When looking for ways to make money online, everyone wants an option that provides flexibility and, most importantly, passive income.
Print-on-demand is an online money-making opportunity that has gained popularity over the past decade. But can you make money with print-on-demand?
According to Printify, one of the significant print-on-demand platforms, the market for this business was valued at $5.397 billion by 2022.
But that’s not the end of it. The projections are that its market value will increase to around $39.035 billion by the end of 2031. Now, that’s a giant leap.
However, some wonder if its money-making capabilities are like any other online business.
Many have questions like, is it one of those online opportunities that promise millions of dollars, but no one gets the actual money?
Can you make money with a print-on-demand business? Is it profitable? These are genuine concerns.
It’s possible to make money with print-on-demand business models, and this piece explains precisely how.
But before diving into how, let’s first understand this business model.
Table of Contents
What is Print-on-Demand?
It’s nothing fancy. It’s just as the name suggests: printing the product when a customer makes an order.
Print-on-demand is usually a business for creatives. It allows them to create and sell designs online without holding any inventory. How does it work?
How to Start Print-on-Business Ventures
First, you need an ecommerce store. It could be a Shopify, Etsy, Woocommerce, or Amazon store.
From here, you can create your designs and advertise them in your store.
You can also advertise your work on social media to increase your store’s traffic.
If someone is interested in any of your designs, the print-on-demand platform you are on, let’s say Printify, prints the design and ships it to the customers. These designs can be printed on various items, including caps, t-shirts, mugs, hoods, etc.
The print-on-demand business model eliminates the need to hold actual inventory in your store. It uses a similar business model to that of drop shipping.
It makes starting easy as it only needs a little start-up capital.
How Does Printify Work with Your E-commerce Store?
To use the POD (print-on-demand) services, connect your e-commerce store, Shopify, with a POD platform like Printify. But how do you do that?
Here are the main steps for integrating your Shopify with Printify:
- First, you need to sign up for Printify for free. This will allow you to access the platform’s tools and POD services.
- From here, you should pick a blank product design you want from the platform’s catalog.
- The next step is to apply your custom designs. The platform has a beginner-friendly mockup generator.
- After designing your custom designs, you integrate your e-commerce store with Printify and publish the designs.
- The last step is to set up your Printify shipping calculator. This allows your Shopify store to start selling print-on-demand products on Printify.
And if you want to sell faster, you can include the Pop-Up-Store feature from Printify.
Now, back to the day’s concern – can you make money with print-on-demand? If yes, how? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Now, let’s look at the how part;
How to Make Money with Print-on-Demand
Making money with print-on-demand is not an automatic process. It requires fulfilling some steps before you can start earning. Therefore, if you want to make money passively with a Print-on-demand business model, here is what you should do:
Open an Ecommerce Store
You need an online store where you can post and advertise your designs and products. For example, you can open an online store with Shopify. This allows you to showcase your designs for your target customers to see.
After posting your designs on Shopify, you can advertise your products manually, which is painfully slow, or save time and effort by automating with AI. This requires integrating your store with an app that can help automate tasks.
E-commerce bot software can supercharge your store through Shopify Bot. The app automates live chats, ads, customer support, social media management, and order and inventory tracking for your store.
How? For example, it provides real-time order tracking and inventory. That way, you can tell the fast-moving items and those that are not. Also, it helps set up and run ads.
Furthermore, the chatbot lets customers know their order status in real-time. This increases customer satisfaction.
The app lets you create and schedule posts with AI for social media management tasks.
It also interacts with users and chats with them in real time, responding to and engaging them in their DMs.
This ensures that customers are satisfied and can quickly make the buying decision.
Define your Audience
So, who are you targeting with your products? It would help if you were clear on this. This ensures that what you design reaches people who are more likely to make a purchase.
Also, it helps in your marketing campaigns. When you know your target audience, you can tailor campaigns to suit that particular audience group.
So, how do you design your audience?
Start by conducting thorough market research. Find out what is trending, what the market wants, and how customers review different products. It will give you a solid idea of what is being sold.
Secondly, you need to categorize your audience. For instance, define their age, interests, geographic location, income level, gender, etc. It helps you determine the kind of designs to make and the kind of marketing campaigns to launch.
Remember your competition. Learn as much as you can about your competitors within that market. Researching your competition helps immensely in identifying gaps you can fill in the market.
Remember, numerous people are already trying to do what you are trying to do.
Lastly, ensure that you learn about your target audience’s interests, preferences, and even pain points. That way, you can know how to tailor your products to resonate with what the customers want.
Choose your Print from an on-demand partner.
Once you have your store and have classified your audience, you need a print-on-demand partner. There are generally a good number of these platforms online. However, the top contenders are Printify, Printful, Gelato, Redbubble, Teespring, and Gooten.
When choosing a POD partner, research them exhaustively to understand precisely what they offer.
The kind of partner you choose determines the quality of products your customers get, the length of shipping time, and even your brand reputation. Therefore, take your time and don’t rush this step.
You should also ensure that the platform offers a wide variety of products, not to limit yourself. The larger the product scope, the better your chances of making money with different designs.
Design your Products
Now that almost everything is in order, you can start designing your products. The products will be influenced by the market research you did earlier and your target audience.
Fortunately, most POD platforms allow you to design various products. For example, you can sell custom designs on apparel products like hoodies and t-shirts, accessories like handbags and stationery, or even home products like mugs.
So, take your time to create unique designs that people will love. If they love it, they can certainly buy it.
Promote your Products or Brand
Before people become interested in and even buy your products, they must first see them.
Therefore, you need to get the word out there.
You can promote your custom designs in several ways.
For instance, you can use your social media platforms, SEO practices, print media, or paid ads. The kind of promotional platform you choose determines how effective your marketing campaign is.
Social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook can be great tools for driving traffic to your store. The more traffic, especially from your target audience, the higher your chances of making more sales.
So, how can you achieve higher traffic? Create a good relationship with your followers. Make them feel as part of the brand.
The truth is, no one wants prominent sales ads. So, write engaging content to connect with your followers.
You can also use paid ads on each of these platforms and search engines like Google to try to increase traffic to your e-commerce store.
The best part? You don’t have to do the paid ads manually. You can automate them for better results. Automating your ads with AI can help you achieve better results with less time and effort.
But how do you do it? Consider integrating your store with an automation tool like the E-commerce bot app. You must sign up and key in brand details like name, tone, and style.
The bot does all the hard work. With a prompt, it sets up and runs ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. You can create and schedule ads in minutes.
The app offers multiple options for headings, copy, and titles. You can test different ad formats, such as videos or text, along with your designs and then use the app to monitor the results. Based on the metrics, pick the one that converts the most.
Best Tips on How to Make Good Money with Print-on-Demand Business
By now, you already know how to make money with print-on-demand. However, you can employ several other tips to make even more sales. For example;
Create What the Market Wants
You might be tempted to produce what you think is best as an artist. However, this strategy seldom works; what is best might differ from what the market wants.
In other words, instead of following your heart and artistic mind, follow the results of your market research. From here, you can create custom designs that will attract your audience.
It means that for the market to favor you, you must produce products that appeal to the customers.
The way to do this is to learn the market trends from customer reviews, research designs, and products that sell the most.
Leverage on Numbers
While some might still make it big in Print demand with just a few products, huge numbers are undoubtedly a remedy for success.
Don’t rely on a single product. Create design after design and let the customers choose from the variety.
This way, if one product doesn’t do well, another can sell better. A few sales from numerous product lines will amount to massive revenue at the end of the month – unlike when you have only a handful of products.
For example, if you have ten products with two regular sales, you will earn less than a person with 50 with ten regular sales.
Try Bold Custom Pricing
This strategy helps sellers sell more than just one product using price manipulations. What does this mean?
Generally, most people will work hard to sell one product at a time. However, you can target to sell more than one product to one customer.
How do you do this? Offer discounts or enticing offers for customers who buy many products.
For example, you can include a price calculator in your e-commerce store that calculates the price drop as customers add products to their cart. This way, they can see the value of buying more products rather than just one.
The strategy works well, especially where the products go well and multiples.
Research More Designs
Don’t rely solely on your creative mind. There are so many designs and resources available that you can leverage to sell more with print-on-demand.
For instance, if you have an idea for a creative design, wait to design it. Visit platforms like Pinterest to get even more ideas.
By reviewing multiple designs from other creatives, you can create a more comprehensive design that might be more appealing to your market.
Hire a Designer
Sometimes, you need more ideas. Or it would help if you were an expert designer. Such issues allow you to make money with print-on-demand.
The solution here is to hire an experienced designer. While you might be doing well at first with sites like Shutterstock to get design ideas, this will only suffice briefly. Everyone else is doing it.
That’s why you might need to hire a designer for your business. An experienced designer can quickly develop unique designs that few people can imagine. Also, even with the existing designs, they can twerk them to create incredible pieces.
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- How To Supercharge Google Ads With AI For Conversion
Conclusion: Make Money with POD Leveraging Automation to Increase Revenue
The print-on-demand market has been growing for some time. According to recent research and projections, it will reach over $39 billion by 2031, indicating that it is only at its budding stages.
Therefore, if you are looking for a profitable way to sell your designs, you shouldn’t fear venturing into this market.
To grow your business, follow the steps and tips mentioned above.
Also, in this era, where AI is doing wonders in the internet landscape, you can leverage its power to make your business even more profitable.
For instance, you can use Instagram and Facebook AI automation tools for marketing campaigns. These tools make everything easy and help you to tailor the right promotional messages to your audience.
Therefore, find an app that helps increase your sales and revenue, like the e-commerce bot.
Start shopify Free Trial Today
The e-commerce bot software can help automate many repetitive tasks, including social media management and live chats, setting up and running ads, interacting with customers, and tracking inventory and orders for your products.
With this tool, you will spend less time, money, and effort and increase your store’s sales and revenue.
The best part? It offers a 30-day free trial. So why not give it a try and watch your store sales skyrocket? Sign up, integrate your store with Shopify, and use this AI tool to automate tasks.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
Do I need a business license for print-on-demand?
No! Most print-on-demand partners do not require a license to use their platforms. However, this depends on the laws and regulations of your country or where you do business.
Can you still earn with print-on-demand in 2024?
Absolutely! According to statistics, the print-on-demand market is only at its budding stages. Demand for POD products will only grow in the next several years.
The market is expected to achieve a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 22.7% by 2032.
Is the print-on-demand market saturated?
No! If you want to start a print-on-demand business, you shouldn’t worry about saturation; the market is still young. With the increased internet usage, changes in fashion, and the need for custom products, this market is still saturated. So, start as early as now and enjoy making money online.
Why should I opt for a print-on-demand business?
There are several reasons why a print-on-demand business is a feasible option. First, the initial capital is manageable.
Secondly, it’s a low-risk business. Since you don’t need inventory and only print the product when a customer orders, the chances of loss are minimized. The company also offers flexibility, allowing you to work anywhere and anytime.
