Print-On-Demand 101

For those looking to start an online business, which is a growing number of people thanks to the events of the past two years or so, one of the most popular options is what is generally known as POD, which is short for “print-on-demand”.

In short, POD means that you create a design that will be printed on a physical item (e.g. a coffee mug, or any of an ever-increasing number of products), usually by another company, but that physical item is only manufactured once you receive an order.

This business model began many years ago with POD books – my first book (about Magic Squares) was made available by a company called BookSurge, which was later bought out by Amazon as part of their CreateSpace brand, although it’s all now part of their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) arm.

The idea was the same, and it was very attractive. Formerly, if you were not taken on by a publishing house, your only other option was to go with vanity publishing, where a company would print a (usually smallish) quantity of your book, which you would have to pay for up-front, and then you would have to market, sell, and ship those books to your customers.

When POD came along, it opened the door for many authors to make their books available without that need for any significant initial investment. You wrote your book, you uploaded it to a service such as Amazon’s, they listed that book on their site, and when somebody bought it, Amazon would print the book and ship it. It’s good for them too, of course, because they don’t need to carry any physical inventory. (And with Kindle, they don’t even have to do that any longer because the book is digital.)

If this intrigues you, then read on, because the following guide looks at various aspects of starting and running a POD business, not so you will know everything you need to know to start such a business, but so that you will have the information you need to evaluate whether it’s right for you.

Benefits Of POD

I’ve already mentioned one of the most important benefits of POD – there need be no inventory costs, because the finished items (e.g. a coffee mug with your design printed on it) do not exist until an order is placed for it.

But there are other benefits too, including:

• Speed to market. Depending on the POD company you wish to partner with, and where you wish to sell your products, you can set up a store very quickly, and from coming up with a new design to having a product bearing that design available to purchase can be a matter of minutes. (I am not saying you should skimp on the research phase or produce bad designs, but the process of adding your design to a product and then launching that product via your chosen POD company is often quick and easy.)
• Flexibility. You can run your POD business from anywhere you have an Internet connection and a computer, tablet, or even a smartphone. Remember, you never touch the physical product – you can design it online, create the product online, advertise it online, and fulfil it online, from more or less anywhere in the world.
• Product choices. While POD began with a limited range of products (e.g. coffee mugs, t-shirts, and books), the list of different products you can sell now is growing all the time.
• Market. There are millions of potential buyers out there, all looking for designs with which they can connect – personal, emotive messages that resonate either with them or with the people they are buying the products for.
• You can replace your day job. Yes, this is possible, if that’s what you want to do (and assuming you build a successful POD business), or you can simply use it as a way to earn some additional money on the side. For example, during the time it takes you to watch a TV show or two after work, you could have launched one or more products and maybe even started to make a few sales.
• Work at your own pace. Following on from the above, you can build your business at whatever speed suits you. Even if you only launch one new design or product per day, that would be 365 new products at the end of one year, and you only need a handful of successful ones to make a substantial difference to your income.

The POD Process

There are a few steps you need to take to create a successful POD business, including some you only need to do when you first set up your store, and some you need to do each time you create a new design.

Initial steps include:

1. Deciding what products you want to sell.
2. Deciding which POD companies you wish to partner with, which may affect or be affected by the previous step.
3. Deciding where you wish to sell your products.
4. Deciding on a company or brand name for your business (which does not necessarily mean you need to form an LLC, or equivalent – well, not yet, at least).

Ongoing steps include:

1. Having an idea for a design.
2. Creating that design (or paying somebody to create it for you).
3. Launching one or more products with that design using your chosen POD partner(s).
4. Promoting those products, either actively or passively.
5. Fulfilling orders. When you receive an order, it may be processed and fulfilled automatically for you, or you might have to place the order manually (and then your POD partner will manufacture the item and fulfil it).

Each of the above steps are discussed in more detail below.

Which POD Products?

These days, there are so many different products, it’s difficult to know where to start. For example, there are:

• Aprons
• Baby bibs / bodysuits
• Bag / totes
• Bath robes
• Blankets / bedding
• Candles
• Car seat covers and other auto accessories (e.g. mats, sun screens, steering wheel covers)
• Coasters
• Coffee mugs
• Dresses / skirts
• Flags
• Hat / caps
• Hoodies
• Jackets
• Jewellery
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Keychains
• Leggings
• Ornaments
• Pet accessories
• Phone cases
• Pillows / pillow cases
• Pyjamas
• Rugs
• Seat protectors
• Shoes / sneakers / flip-flops
• Shorts / swimming trunks
• Shower curtains
• Signs
• Stationery
• Stickers
• Towels
• T-shirts / tank tops
• Tumblers
• Umbrellas
• Wall art / posters
• Watches

The above list is not, of course, exhaustive, but I hope you can see the wide variety of options.

So, does any particular product, or category of products, interest you? For example, some people focus only on coffee mugs, while others may sell just jewellery or only clothes.

Conversely, some choose to sell a variety of products, across many categories, where the common denominator is the theme of the designs (e.g. animals, hobbies, occupations, arts).

The key thing is that you need to think about this before you create your company, brand, and website.

Which POD Partners?

Again, there are many to choose from, including:

• CustomCat
• Gearbubble
• Gelato
• Pillow Profits
• Printful
• Printify
• Sublimator
• teelaunch

Each of them works slightly differently, with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Here are some of the factors you should consider when choosing to work with a POD supplier:

• You will always pay for each order you place with them, but do they also charge a monthly fee to use their service too? (Some do, and some don’t.)
• Do they offer the product(s) you wish to sell?
• How good are the product mock-ups they provide? (Some create really good life-style photos, making it look as though the product you have designed is being used in real life, while others offer more basic mock-ups, meaning you might have to create your own, since good mock-ups can make all the difference between getting a sale and not.)
• What payment methods do they accept when you place orders from them (e.g. cards, PayPal)? Some work on a credits system – but you still have to purchase those credits first, of course.
• How will they pay you (if they provide a sales page on their own site)?
• Does using that company tie you to any other ecommerce platform? For example, Pillow Profits, which is the company I use most, requires you to run a Shopify store (which I’ll talk about later). Gearbubble, on the other hand, does not require any other ecommerce platform (even though many sellers do offer their products elsewhere too).
• What is their customer service like?
• Do they get good reviews, both from the companies who partner with them, and from customers who purchase products made by them?
• How quickly do they process orders?
• Where do they ship from? For example, some ship only from one country (e.g. China, USA), while others have a network of print providers all over the world, which can reduce shipping times and costs.
• Is their pricing (including shipping, where relevant) clear?

Where To Sell Your POD Products?

Again, you have choices here, and that can in part be determined by your choice of POD partner(s).

Some companies, such as Gearbubble, create a product sales page for each campaign (aka product) you create. If you want to see a sample page, click here.

Others, such as Pillow Profits, offer their services via an add-on app to Shopify, which is one of the more popular ecommerce store services. (Shopify allows you to design an ecommerce store, add products, in however many categories you want, and take orders, without having to know how to do any computer programming at all.)

But in all cases, whether your POD partner provides sales pages for your products or not, you can always sell your products on other platforms, including:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Etsy
• Storenvy
• your own website (e.g. a WordPress blog, which requires some technical know-how even though it’s nowhere near as complex as creating your own website from scratch, or Shopify)

Using an established platform such as Amazonor Etsy can be good because you don’t have to work as hard to get people to see your products, but their selling fees can add up, so make sure you check out their pricing structures and price your products accordingly, taking into account both their fees and the costs you will be charged by your POD supplier.

Also, don’t forget shipping costs – some POD suppliers (such as Pillow Profits) include shipping in the cost of your products, which makes things easier, while others have complex shipping rules and costs that mean you need to think carefully about how you price your own products.

In addition, some POD companies integrate directly with some of the more common platforms (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Etsy), so when you receive an order, it is automatically placed for you and then fulfilled, with no manual intervention required at all. Note that this is free with some companies, but not with all of them.

Your own site, on the other hand, can reduce your costs (although you will still need a means of taking payment from your customer, and whether that’s cards or PayPal or something else, there will always be a processing and/or transaction fee involved).

However, it is more difficult to get visitors to your own site, especially if it’s a new one, which means you might need to consider doing paid advertising to kickstart your business, and the costs of that can add up quickly.

What Company / Brand / Website To Use?

If you already have a brand name or website name, you can, of course, use that to sell your products, provided it is congruent with the products and/or designs you wish to sell.

Alternatively, if you are either starting from scratch or wish to create a new web presence, then you need to come up with a name you can trade under.

And you will need this, regardless of whether you choose to sell on your own website, or on one of the major marketplaces mentioned above.

Here are a few things to consider:

1. Do you want to use your own name (or a variation of it), or something else?
2. Do you want the name to consist of real words, or some made-up word?
3. Is the .com domain name available – which you can check via a domain registrar, such as Namecheap, which is the one I have used for over a decade? (Even if you don’t want to set up your own website yet, it’s best to have the domain name just in case you change your mind.)
4. Is that name available (e.g. as a store name) on all of the platforms on which you think you might sell your products? (Note that this includes any social media sites where you might want to post using that name.)
5. Is it too close to a name that somebody else is using (especially if they are selling either similar products or have a similar theme to their store).
6. Is the name easy to remember, say, and spell / write / type?

While you may not need to set up an LLC (or equivalent) straight away, you might want or need to do this later, if, for example, your business takes off. This is, however, something you should speak to an expert about, depending on the country in which you live and/or the country in which you wish to conduct business.

If you’re stuck for ideas for your business or name, there are plenty of free business name generators available, such as this one, and there is also a free tool, called NameStormer, on Toolarium, to help you find interesting domain names (which could also be used as your business or store name).

Where To Find Ideas

The key is not necessarily to be 100% original, but to do research to show what sort of designs and messages people are buying.

And let me be clear here: the goal is NOT to steal other people’s work! It’s fine to use what you find as inspiration, but you should never copy anything else word for word or pixel for pixel.

If the words on the design are a famous quotation, and the person who said or wrote it is no longer alive, then by all means use them (provided they are not copyrighted or trademarked), but if it’s a message the creator of that product came up with themselves, it’s not OK to use it.

On that subject, you really need to familiarize yourself with copyright and trademark laws, not to the degree of becoming a lawyer, but you should be aware of a few important considerations, including:

• Never use any words or images or designs or logos or fonts that are owned by companies such as Disney or Nike. They have large legal departments and they will come after you!
• Never use images or photos that you are not allowed to use. For example, you cannot just do a Google image search and use whatever you find. You have to make sure you have the rights to use that graphic, and, because you will be putting it on a product you will be selling, you have to have commercial rights.
• You can use the USA Government’s Trademark Electronic Search System (aka TESS) to perform simple trademark searches. Similar sites might be available in other countries, but you would need to check that for yourself.
• Be careful of some stock photo sites. Many will allow you to use the images featured there for commercial purposes, for free, but others will require you to purchase a special licence. For example, Depositphotos have a standard licence where you can use the photos you buy on websites or in books, but you may not use them as designs on physical products such as coffee mugs (unless that image or photo represents less than approximately 10% of the overall design).
• Any mention of current celebrities (e.g. actors, singers, sports players) is best avoided because their names and brands are frequently trademarked.
• Definitely stay away from any professional sports franchises and team names (or logos), including the NFL, MBA, and MLB.
• Remember, in the eyes of the law, ignorance is no excuse. Using photos without the copyright owner’s permission can cost you thousands of dollars (although in many cases, you might first receive a take-down notice, as a warning)!

So, back to the original question – where to find your ideas?

• You can look on sites such as Etsy to see what their best-sellers are, and you can do something similar on Amazon. And then you can use those best-selling products and ideas for inspiration.
• You can look on quotation sites for ideas too – but try to stick to the short and pithy ones if you can.
• Perhaps there’s a turn of phrase you love in a book you’ve read (provided it’s not under copyrights still).
• Maybe a meme you saw on Facebook inspires you – but, again, don’t copy it exactly.
• Current affairs are always a good source of ideas, but be careful about using the names of celebrities, etc.
• From your own brain, of course. But remember, just because you like it or find it funny does not mean others will. In the words of Stephen King, “kill your darlings“. (To be fair, his advice applies primarily to writing, but I think it’s a fair point in a more general sense.)

You might be concerned that if too many people sell products with the same basic message on them, it is not possible to make any sales, because of the amount of competition.

This is not necessarily the case, however. What it shows is that people are buying those designs. The trick, then, is to create your own version that is better – more eye-catching, better imagery that connects with the buyer, different fonts or colours that work better. Maybe even a similar message (because you should avoid copying word for word) on a different product might be all it takes.

That also does not mean you cannot be original. If you have a different take on a popular idea or quote, then that differentiation can work in your favour.

If this doesn’t sound particularly helpful, then the truth is that it can take a while to work out what sells and what doesn’t, and this varies from niche to niche. Design concepts that work well for dog lovers might not do so well with golfers or accountants.

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Creating Your Designs

Not everybody is a graphic designer, but the good news is that you don’t have to be.

One of the best-selling styles of coffee mugs is what is often referred to as an “ugly mug”. These designs often contain no graphical elements – just text in a standard font (e.g. Arial). If the message resonates with somebody, i.e. they have a strong emotional connection with it, the words alone are enough, as with this example:

If you suffer from aphantasia (as about 4% of people do), then this is probably going to appeal to you.

However, some embellishment, whether those are icons or abstract art or photos, can certainly enhance a design’s appeal. For example, this Valentine’s Day mug works because of the combination of the wording and the graphic element (i.e. because an octopus has lots of “hands”):

So, how to create your designs?

The first thing you need to check are the artwork requirements specified by your POD partner. They should all have something like this, and they will tell you vital information that will help you create a design that works well with your chosen product, including:

• What dimensions the artwork file needs to be. This will usually be given in pixels, such as 1,400 x 1,200 pixels, which are the dimensions of Pillow Profits‘ mouse pad product, or sometimes in inches, such as 3″ x 3.5″, which are the dimensions of Gearbubble‘s coffee mug product.
• What file format it needs to be. Without being too technical, most companies require an image format of either JPG or PNG.
• What resolution the image file needs to be, because this affects the quality of the finished product. Again, this can get a bit technical, but most companies require an image that is from 150 DPI (dots per inch) to 300 DPI (which is the norm). (By way of comparison, most images used on the Internet are only 72 DPI, because that’s good enough for most computer monitors and phone screens – but not for printed products.)
• Whether there is a “safe area” within which important parts of your design must be placed. (Anything within the image borders but outside this safe zone may be cut off during the production of the product, which will make it look unprofessional, or, in extreme cases, it might ruin the design completely.)

You will need to become more familiar with all of the above once you get started, but don’t worry, it’s not that difficult – honest! (One of the great things about all this is that, once you have a basic design that works, you can use it as a template for future designs, so you don’t need to keep reinventing the wheel.)

Now that you know what the specifications of your artwork file need to be, you need to decide what you’re going to use to create that file.

Many people use software such as Photoshop (which is often regarded as the software for graphic design), but it’s expensive and it has so many features that the learning curve can be steep.

Other, cheaper and simpler, options include online tools such as Photopea (which works a bit like Photoshop), while my personal favourite is Canva (which is free, although there are a few features with the Pro version that are worth it, for me, such as the ability to include transparent areas on your design, which are necessary for some POD companies). But there are many other options, including PicMonkey, which I have used but which is not my preferred choice.

A lot will depend on personal preferences here. While Photoshop will allow you to create pretty much anything you want (once you learn how to use it effectively), you definitely do not need something that powerful when you first get started.

Once you have worked all that out, it’s time to create your design.

You will either need to create a blank design, using the specifications provided by your POD supplier, as mentioned above, or open a template file that they provide for you.

After that, you need to add whatever text and graphical elements you want, using your chosen software.

While I am not a professional graphic designer, it seems to me that simpler is usually best, especially if you struggle to draw even stick figures, as I do. Too many elements on a design, or too many different colours or fonts, can make it look messy and amateurish.

If you want to get to grips with the basics of graphic design, then this book is worth a read.

If you do need photos or images as part of your design, you can use your own photos (which can be best because they will be unique to you), or you can look for what you want on some of the many stock photo sites, including the following (which I use frequently):

• Depositphotos
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Unsplash

Again, as mentioned previously, be very careful that you have the rights to use the images you find!

And, finally, you can find a graphic designer to turn your ideas into actual designs for you. This can be expensive, but one way around this can be to use a site such as Fiverr, where you can find people willing to do all sorts of jobs for relatively little money ($5 or more). However, as they say, you get what you pay for (most of the time), and while the designs you get from Fiverr might not be as high quality as ones created by a full-time professional designer, you really don’t need something that polished when you first start out.

Launching Your Products

OK, you have a design ready and you want to launch your new product. So what’s next?

That will depend on your chosen POD partner, but typically, you need to go either to their website or to the app that is an add-on to your website, and follow their process to add a new product.

This process varies depending on the supplier, but you usually have to do most of the following:

• Select which product you want to create.
• Upload your artwork / design.
• Add a few product details (e.g. title, description), although many POD companies will automatically create a default description for you (which you can and should edit).
• Set your pricing. Usually, your base / cost price will be shown, and it’s up to you to decide how much profit you want to make on each sale (but remember, as mentioned above, to account for transaction fees from sites such as Amazon and Etsy, or from your own payment provider, as well as, of course, the POD company itself).
• Click a Submit or Launch button, as appropriate. This will generate the product, at which point it is often immediately available for sale.
• Optionally, you might want to download the product images that are generated, either because you want to add this product to another site (e.g. Etsy) or because you want to create ads to promote the product.
• If you do list your products on other marketplaces, such as Amazon or Etsy, it is vital that you follow their specific rules about what you may and may not do and ensure that you complete all of their required information, which may be different to or in addition to what you needed to launch the product in the first place.

Promoting Your Products

This will depend, to a degree, on where you are offering your products for sale.

If you’re listing them on major marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, or Etsy, then, provided you have crafted your listings carefully, paying particular attention to keywords (i.e. the terms people might use to find your product), your product listings will be seen by people interested in whatever it is you are selling.

There are tools available to help you with keyword research, such as eRank, Jungle Scout, and Marmalead, to name but a few.

If all you do is list your products on these sites, you will receive what is called organic traffic – i.e. regular shoppers typing in search terms and finding your product naturally.

And it is possible to get a lot of sales using this method – if your product / design appeals to enough people, it’s fairly priced, your listing, especially the photos, look good and professional, and you have managed to infuse the right keywords in your listing to ensure your products are easily found by shoppers.

However, you can also pay for advertising, on Amazon, on Etsy, and many other places on the Internet, including, for example, Facebook.

Paid advertising (often called PPC, which stands for Pay Per Click) can get very expensive very quickly if you do not know what you are doing. The benefits are, when you get it right, that you can make a lot of sales relatively quickly.

Keys to doing this include defining who you want to target your ads to (e.g. the demographics), creating appealing ads that will encourage people to click on them and end up on your product, ensuring the ad meets the requirements of the site where it will be displayed, making sure your product listing is appealing and has all the information somebody might need to make a purchasing decision, and making sure you understand what budget you have to work with, and what the costs are likely to be.

And if you manage to do that, and you end up making more in profits than your advertising costs you, then well done! To me, it’s more like an art than a science, but I know there are those who are very successful with PPC.

Fulfilling POD Orders

Again, this will depend on where you make the sale, the POD partner you’re working with, and whether they integrate with the ecommerce platform.

Some companies will detect that an order has been placed on, say, Etsy, and they will automatically (usually once per day, but sometimes in almost real time, or, at least, more frequently than once per day) add that order to their system, place it in their production queue, manufacture the product, ship it, and then update the original order details by adding a tracking number.

All of which means you don’t need to lift a finger during the entire process.

However, some other companies, who do not integrate with other marketplaces, require you to place orders using their app or site manually.

This is not difficult, though. It’s how the vast majority of my own orders are processed.

In short, you copy the order details (e.g. product name, quantity, shipping information) from the source site (e.g. Amazon) and enter it into your site (e.g. a Shopify store) or their system.

Then, that order will go into their production queue, and when it’s shipped, they will update the order details (on your site or their system) with the tracking number, which you must copy and paste back into the site where the order was placed, so that the customer is notified accordingly. Remember, Amazon and, more recently, Etsy, are very hot on sticking to shipping times and providing tracking numbers these days.

What Next?

This goes way beyond the scope of this article, but should your POD business grow and be successful, there are a number of directions you can take to increase sales and make it more profitable, including:

• Take on staff to help you manage your workload (although with the right POD partner, this might not be relevant).
• Outsource some of the work (e.g. hire professional designers or staff to add your listings to other platforms for you).
• Start manufacturing the products yourself. For example, I know of people who buy the necessary equipment and blank mugs so they can print their own mugs, which can reduce the costs considerably – but only if you sell enough to make the equipment pay for itself.

Conclusion

Remember, this is only POD 101 – it is not intended to be a complete training course on how to start, run, and grow your own POD business. It is only to give you an overview of what is involved to help you decide whether this is right for you.

For me, POD has been my largest source of income for a few years, and yet I too am still learning and finding ways to grow my business.

I use one of the sites mentioned earlier, eRank, and according to them, I have sold “more items than 95.4% of other shops on Etsy”. Two things here:

1. This figure is presumably calculated based on the number of Etsy sellers who use the eRank service – and I have no idea what percentage of them do this.
2. I do not make tons of sales on Etsy. By comparison, there are some people who sell well over 500 products a day, and while I’m not saying these are all POD products, that is still a significant volume of business. The question is, how many sales would you need to make to accomplish your goals?

POD is rarely a “get rich quick” activity – it takes time to build a sustainable business. Having said that, it is possible to have one of your early products go viral and give you a nice boost of cash, but the real trick is to create a business where existing customers keep coming back and buying more of your products (which is especially true if you sell them via your own site).

Well, I hope you have found this guide useful, and I wish you every success, either in your POD business, or in any endeavour you undertake.

Additional Resources

Apart from all the links contained within the guide above, here are a few other suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into POD:

1. POD Course
2. HRA