How to Start a Print on Demand Business in 2023?
The concept of a print-on-demand (POD) is very alluring – anyone can start their own business without having to worry about fulfillment, inventory, or shipping.
Who wouldn’t want to give it a whirl? If blank print-on-demand products don’t scare you and you truly want to try running your own online store in 2023, then this simple step-by-step guide is for you.
As eCommerce continues to grow, the number of digital buyers is steadily increasing, and the convenience of digital shopping reigns supreme, starting a successful print-on-demand business is a dream for many.
With that in mind, let’s look at what POD business model is all about. We’ll explore its benefits, downsides and, most importantly, learn how to start a print-on-demand business without any up-front investment.
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll become a POD business entrepreneur in no time.
Table of Contents
How to Start a Print-On-Demand Business in 2023?
If you want to sell custom products online, print on demand is one of the most powerful ways to do so. The best of all is that it’s easy to start, costs hardly anything, and you can personalize the products you sell, thus gaining an edge over your competition.
Although print on demand can seem tricky at first, anyone can achieve success as long as they are driven to work hard.
If you want to learn how to start a print-on-demand business, just follow these simple steps, and you’ll be well on your way.
1. Pick a Niche
A niche is a specialized market segment for particular products. Defining a niche has many benefits – higher profits, reduced competition, and less money spent on advertising.
If you’re not sure what niche you’d like to pursue, start with what you’re passionate about. It can be anything – fitness, camping, grumpy cats, or true crime.
Choosing a profitable niche is one of the most important challenges you will face in your eCommerce journey.
Where should you look for that profitable niche idea? Well, you can start by:
- Examining best-selling products of 2021 – start with a simple Google search. If you take time to deep-dive into details, you might discover trends that are teetering on mass popularity.
- Using Google Trends and comparing products. Google Trends is a very useful tool to quickly assess the popularity of any topic as it visualizes search queries across different regions and languages.
- Analyzing Search Results. Use Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush, or other similar tools to see what people search for.
While trying to sell to everyone, you most likely won’t succeed. That’s why identifying your target audience and picking a niche is so important.
If you’d like to learn more, our in-depth article explains how to find the right niche market for your business, what niche marketing strategies are, and gives examples of niche print-on-demand business ideas.
2. Decide What to Sell
With print on demand, there’s an endless array of products that you can customize and sell. It is not only limited to t-shirts, hoodies, or coffee mugs. As popular as these items are, today you can customize and sell:
- Bluetooth speakers
- Yoga mats
- Socks
- Custom Backpacks, and many other practical items
Whatever you decide to sell, keep your customers in mind. Without doing so, your items will get lost in an overcrowded market. Always stick to your market needs, the products you choose need to make sense for your niche.
These are some of the best places to kick off your research and see what sells:
Never forget to validate your designs – what may seem like an awesome idea in your head, might be completely misunderstood by your customers. The most common way for validating ideas is by sharing designs on social media, online forums, or with your personal network.
If you’re interested in creating a best-selling design from scratch or sites that offer ready-made designs, our in-depth article offers a wide variety of information, resources, and advice, so you can create – or simply buy – your first design with ease.
Also, don’t forget to take a tour on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or any other social media platforms to see what people are saying about certain products and niches. If a certain niched-based community is awfully quiet, then it’s wise to pick a one that’s more lively.
Make Your Own Custom Products Today!
3. Create Designs
Although print on demand relies heavily on unique designs, artistic skills are not a prerequisite for success. You don’t have to be an experienced designer to come up with design ideas. Anyone can do it.
Doing your own research and extracting the best ideas from the internet and your social network is a key step in creating a profitable design.
You can draw inspiration from sites like:
- Designious
- Dribbble, and many others
A word to the wise – you should only use your research as a starting point to create your own original designs. Never plagiarise a design you find somewhere or claim the work as your own.
If you don’t want to spend your time creating designs, you can always hire a professional designer. However, before you start scouting for talent, make sure that you’ve properly identified your needs.
You can use sites such as:
Never forget to validate your designs – what may seem like an awesome idea in your head, might be completely misunderstood by your customers. The most common way for validating ideas is by sharing designs on social media, online forums, or with your personal network.
If you’re interested in creating a best-selling design from scratch or sites that offer ready-made designs, our in-depth article offers a wide variety of information, resources, and advice, so you can create – or simply buy – your first design with ease.
4. Decide Where to Sell
With Printify, you can easily integrate with some of the world’s most popular eCommerce marketplaces and platforms:
When it comes to print on demand, you can either choose to sell on an eCommerce marketplace or create your own store with an eCommerce platform.
What is the difference? Let’s find out.
eCommerce Marketplace
A place where sellers can list their products for sale – all virtual stores are hosted on a single website.
Usually, these marketplaces are easy to set up and tend to have a lot of free buyer traffic. However, you have less control over your store’s appearance, branding, and content. Additionally, they’re highly competitive and have their own set of rules.
eCommerce Platform
If you have a specific vision, you can use an eCommerce platform to build a personalized website for your products.
With these platforms, you can personalize your store, add additional content, various promotions, etc. However, they’re time-consuming to set up, customize, and require higher costs as you can drive traffic only via marketing.
It is no secret that picking the right sales channel is vital for your success. Although each channel has its own perks, they have their downsides too. Before you decide, make sure to evaluate your business needs and the time and money you can afford to spend.
5. Set Up a Store
After you’ve done your due diligence exploring sales channels and picking one that’s right for you, it’s time to set up your store.
Although the steps will differ from the platform you choose, it’s often a pretty straightforward process that only requires a bit of patience. Usually, you’ll have pre-built and customizable templates at your disposal. It is much easier to do than it might seem.
You will need to set up all the pages that are relevant to your store:
- Homepage
- Contact page
- Shipping details page
- Payment details page
- About page, and others
All of this can take a while, but make sure to do it properly – it’s essential for the success of your print-on-demand business.
6. Pick Your Supplier
When it comes to starting a print-on-demand business, you can’t do without a reliable supplier that will fulfill all incoming orders. The importance of this can’t be overstated, your reputation as an entrepreneur depends on it.
Whatever you aim to achieve, Printify’s mission stays the same – to help merchants make more money with less effort.
Printify’s transparent print-on-demand and dropshipping platform lets people from all walks of life design and start selling custom products without any worries. What’s more, once you make a sale, we do all the heavy lifting – printing, inventory, and shipping.
We work diligently to make sure that you’re getting the highest quality products, best prices, and lowest shipping costs.
100% Free
You don’t need any up-front investment. Anyone can sign up and use our platform for free. You pay for a product only after you’ve sold it.
Seamless Integrations
You can seamlessly integrate Printify with some of the world’s most popular eCommerce marketplaces and platforms.
Wide Range of Products
Our catalog has more than 750+ high-quality products, and we’re continually adding more.
No Minimum Order Quantity
With Printify, you can thrive without any limitations – order as few or as many products as you like.
24/7 Merchant Support
Whatever questions you may have, support teams are always on standby, and they will gladly answer any questions you may have.
With Printify, you’re in the right hands – our service is trusted by over two million merchants worldwide with more signing up every day.
Start Your Own Print-On-Demand Business Today!
7. Set a Price
With print on demand, the amount of profit that you will make depends on how high you set your product retail prices.
Whenever you price your products, here are some things to consider:
- What’s the average price of similar products on the market? Try to research current market trends and check product costs for similar items.
- Where are your customers located? If you choose a local print provider, you can cut down on delivery time and shipping costs.
- Will you offer free shipping? If so, it’s a good sales trigger, but make sure to add that amount to the product retail price to absorb the actual shipping cost.
With proper product pricing, you’re setting yourself up for success. If you’re curious to have an in-depth look at how it’s done, our handy guide will teach you everything you need to know about price setting.
8. Check the Quality of Your Products
Whenever you plan on starting a print-on-demand business, checking the quality of your products is essential. Unless your products serve their intended purpose well, you’ll have a hard time getting more sales than one. Your customers need to have confidence in your products.
As a rule of thumb, the primary step to maintain the value that customers see in your products is by choosing reliable print providers.
If you want your eCommerce store to have a good reputation, it’s highly recommended to order samples, so you can check the print quality, style, colors, and the whole end product.
9. Market Your Products
If you want to get your business off the ground quickly, incorporating some basic print-on-demand marketing strategies can make or break your business.
Your goal is to get noticed, drive traffic to your site, provide them with reasons to buy from you, and convert visitors into customers.
Here are a few ways you can market your business:
- Social media – by maintaining a social media presence, you can easily find and engage with your target audience. Don’t forget to consistently create new content, engage with users, and leave positive comments on other accounts. Social media is a smart way to grow your business.
- Influencer marketing – is a universal tool that can be effectively applied to gain broader exposure. By collaborating with influencers who endorse your products, you can gain your audience’s trust quickly.
- Content marketing – a common strategy used by entrepreneurs. If you consistently publish relevant content – blogs, articles, product reviews – you’ll build trust and have authority in your niche.
10. Monitor Your Digital Store’s Performance
If you want to be – and remain – a successful entrepreneur, you should include in your print-on-demand business plan some ways to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
Analyzing your digital store’s performance is important – our handy guide explores a wide variety of eCommerce analytics tools that you can use to better understand how your website is performing so that you can make better decisions and improve your sales.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is print on demand profitable?
If you approach it strategically, print on demand can be very profitable. The average profit from print on demand depends on the brand’s popularity, pricing strategy, and quantity sold.
Without having to worry about printing, packaging, or shipping your products, you can focus on building your brand, getting more sales, and scaling your business.
2. How to create an online store?
The steps you need to take to create an online store will depend on the platform you choose to work with.
- To create a stand-alone store, you can use Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, PrestaShop, or Squarespace.
If you’re unsure which sales channel is right for you, our in-depth comparison will help you decide.
3. What are the best print-on-demand products to sell?
As eCommerce continues to grow, print-on-demand products are becoming increasingly popular. Here are some of the best-selling print-on-demand products:
- Unisex T-shirts
- Eco-friendly products
- Hoodies
- Mugs, cups, and tumblers
- Sportswear
- Backpacks, tote bags, laptop sleeves
To attract new customers and boost your sales, it’s worth exploring our ever-expanding catalog. We have more than 750+ high-quality products, and we are continually adding more.
4. How to promote a print-on-demand business?
As your print-on-demand business begins to grow, you can promote your eCommerce store in these ways:
- Utilize social media
- Optimize your store
- Use product reviews as testimonials
- Use Google Ads campaigns
- Run product giveaways
However, the list is not exhaustive, and if you’re interested in marketing your business, our blog offers a variety of helpful advice anyone can benefit from.
Pros and Cons of Print-On-Demand Business
As a tried and true way of printing for profit, print on demand has many benefits for a budding eCommerce company. That said, it also has its downsides.
Let’s take a look at some of its advantages.
Easy to Start
You don’t need any extensive entrepreneurial, marketing, or artistic experience. Print-on-demand platforms are interested in having you as their customers – they often offer simple guides and instructions.
No Risk
With print on demand, no investment is required. You don’t have to rent premises, hire staff, or worry about logistics.
No Inventory
Whenever you make a sale, a third-party supplier ships products directly to your customer’s doorstep. You don’t need to keep stock of your merchandise, nor spend money on storage space.
Your Reach Is Global
With the right design, you can attract customers from all over the world – effortlessly sell both locally and internationally.
While the advantages might be swaying you, you should be aware of POD disadvantages.
Little Control Over Quality
While the suppliers always try to do their best, you have limited control over the product quality. The best way to counter this is to order samples, if you’re not happy with the result – switch your supplier.
Longer Production Time
With print on demand, the fulfillment takes a bit longer. The merchandise is printed only after a sale goes through, so it cannot be packaged and shipped immediately.
Lower Profit Margins
Due to the nature of the print-on-demand business model, costs per product will be higher than if you buy in bulk.
Split Responsibility
While the suppliers handle order fulfillment, customers will turn to the merchant whenever there is an issue. The supplier is invisible to customers – it’s your responsibility to right any issues your customer experiences.
Whenever you plan to start your own business, pay attention to details, do your research well, and choose your print-on-demand platform wisely.
Closing Thoughts
When done right, print on demand can be a very profitable endeavor. Due to its many perks, it’s a go-to eCommerce business model for entrepreneurs, artists, and content creators all across the world.
Whether you’d like to start a new business or scale your existing one, print on demand has something to offer for everyone.
Start Your Own Print-On-Demand Business Today!
Written by
Leon Walker
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44 comments
Just wondering if there is an option to order product myself in bulk to sell at an in person vendor show?
Hi there!
Yes, you can place a manual order and read more about bulk order options here.
Thanks for the information
Where do I find UK pricing please?
Hi there!
All prices can be found on our catalog, please see here.
Hi thank you for this information!
I am writer looking to collect some information to write an article to publish at my “Medium” account. I am really surprised to read this article. I learned here how say your words in a few word. Thank you!
Hi there,
Happy to hear that!
How are concepts ideas protected?
Hi there!
Perhaps a lot of useful information can be found here in our webinars, where some POD experts are sharing their experience, different tips and tricks.
I like the tote bags inspirational words on them like (always look up to the sky ) something like this. When can I star my platform.
Hi there Bernice,
You can open a store any time. Here are some useful articles about it and if any other questions arise, feel free to get in touch with our Merchant Support team via email [email protected] or live chat on your Printify account.
I remember once in time when buying a personalised t-shirt would be expensive unless you purchased it in bulk. As technology has become more readily available, services have become widespread and circulated our lives also. I’ve never used Printify myself, but now I’m curious. Do you guys sell business cards curiously?
Hi James!
We are continuously adding new products to our Catalog, however we don’t offer business cards yet. Our team will definitely consider adding this product, thank you!
Is it possible when using the printify plugin with shopify, to give the power to my customers to customize their own brand, vs me selling a specific brand? Example My store niche is say sports teams and I select a few specific products/colors/etc, but my clients still have the ability to add their own custom logo and text to the T-shirt or Ball cap. Is this possible?
Hello Jarret!
Currently, we do not offer end-customer customization, however you can process custom orders manually by editing items before sending them to production. Here is our guide.
Let us know if you have any questions!
Hello, does Printify work with the Webflow platform?
Hello! I was wondering if I needed to set up a corporation or LLC in order to sell shirts using prinitfy?
Hi dear. Must I have a website to sell the POD products or can I list them on other online marketplace? If yes , like which ones ? Thanks
Do I need to register my business with the state first?
Hello Elina, Hope you’re doing well..
i have a query… Do i need to register trademark for my brand if i’m selling pod products online..??
Hi,
If Printify is free why do you need to buy a premium subscription and how much is it? If you charge the user for T-shirts is that an extra charge?
Hi Bobbie! Printify is 100% free and we charge only when you have a sale. With Printify premium you will have a discount for blank products, so it means you can earn more with bigger profits. – Elina
hi there, is there a way to edit the inside pages of a book ?
Hi! I am starting a custom designed tote bag business and I wanted to know if I am able to view all available bag options prior to choosing a POD printing and fulfillment service. Am I able to choose any product on the market? I’m looking for high quality bags that come in various colors and sizes.
Heather, thanks for the question! Yes, you can see all the bags on our catalog – https://printify.com/app/products/accessories/bags
You can see available base colors, print providers when you click on each product.
Thanks,
Elina
I am wondering if you have integration with Amazon? I am not seeing it anywhere as an option. Is this something you are planning on doing in the future? Thanks.
Maya, thank you for your questions. We are working on multiple new integrations. We can’t mention names yet, but we will keep you updated and notified. 😉
No Gumroad integration?
how much will it cost me to start
I don’t see it as an option and wonder if I’m missing it or if maybe a product you might add in the future would be a good quality yoga mat. I have designs of my own and yoga mats available at Society6 but would love to be able to have my shirts and mats available in the same place.
Hey, I JUST need help in shipping setting. I have built a shopify store and offered free shipping to USA. When I connected printify it has been set for free shipping too. Which I don’t want. How can I fix it?
I have a Character with lots of colors.
Is there a limit on the amount of colors going on a t-shirt.
Hi, Tony! Unless you use embroidery, there is no specific limitation of colors on a design. But keep in mind – each print provider will have slightly different colors. You can read about it here – https://help.printify.com/hc/en-us/articles/4483617515793 .
I noticed there are not any real design platform, so you should have your designs ready for upload correct?
Yes, you should have designs ready. But we will publish a new article soon ( next week) – where to get free print designs.
Best wishes,
Elina
I would like to know if you are paid by the buyer before you execute and deliver the order. What happens if the customer who ordered has a change of mind and does not receive the order? My question is if the customer pays you or us directly?
Hi there,
Some great Info thankyou!
Any tips on how to actually market the products once the store is up and running?
It’s hard to find info on that. I don’t have any followings on social media etc and wondering if there’s other ways.
Appreciate further tips!
How much money do I have to spend once I’ve designed my T-Shirt? In otherwords, do I have to buy the T-Shirts first, then sell them?
Hi James! No, Printify is free, so you don’t have to pay anything before a real customer purchases a product. You can read more here – https://help.printify.com/hc/en-us/articles/4483638151569
I need help setting up
Hi Ayanna, maybe this is helpful to you – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2d3o13tnxI
Or you can contact our customer care agents and they will help you – [email protected]
Where can I find part 2?
Hey, TJ! We are currently working on Part 2. Is there something specific you want to know? I can suggest some other useful resources.
KR,
Phil
I wasn’t looking for clothing concepts. I was and am looking for print on demand for board games or card games. I design those. Can you do that?