How To Get Started With Print On Demand In 2021!
This could become your full-time income.
Print on demand has been a growing industry in recent years and it is something that you could still get started with and make money with. The business model has been proven to work time and time again so you may want to know how to get started. In this article, we are going to look into how you can start a full print on demand business if you are a total beginner in 2021!
What Is Print On Demand?
If you are a complete beginner to print on demand then you probably don't know all about it and how it works.
Print on demand is when you create a design and then place it on an object like a shirt, hoodie, mug or many other things. You then create an online store and connect a provider like Printful.
When you get an order to your store, it will get sent to the provider and they will manufacture, package and ship the item to your customer.
There are 2 ways that you can do print on demand, you can either create your own store using something like Shopify or you can create products to sell through a marketplace like Redbubble.
In this article, I will be teaching you how to get started with a Shopify store which is more expensive but you have more control over how your store looks and runs.
I will be writing an article on marketplace print on demand in the future and when it is done I will link it below.
Creating Designs
The first thing you have to do when starting a print on demand store is to have designs that people will want to buy. There are 2 ways that you can do this and I will explain to them both in a little bit.
You need to decide what you are going to sell in your shop, are you going to sell shirts, hoodies, mug, coasters or something else? Once you know that you are going to need to choose a niche for your store.
Choosing A Niche
A niche is a category that your store is going to be about, for example, pugs. You want to think of a topic that you enjoy and then find a subcategory within that. So you could start with dogs and then niche down to pugs.
We do this because if you did a general store with lots of random things in it, you would struggle to rank in SEO and people won’t want to buy from your store.
If you create a store that is on one topic that people enjoy then you can appeal to them more so they are more likely to buy.
Creating Designs By Yourself
If you are a graphic designer or artist creating your own designs won’t be a problem. You already have the skills needed to create all the designs for your store and if you want to edit one then you can do that.
However, I think that most people reading this aren’t graphic designers so you need to find a way to make them your self.
The first step that you need to take is to go onto Etsy.com and browse through other peoples listings that you like the look of and take inspiration. These are designs that you want in your store.
Now that you have done that you need to choose what you want your designs to look like. If you can’t do any graphic design then you probably want to choose text-based designs only which do sell very well.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT just copy someone else's design from Etsy as this is copyright. Your store could be taken down or even sued if you copy someone.
You can use a free design tool like Canva to create your designs. Canva makes it super easy to create designs and you won’t need any help using is because it is so simple to use.
Hiring Someone To Create Designs For You
If you don’t have the skill to create designs and you want to have designs that are more graphical then you will want to hire someone. There are loads of places that you can hire people but I recommend using Fiverr or UpWork.
I recommend using these because you can find people that are professionals and bulk buy designs from them. All your designs will be custom made and you could, for example, get 50 designs for $2 each which is a great deal considering how much money they could make you.
Hiring someone will obviously increase your costs to get started but if you want to succeed and you aren't a graphic designer then you will have to factor this into your budget.
Choosing A Provider
The next step in this process is to a print on demand provider that you want to handle everything for you. The two I would recommend are Printful or Printify.
If you want a provider that is slightly more expensive but will give you a higher quality product and lower shipping rates you should use Printful.
If you want a cheaper provider that is slightly lower in quality and higher shipping rates then you should use Printify.
Both will give you a great product but make sure to buy a sample of your product before you sell it to make sure that it is up to your standards.
Creating Your Store
Creating your store is the part that will take the longest because there are so many different pages that you can make. There are 2 ways that you can do this and I will explain them both.
We will be using Shopify for creating your store because it is cheap and you can do so much with it. Both providers integrate really well so you should have no problems with customer orders.
Creating Your Own Store By Yourself
If you have never created a Shopify store before you are going to find this difficult. There are so many different ways to make and customise your store.
I recommend that if you are creating your own store you should find a tutorial or free course on YouTube because if you try and do it all yourself with no knowledge you are going to struggle.
There are loads of different resources that you can find on the internet that can really help you to build a store that you like and your customers will like.
Doing this will save you a lot of money because the other option you have is to outsource this work by hiring someone.
Hiring Someone To Make Your Store
I am going to start off by staying that this is going to be expensive. If you go onto Fiverr and search of someone that can create you a Shopify store you are looking at hundreds of dollars.
If you have a low budget then you will want to create your own store because this will just cost way too much.
If you want something that is professional looking and will convert well then you will probably want to hire someone but only if you have some spare cash lying about.
You can find freelancers to create your store on Fiverr and Upwork. Most of the time the creators will work with you to make your store perfect so you shouldn’t worry about customisation.
You may have to go on a call with some of the freelancers so that they can understand exactly what they want because sometimes emailing just is too confusing.
Marketing
There are multiple ways of getting traffic to your store but I will talk about the three best that I think will get you the most conversions. You don’t have to do all of these because if you do it can become really expensive or you might to be able to focus on the thing that is working.
Pinterest Ads
Pinterest is a picture-based search engine that over 330 million people visit each month. The great thing about Pinterest is that over 50% of people searching have buying intent so they are looking for a product to buy.
You may think that the best option is just to post pins and let them get traffic directly, however, this is not the case. When you create pins you want to have text over the image to draw people in because if you just have a picture people will scroll right past.
But Pinterest has been ranking pins with text in them lower so that their advertisements can take priority. This means that if you pay for ads you can take that number one spot and get thousands of link clicks.
Another great thing about Pinterest ads is just how cheap they are, you can get a cost per click of just $0.10 which is one of the lowest ad prices that you can get anywhere. You could spend as little as $30 and potentially make hundreds of dollars in revenue.
Facebook Ads
There are over 2 billion monthly active users of Facebook because it is a great platform for interacting with friends and meeting new people. Facebook ads are used by businesses all over the world and you can use them to.
Facebook knows a lot about all of its users so you can target specific people that you want to advertise to. If you want ads that can target someone that is a very specific type of person then you should use Facebook ads.
There are however two problems that you might face if this is your first time using Facebook Ads. They are really difficult to learn because of how many different options there are so you should watch a lot of videos to learn all the ins and outs.
Facebook ads are also getting really expensive just for one click so if you have a small budget to work with then you shouldn't use these ads.
SEO
SEO or search engine optimisation is one of the best ways to get traffic because it is 100% free and you can get a lot of traffic from it.
SEO is when you add different keywords to your store and then add it to Google Search Console so that you can rank in Google. There are millions of people search on Google each day so if you can take a small amount of these people you can make a lot of sales.
There are loads of people search on Google for things to buy so if you can rank for those keywords your conversion rate will be much higher.
There are so many ways of ranking in Google and different SEO tips that I can’t cover them in this article but if you search on Youtube you will find tutorial very easily.
Conclusion
Starting a print on demand store can be difficult but it can also be worth it in the long run. If you have a higher budget you can outsource all of the work and then create a passive income source that makes you money while you sleep!
