How to Get Started with Print On Demand

The benefits and attractive profits of print-on-demand make almost everyone search for how to get started with print-on-demand.

It’s not a complicated task. Though the word business reminds you of lengthy processes, heavy investments, and huge setups, you don’t need to have a deal with all of those.

Print on Demand setup is very quick and easy. This article will give you a clear step-by-step procedure to understand how to get started with print-on-demand easily.

Let’s make a quick start and let’s try to onboard you today in print on demand.

Let’s first talk about regular business. What are the things you need to do to start your business?

You have to look for the raw material, place, storage, sales, and many more. You need to establish everything before starting your business.

Unlike normal business, joining and starting a business by choosing print-on-demand is easy and quick. All you need is to follow the steps I am providing you, you can easily get started with print-on-demand.

Also it’s always suggested to work on understanding what is print on demand so deeper before knowing how to get started with print on demand. If you are so clear, you can go ahead.

1. Know your Niche and Scope

First understand what are the niches available in print on demand. Make enough research in every niche. Understand what’s trending and what’s popular. The most critical thing you need to find out is the scope of that niche.

Pick up the most popular and high-scope niche. Whatever the segment you are working with, whether it’s blogging, content writing, print on demand, or anything, ensure that you pick up your niche which is most popular and has a larger scope.

Talking about blogging, if you are new to blogging and content writing, here is a wonderful guide for you: How to make money blogging.

There are some trending niches and topics in print on demand, Here is the list you can find and select from them.

Customized Items
Eco-Friendly Products
Healthy Products
Regular Products
Wellness products
Funny items
Retro and Vintage Products

2. Pick Up Your Skill

Print on demand is always not restricted to clothing and especially t-shirts. It included every other place where you can design and provide a product.

For example, if you have a skill in paper art, if you can design a birthday gift good enough, you can pick that. You can start your print-on-demand for birthday gifts.

You might be good at designing cute baskets, you can choose that and start making designs of it.

So don’t worry about your skills. You might be definitely good at one or the other. You just find out where you are good at and that can help you in establishing a business. Start from scratch and polish it and improvise gradually.

Be it any skill, clients can provide you with a large set of customizations like design, color, material, shades, and many more. But for them, most platforms will take care of them. You just need to focus on design more.

3. Polish and Create Your Designs

There are three ways here in designing part.

Fig 1 – Ways to create design in getting started with print on demand

A. Download from Online Sites

You can find thousands of designs on online sites like Shutterstock. You can pay for it and can download it. You need to purchase the designs and should acquire the license for further use.

You can edit the existing design to a better version. Also, you can create it as a unique design. It’s always not recommended to post everything as it’s. Better to edit that and then proceed.

B. Hire a designer

When you feel you are not ready or not thinking to design, then you always can hire a designer through Fiverr or Upwork to help you assist with the designs.

This is a good option when you can invest something more. You can completely rely on the designer for designs. Or you can take the designer’s assistance to work together. Both works.

For high-quality designs, you will definitely have an expert touch of graphic designing tools and editing tools. For them, you can take the help of a designer to create the best.

C. Design by your own

The third option is designing on your own. You can create your designs when you have that skill.

Don’t go into the playground straight for the main match even if you are a great player. Practice well in the field before going straight. So polish your skills first to be good enough.

Then start imagining your designs. Practice them well before creating. Don’t go ever with whatever design you are thinking of. Make use of the web pages well.

Reach out to platforms like Pinterest to get more ideas about similar designs. You can modify them well and you need to create the best.

Remember there is no scarcity of competition here in print on demand. Everything maximum depends on the design you created. If you want to make your business move forward, then you need to first attract the customers.

That happens only with the best designs. So give yourself more time to do it. But make sure you come up with the best and most unique design.

4. Identify the Right Platform

Let’s say you have worked on a product. You have worked hard for it and developed the best design for it and the best material. You have shipped at the right time to ensure the customer is 100 percent satisfied.

But what if your customer doesn’t receive your product and the delivery keeps on delaying every day, how frustrating and disgusting is that?

It’s definitely. The platform is definitely one of the most important factors in print-on-demand. With the right platform only, you can provide your products at the right time.

So keep some time extra in finding the perfect platform for you, but make sure you pick up the best one. Here are some popular sites where you can start your print-on-demand journey by selecting the best.

Fig 2 – Some Best Platforms to get started with Print on Demand

5. Make it live

Once you are done with the design and platform, you can make it live. Notice the purchasing power of the consumer. Calculate all the production costs that include making costs, shipping charges, marketing changes and other related costs.

Then fix the price according to the production cost and based on the profit margin.

A decent analysis is definitely required to set the correct price. Make sure you should not fall above the right price or below the right price.

Consider your target audience and give the dimensions or sizes of the product. Write the product description and details accurately and clearly without missing anything and without any confusion.

Make sure you provide enough sizes and colors for the customer you choose. Check whether the payments are working fine or not.

6. Marketise Your Product

Unlike a large-scale business, no one will do it for you. You have to do your marketing on your own.

If you own a blog or a youtube channel or any page on Instagram or any other, definitely use them. Promote your product in all the social media presences you are there.

In maximum cases that would not be sufficient to drive large amounts of traffic to your product. Hence you can join any paid programs like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, Pinterest Ads, Influencer marketing, etc.

Don’t stick to a single strategy. Try different things to ensure larger visibility online to at least make the customer reach your product. You can also try email marketing, sponsorships, and collaborations.

The very best thing that you can do in your initial days is giving the customers rewards and discounts, also something post their purchase. This is one of the best strategy that really works especially for beginners.

7. Receiving Order and Shipping

In print on demand, mostly you will be linked up with any platform, so you need not worry about setting up any reminder to notify you. When an order is received, it will automatically process your order.

You have to ensure quality control with the platform you are connected with. They need to choose the best quality and accurate printing with perfect alignment.

Of Course, the platform will take care of other replacement or return options. That’s why I have told you previously too to choose the nice platform as it plays a huge role here.

So these are the seven simple steps on how to get started with print-on-demand. I guess you received a nice overview of things and now you are good enough with basics and ready to start your own journey.

How to Select the Right Platform for Print On Demand?

Selecting the right platform is one of the important aspects of print-on-demand. Because it plays a major role in your business. The journey after creating your designs will be taken care of entirely by the platform.

Fig 3 – How to select the right platform for Print on Demand

1. Make Sure it’s Popular

Nothing new, common story, everyone will be attracted to the popular sites only. Check yourself also that, though the product is looking so good and tempting to buy, you will buy only if the site is familiar to you.

Nowadays, many fraudulent things are going on online, especially on clothing sites. There are many sites, where they post beautiful designs, collect money, and never deliver. There are many people who lost money through such.

So if you are getting started with a print-on-demand business, we highly recommend you go for the popular platforms. Do not get started with new ones. With popular ones, you will get many benefits too.

Like the navigation would be smooth, easier, and effective. As they would be too many clients will be using the same.

2.Check the Reviews

It’s always important to notice the reviews that are provided for any platform. There are many ways to gather reviews to understand whether it’s the right platform for your print-on-demand business or not.

The first obvious thing that we can do is to start searching on Google. Gather whatever information you can get from them. There are also some online sites where you can find reviews for platforms like G2 Crowd, Trustpilot, Sitejabber, etc.

The crucial part we can suggest here for you is to go for joining social media pages. That’s the place where you can find the right reviews.

You can find a lot of telegram channels, Instagram pages, and facebook pages for print-on-demand related queries. You can join them and start having discussions with them. You can contact any from the group if possible.

3. Compare Profit Margins

If the majority of the profits with the product go with the shipping and subscription charges, you won’t get anything much in the end.

So first write down all the complete costs required to make that product, on the second side, write down what are the shipping, packing, and subscription charges and everything.

Compare all the base plans of different platforms. When you find the best and cheaper option among them, then opt for it. You can try which platform offers discounts for a year or quarterly plans.

Though it’s experimenting, better to go for yearly plans as it comes at a better price than planning to pay for every month. Just make sure the platform is popular and reviews are good enough.

4. Easy Use and Attractive

Some sites are basically will be attractive and easy to use. Everything seems a bit attractive to us on some sites. In the same way, some sites will be hard to navigate and a bit clumsy.

With them, customers won’t feel interested or won’t even initiate to have a look with them. The responsive nature of the platform should be very good.

The most important task here is the availability of all the payment options. You also need to ensure that they work fine. Through my personal experience, I am saying there is no such disgusting thing as payment failure in online shopping.

So check enough whether it’s working well or not and then move ahead.

5. Best Customer Support

If there is no proper customer support, straight away reject that platform. Though you might select the best platform, you can’t guarantee a hundred percent success all the time.

Fig 4 – Selecting platform that offers best customer support in Print on Demand

Due to technical glitches or network problems, your customer might need to face some trouble sometimes. Customer support should be the best for any platform because you would never know when your customer will need it.

Always pick up the site that offers good customer support and responds to queries well. Even if your product fails to satisfy the end customer, when you can provide the right customer support, that can satisfy the customer.

How to Create the Best Designs for Print on Demand?

The whole core heart of print on demand lies in design creation. Building or breaking the business mostly depends on the design you have created. So from our side to add more beauty to your design, follow these things.

1. Stay Updated

This is so crucial in print on demand to be updated to the latest trends. As we can notice that the coolest trends evolve day by day. Nowadays, if it’s a small college party, students tend to wear the same colour t shirts and with the same captions and print.

Like that for gym, for marriages, for rallies, there are different sets of trends discovered every day. So when you get to know such, you will have a better understanding to create better designs.

No need to worry about understanding what’s running successfully. Just follow some social media pages, analyse other fashion experts, and also notice popular videos in Instagram etc to understand what people are loving these days.

2. Make use of online tools

Thanks to the well-developed technology, that has reduced a lot of effort and expanded more chances of designing. Unlike experimenting on paper or just plain software, there are some tools that help in designing much easier and better.

Tools like Adobe Photoshop, Canva, and others provide a lot of pre-installed templates for inspiration. You can find thousands of colors, patterns, and ideas from them to help you better.

You will need graphic design software, editing tools, adjustment tools, and many others. But together they can help you in creating the best. Make sure if you are thinking of designing on your own, you need to master them.

3. Experiment with Options

Create the most popular rough sketches based on your experience. Print-on-demand design creation is mostly interlinked with experimenting.

Don’t just stop with the design you have created. Change the pattern or try different types of colors to the same design, make use of all the tools, and compare the pictures to know which one actually performs better.

Depending on the purpose, don’t stick to a single slogan or caption. Work on many and in fact try to create your own slogans or captions depending on the target audience that can be funny or interesting.

Fig 5 – Experimenting with different designs in Print on Demand

Change different fonts and different font styles. Try different shades. You can also try mixing colors for a better design if required. The main summary is to experiment well before committing to the design.

These are the basic three, however, there are many things to talk about to create the best design like working well on graphics, receiving and analyzing feedback and competitors first before proceeding.

Work on these three to the maximum extent, the rest actually automatically rise up.

FAQ

How to make use of ChatGPT and other AI options for print on demand?

Nothing to introduce about ChatGPT, it is a recent trend. Though it is totally developed based on AI, it can’t produce 100 percent accurate results all the time. Still, it’s in trend due to its responsive nature and results.

It can’t be 100 percent but the results will be almost most useful in any area. Now in print on demand, there are many regions you can make use of it. It can also help you better in understanding how to get started with print on demand.

You can first ask for print-on-demand popular products, popular niches, and other related queries on print-on-demand, You can ask for different designs for print-on-demand.

You can’t rely on it completely but you can make use of it. You can take inspiration from it and can modify it to make it a unique design.

How do I get more sales on print on demand?

One of the most crucial parts of print-on-demand is marketing. For a good sales generation, you have to know your audience well first. Understand the best strategies to make sure more people get to know about your product.

Here are some simple tips that you can follow to get more sales with print-on-demand.

Identify the target customers and your scope and region your customers are
Check whether your designs are good-looking and attractive or not. Also, check whether they are gaining good impressions and good clicks or not.
Check the analytics and results from time to time to understand whether your marketing methods are working or not.
Optimize your descriptions and listings for the product.
Make use of social media well to help in promoting your product on every platform.
Collect the emails and target email marketing too.
Encourage and tempt customers by giving offers, rewards, and coupons, etc. This is one of the most important tasks to do to grab more clients.

What is the difference between e-commerce business and print on demand business?

Many times people combine these both into a single category. They both appear the same almost as if they are totally interlinked with online services. But there are huge differences between them.

Mostly in e-commerce sites, the owner tries to sell many products, unlike a particular product in a print-on-demand business.

For example, if you own a clothing store offline, to expand your business and for more profits, you will join any online platform or you will establish something on your own. You need to handle all the inventory and shipping things in e-commerce.

Whereas in print-on-demand, you will pick up a specific product, the emphasis is mostly on product creation than supply. From printing to supply you will rely on some other platform.

So the main difference we can say is that ecommerce is a large broader item and print-on demand is a smaller specific different segment.

Conclusion

So, guys, this is all about print on demand. We have started from the first step of how to get started with print-on-demand. We have seen all the steps till you completely can send your product to the end customer.

We have made you explore everything in a clear, smooth way. When you start with things, you will find it easier and smoother. We have also given you how to select the right platform for print-on-demand.

Follow the steps provided one by one carefully, you can get started with print-on-demand successfully.