my long-time viewers.
I absolutely adore this T-shirt,
and there are two reasons why it's sells super well.
It earns me the most money
out of all the items on this list,
which I'll explain shortly.
I sell online passively
using this website app here, Printful.
Now, I know that most of my longtime viewers
will probably know what Printful is,
but since most of my viewers on this channel are new,
I'll just have to quickly explain it for them.
So thank you very much for your patience in the meantime
and very kind long-term viewers.
So yes, for those of you that are new here,
Printful is a print-on-demand app
that you can connect to a store
and create and sell products with.
They have a big catalog with over 200 blank items.
You choose the item that you want to sell,
such as my top selling product here,
the Bella + Canvas 3001 T-shirt,
and you can upload a picture or a slogan
or whatever you want onto Printful
and digitally place it onto the T-shirt.
Printful will then store a copy of this
on their merchandise factory computers,
and you can then upload it to your store
for a marked-up price.
And so, for me, Printful's prices for these T-shirts
start at $12.95,
but I charge my customer a marked-up price
of $29.95 cents shirt.
And so now every time a customer comes and, say,
buy as a Printful T-shirt that I've uploaded,
Printful sees the order and goes, yep, let's make that.
Printful's merchandise factory then prints my design
onto a T-shirt, packages the T-shirt up,
and then ships it out to the customer,
and they send the customer a tracking code.
Most of my items are made and shipped out
within one to three business days
during non-holiday periods.
So you can see why the service is called print-on-demand,
because that's literally what's happening.
Your designs get printed onto products
as customers demand them, AKA as they order them.
This hands-off product fulfillment strategy,
combined with my hands-off Google marketing strategy
means that my e-commerce business
practically runs on autopilot.
So if you want to learn more information about that,
I highly recommend checking out my video,
Five Apps That I Use To Earn Income On Autopilot.
So, yes, it's thanks to Printful
that I'm able to sell this T-shirt on autopilot
and thus earn passive money with it.
And as I've said, this is my top-selling item,
and the truth is, I expect it to remain my top-selling item,
and that's because the indie T-shirt market,
featuring cool custom artwork and phrases,
is rapidly growing,
as Generation Z is shifting away from mass-market brands
to instead purchase niche clothing
that matches their interests.
So rather than just, say,
buy cheap generic American Eagle T-shirt, increasingly,
younger consumers would much rather instead spend more money
to purchase a barista-inspired T-shirt
if they themselves are a barista,
featuring cool artwork and phrases
that's personalized to their interest
so that they can express themselves
through their clothing and accessories.
Of course, big brands like American Eagle
do not create such niche-specific clothing and accessories,
so it's up to indie clothing and accessory brands like me
to fill that growing need.
And so, because of this, I only expect my sales in T-shirts
to keep growing each year.
And by the way, if you're enjoying this video
and you would like to learn even more
about setting up a print-on-demand store,
you should be sure to download my free ebook,
"The 6 Steps that Six-Figure Online Stores Follow
to Make Over $10,000 a Month,"
and you'll find a link to download my free ebook
in the video description below.
So, yes, the fact that niche-specific T-shirts
are rising and popularity is one reason
why this is my biggest seller.
But there is, however, another reason
why this T-shirt in particular is popular with my customers,
because, you see, here's the thing.
On Printful, they actually have a wide range
of blank T-shirts that you can customize and sell.
Despite this, though, I've specifically
chosen the Bella + Canvas 3001 T-shirt to sell.
Why?
Well, there are multiple reasons why it's a great T-shirt,
one of them being that it's extremely comfy and a great fit.
It's made from super soft cotton,
so it's really nice and comfortable to wear,
but the honest truth is that when most customers
see a T-shirt in a store,
they just assume that it's soft and comfortable to wear,
which means that pointing out
that your T-shirt is super soft and comfortable to wear
doesn't actually help you increase your sales and money
that you earn.
Instead, what's actually helped
is that I can rightfully use the phrase "Made in the USA."
Yep, Bella + Canvas is rep-certified
and produces most of their products,
including their T-shirts, in the USA,
with their biggest facility being based in Los Angeles,
not some mysterious, sketchy Chinese or overseas factory,
which is what most big, mass-produced clothing brands do.
And I'll tell you now, many millennials and Generation Zers
are starting to take note of how the products that they buy
are made, and transparency on that
can make or break a purchase
or significantly impact the price
that they're willing to pay.
And so not only can I differentiate myself
from mass-market stores by selling niche-specific T-shirts,
I can also differentiate myself
and compete against well-known, oftentimes cheaper brands
by selling made-in-the-USA clothing.
It's why this product here
is also one of my top-selling items,
the Bella + Canvas 3001Y.
Bella + Canvas don't just make adult T-shirts.
Nope, they also make T-shirts for children,
and they make T-shirts for babies,
and they make T-shirts for toddlers, which I do also sell,
but for me, it is the children's youth T-shirts
that sell the best, but for me,
I would almost never advertise these T-shirts
as my main product.
Instead, what I do is that I treat my adult T-shirts
as the main product that I sell and advertise
and get customers in the door with,
and then I treat the other items in my store
as mostly upsells and downsells.
And for me, children's T-shirts are an upsell.
An upsell is when you try to get a customer
to buy an additional item or something at a higher cost
to get them to spend more money with you.
For me, most of my profit isn't from one customer
coming in and buying one T-shirt.
It's from a customer coming in, buying a T-shirt,
and then buying other items as well.
So when an adult digitally walks in the door, they go,
hey, I love this T-shirt.
I would love to buy it for myself.
Oh, wait. What's that?
It comes in a child's version, too?
Wouldn't it be so much fun to have us be matching twins?
I'll get that as well.
The first T-shirt that the customer buys
covers any advertising or operating costs
to get the customer in the door,
and then any additional T-shirts they buy after that
are predominantly profit.
That's why it's extremely powerful
to build your store around getting customers
to order multiple items at once.
It's why McDonald's revolutionized fast food
by making all of their employees ask,
"Would you like fries and a drink with that?"
after every order of a burger.
Seriously, have you ever wondered
how these super cheap items like one of their hamburgers
are able to make money?
This is how.
The burger itself may make a pittance, perhaps even a loss,
but when combined with the successful upsell,
McDonald's are able to turn that loss into a profit.
But, yes, as I said, I don't just offer upsells.
I also offer downsells.
A downsell is when you offer a lower-priced item
if you think the customer isn't gonna be tempted
by the higher-priced one.
And for me, my biggest downsell item is this, stickers.
This has been my biggest breakout star this year,
and I have noticed a lot of other print-on-demand stores
having added them to the catalogs this year, too.
I only started selling stickers this year,
and I really wish that I had started selling them sooner.
At first, I honestly ignored them,
because I didn't think they'd be worth it
because of the small amount that they sell for,
but then I saw how much their popularity has exploded
among millennials and Generation Z,
who use them to personalize mass produced items
like laptops and bags,
and that's when I realized how shortsighted my thinking was.
And I can see that there are others in the comment section
of my videos who think the things that I used to think.
For such a small item,
surely the cost to make and ship the item
means it's not worth it, right?
Well, my friends, perhaps you will change your mind
after this video, just like I did.
So, you see, the key to making a nice add-on profit
with stickers is to offer something
like free shipping for them
on the condition that customers purchase four
or more at once, similar to what Redbubble do.
They also heavily incentivize
that people purchase multiple stickers at once.
So what I've done is I've taken my T-shirt designs,
and I've turned them into stickers with Printful,
which is really easy to do,
and I charge just under $4 for each sticker.
And so what happens is someone sees a T-shirt
and goes, yes, that's awesome.
I'll buy that.
Oh, what's this, it comes as a sticker, too,
that I can put on my laptop
and the sticker has free shipping
if I buy it with three other stickers?
Well, then, I'm a millennial.
I love stickers,
so I guess it's time for a sticker spending spree.
Yep, the wonderful thing about stickers
is that while the first sticker costs $3.25 for shipping,
each additional sticker cost just $0.05 to ship,
and so as long as the customer is buying three
or more stickers at once, then you can make a nice profit,
even if you offer free shipping for them.
And because they're low-cost and super trendy,
customers find them fun to buy.
By encouraging fun sticker sprees,
I've now added a low-barrier downsell
that earns me extra free passive money.
Woo-hoo!
Getting the customer to purchase multiple items at once
is one of the most effective ways to increase the profits
you make in your stores.
This is why I teach my tactics for doing this
inside my premium e-commerce training program,
The Ecomm Clubhouse.
If you're interested in seeing if my course is right for you
I'll have a link to it in the video description below.
Another top-selling product for me
that kind of acts a downsell as well
is Printful's color mug.
I absolutely love these.
Printful do offer plain white mugs,
and, well, they are fine, I guess.
They do do the job, so, you know, there is that, I guess.
But honestly, a plain white mug.
Yeah, that's not very exciting.
For me, I much prefer my items to be quirky or unique
in some way, and so that's why I like the colored mugs.
They visually pop,
and so you can choose matching mug colors that work well
with your design to create a unique look.
It makes them feel more premium,
which means just like with T-shirts,
I can charge higher prices for them.
I generally recommend people charge up to $24.99 for mugs,
just like I do.
And just like the stickers,
when it comes to print-on-demand products,
people enjoy getting matching items.
Hey, I see that you liked this T-shirt.
Well, why don't you also have it on a mug as well?
It's an extremely effective strategy.
But, you see, here's the thing.
A lot of people who try to sell the colored mug,
they try to sell it in the wrong way,
because here's the deal.
This mug comes in four different colors,
which seems great, right?
So here's what most people do.
They just take the designs, slap them onto a mug,
and then they offer it in all of the different colors.
Just let the customer decide
which color they themselves want, right?
There's just one problem with that.
This design and the blue mug.
Compared to other colors that complement
and match the design, well, the blue, instead,
it kind of just clashes.
And I know it's subjective,
and someone is 100% gonna comment in the comment section
of being like, LOL, but blue is my favorite color,
but the reality is,
is for 99% of people, they would never have bought it
with such clashing colors.
Instead, they will opt for a color that it looks nice with,
such as the black one or the red one.
And so you might think, well, gee, Sarah, what is the harm
in just offering it in blue, too?
Well, my friend, the harm in doing that
is that you greatly hurt the perceived value
of the items that you sell.
Pricing is entirely subjective.
Nothing is worth anything.
We all decide how much something is worth
based on our own subjective ideas,
and one of the ways we do that
is by comparing a product we see with similar products.
And so let me ask you a question.
This indie Japanese streetwear brand,
Verdy, created this top-selling T-shirt design,
featuring the text, "Break the Mold."
Now, do you think that they went, oh yeah,
let's just stick it on every T-shirt color we can find
to give the customer options and let them decide,
since, hey, maybe 1% of our customers will buy it
as a green T-shirt?
Of course not.
They were highly selective about the color of clothing
that they do sell it on to ensure
it looks aesthetically pleasing
and matches the style and feel of the brand
and point of the T-shirt.
By doing this, they maintain the premium feel of the brand.
If they had instead just opted to sell it
in any color that they could,
this would have cheapened the premium feel of it
and hurt the sales, not helpedthem.
And so, if like me,
you prefer to instead sell the colored mug,
instead of the plain white mug, be sure be selective
and only add colors that contrast well
with your art and slogans
and skip the colors for them that clash,
although luckily, that is not a problem
for Printful's enamel mugs,
which come in one single neutral style.
This is my fifth product,
and if you're already selling mugs, I highly recommend them.
The moment Printful added these into their catalog,
I immediately started selling them,
and they have not disappointed me one bit.
Enamel mugs are very trendy right now, and as you can see,
there are lots of other print-on-demand stores
selling enamel mugs
and passively making money from them, too.
So then, did my video help you?
If it did, please hit Subscribe
and click that little notification bell
so that you don't miss out on any of my videos,
and if you'd like to learn more
about how my e-commerce business runs by itself passively,
you should be sure to watch my video,
Five Apps that I Used to Earn Income on Autopilot.
So go ahead, watch my next video,
and I'll see you over there.