1. What is Print on Demand? (source: Shopify)
A print on demand business is where where you work with a supplier of white-label products (like baseball hats or tote bags) to customize those products and sell them on a per-order basis under your own brand and with your own designs.
With print on demand, you don’t pay for the cost of the product until after you’ve actually sold it, so there’s no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory yourself. As such, it continues to become a popular business model in the world of ecommerce.
Plus with print-on-demand services, everything after the sale, from digital printing to order fulfillment and shipping, is handled by your supplier.
A major additional benefit of print on demand is. that once you’ve set everything up, it takes only a few clicks to fulfill an order after you’ve made a sale.
2. Creating your design:
2.1: Placeit (Investment Needed)
This can be done in many ways, my favorite way is a paid way!
This method relies on the website https://placeit.net and it is a FANTASTIC website for this since it lets you place objects as mockups making marketing easier. The service is quite expensive but you make it back if you stick with the method.
Now that you have the service you need to pick your nieche! This will be important later! Pick something unique that is easily marketable! For my first run this was Outdoors combined with EDC so everything was related to that. Then you use their service and find designs that fit in your nieche, place your name and download the design. Then you download the design, post it to their mockup tool and go onto the next step.
Mockups under spoiler:
Spoiler
https://www.mockupworld.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/placeit-animated.gif
2.2: The Free version!
This method is a bit slower but uses https://www.canva.com This is a great free tool for online design! Now that you have the service you need to pick your nieche! This will be important later! Pick something unique that is easily marketable! For my first run this was Outdoors combined with EDC so everything was related to that. Then you use their service and create designs that fit in your nieche, place your name and download the design. Then you download the design and proceed to the next step.
3. The Different Marketing Routes:
These are some of the more popular routes in the space, you can use one or do all of them at the same time to generate a lot of cash.
Instagram: (Effort: 5/10; Ivestment needed 1/10; Profitability: 6/10)
Facebook: (Effort: 4/10; Ivestment needed 6/10; Profitability: 9/10)
Tiktok (Effort: 5/10; Ivestment needed 4/10; Profitability: 7/10)
3.1 Instagram:
Now that you have your design and nieche. Create an insta for your niece with some catchy name. Post pictures related to your nieche to start and build a following, use hashtags, etc.
You can pay for shoutouts or marketing from other people in your nieche also! Then every 10 posts or so you post your own product and a link in your bio to your store!
3.2: Facebook:
This one is simple! Make a facebook business account and pay for ads and target to your nieche! Easy as that.
3.3: Tiktok:
Combine steps from 3.1 and 3.2, Profit!
4. The Stores where you make your money!
Now, you have your designs, and your traffic, where do you send them?
Here is a list of some Print on Demand Services:
https://merch.amazon.com/
https://www.redbubble.com/
https://www.zazzle.com/
https://www.cafepress.com/
https://www.spreadshirt.com/
https://teespring.com/
Upload your design here and they will market your stuff for you!
Send your marketing traffic to any of them except Amazon because they often market your stuff better for you.
5. F.A.Q.
How many designs do i need?
I Would personally recommend 50-100 at least, but do a couple a day, 10 in a day is EASILY doable in an hour or two.
Do i need to be an artist?
Fuck no!
Is it scalable?
yes, as much as you want, scale with Facebook ads. Pay people on Fiverr for designs etc.
