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you could decide you want to start a print-on-demand business by monday get your website up and running by tuesday and start making sales by the end of the week welcome back to learn with shopify i'm your host michelle and in today's video we're going to learn how you can start a print-on-demand business print on demand is a low-risk simple way to start a hugely profitable business with no inventory [Music] whether you're an artist writer designer or entrepreneur physical products can be a great way to monetize your creativity you can put your own original span on everyday products like t-shirts posters backpacks books and sell them online however if you do go the traditional route of buying and holding your own inventory you may be left with a pile of products that just aren't selling print on demand services are a good way to avoid this problem you won't have to invest a ton of money in holding inventory and it'll save you time in dealing with logistics print on demand also allows you to start selling really quickly and at a fraction of the cost here are the things that we'll be covering in this video we're going to define what print on demand is we'll discuss the pros and cons i'll give you a list of services to choose from and what they offer we'll also talk about how to get your designs into the real world even if you have no design experience and then we'll finish off with some expert tips for making your business profitable print on demand is a process where you work with a supplier to customize white label products white labeling is when a purchaser or a marketer uses its own branding rather than the manufacturer's branding but what makes print on demand so enticing is that you can sell the products on a pre-order basis under your own brand that means that you don't have to pay for the product until after you've actually sold it so there's no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory and the nice thing about print on demand services is that everything after the sale is handled by your supplier that includes everything from printing to shipping we're going to go over how to get all of this set up in detail but once you do make a sale it'll only take a few clicks to fulfill an order depending on your purpose you can use print-on-demand services in a few different ways you can use it to test a business idea without fronting money for inventory you can test a new product line for an existing business again without holding any inventory at all and you can use it to monetize an audience you've already built printing on demand is also a great option if you're an artist or an influencer but you'd rather focus on doing what you love rather than fulfilling orders it's also a great business model to create original products for a niche of customers so for example you can create apparel for people who are passionate about gaming there are some pros and cons when it comes to print on demand print-on-demand sites can be used to build a business based off of a drop shipping model where the products and shipping are all handled by a third party it's one of the most accessible ways to source products or start an online business but you should know that there are perks and limitations before you dive in print on demand is great for creating products quickly once you have the design you can create the product and put it up for sale in minutes this helps you be nimble and it helps you capitalize on trends another plus is shipping shipping is fully taken care of shipping and fulfillment is basically out of your hands and it's up to the supplier to take care of that after the sale you're just responsible for customer service and marketing additionally since you're not physically carrying products your cost to run your business will be lower and finally there's less risk involved it's easier to add or remove products test ideas and pivot your approach now let's take a peek at the cons so naturally your cost per item is going to be higher than if you were to buy in bulk on-demand products are known to have thinner profits so depending on how you price them and how you acquire customers making real money is going to require volume with print on demand another con is that you'll have less control over your shipping costs and your options may also be limited if you want to create a standout unboxing experience there are also limitations to customization your ability to customize products is going to depend on the vendor and the product you'll have to see what base costs are what customization options are available as well as printing techniques and size options when deciding on which products to customize okay so by now you should have a better idea of whether print on demand will work for you now we're going to hop into the services that i recommend it might seem like all print-on-demand services are similar at first glance but that's actually not the case you're going to want to carefully consider who you go with based on the products you want to create where you'll be shipping to the retail prices you're going to offer among other factors so for example you might be tempted to go with a company that has a low base cost for their products but then you might realize that it takes 21 days for customers to get their orders do your research and make sure that you're weighing out all the factors here are some of the most popular services that all meet different needs by the way all of these services are free to set up and you only pay when someone places an order for one of your products and i should mention that they do all integrate with shopify printful is a popular shopify app because of its wide selection of products and brands to choose from it allows you to mock up your designs easily you can add your own logos stickers custom notes and inserts for a more customized unboxing experience for apparel products in particular printable offers a number of printing techniques one of the more common techniques that they offer is direct to garment which prints ink directly onto the material this is good for simpler designs like slogan teeth you can do a cut and sew also known as the all over print the article of clothing is printed on in many pieces and then it's sewn together for a seamless print across the entire piece the base cost will be higher for this technique but it also lets you create a more premium product at a higher price point embroidery is perhaps the most complex printing technique because the final product is actually a threaded design with a 3d effect this is best for simple designs that involve only a handful of colors and for products like hats that traditionally featured embroidered designs you should also be mindful of how additional customizations will affect the price printing on the sleeve for example will usually mean paying on top of the base cost besides apparel printable also offers mugs pillows framed posters beach towels aprons and more lulu is a self-publishing print on demand service for books with the lulu express shopify app you can choose from a wide selection of book sizes binding types and page quality for your books you can't design your book within lulu express but they do offer downloadable templates to get you started it even has a transparent pricing calculator to help you cost out your project including various shipping options there are also discounts if you'd like to order in bulk like printful guten is a shopify app that offers a wide range of products that you can customize they have unique products like calendars mugs and dog beds however since guten uses an international network of vendors to print their products there's also a lot more variance between their items in terms of quality and shipping but that also means that your product prices and shipping prices are lower as well guten has an intuitive image editor that gives you a good sense of what your final product will look like printfy is another print-on-demand shopify app that features the usual selection of t-shirts and hoodies but what's notable about prinify is that it has an international vendor network with a number of unique white label products that you're not likely to find anywhere else they have items like jewelry clocks and shoes and the platform actually has over 200 products that you can print on while printify is free to use you can pay 29 a month for a premium subscription that gives you 20 off all of their products and this is a pretty solid option if you're looking to scale up later and improve your profit margins this list is by no means exhaustive so for more print on demand options check out the shopify app store you don't need to be a full-time designer to have a successful print-on-demand business in the best case scenario you have a designer friend that you can work well with but if you don't that's what outsourcing is for you can find designers to work with on behance 99designs or other freelance sites who can produce designs as long as you provide clear instructions here's how you can add clarity and context for a design project you'll want to begin by sharing insight into your audience tell your designer what it's for and who your audience is showing them your website will help give more context and make sure that you're clearly explaining what it is that you want you'll have time to explain this in your initial introduction and through revisions by the way you're going to want to include one or two revisions in the scope of the project and be clear by over communicating what it is that you're looking for and provide guidelines and finally give examples of inspiration it helps to show them a reference to base the design on or point to other works that you like when working with designers you should specify that your design is for printing this tells them that it should ideally be 300 digital pixels per inch and have a transparent background the designer will know how to properly prepare these artwork files for print so you won't have to worry about that note that the print file specifications will change depending on the printer and the printing technique used so when in doubt send the designer the print specs for the specific product and any printing guidelines so that they understand the context the designs you upload should be large enough for the printing area of the actual product keep in mind that resizing a smaller image to make it bigger will result in a loss of quality so you want to avoid doing that and if you want to take a crack at designing and you don't have access to photoshop try using pixlr for free i'll also drop a link in the description box for another 16 free photo editing tools if you're not interested in paying for photoshop alright so we've got you covered with a couple of expert tips firstly always order samples the best way to ensure quality is to be your own customer so that you can experience firsthand what it's like to receive your products that said you're going to want to always order samples before sending product out to customers it's always possible that something gets lost in translation from the design you see on your screen to your printed product and by ordering samples you can double check the overall quality of how it looks and feels if you do find any discrepancies just reach out to your vendors customer service support for advice on how to fix any issues and beyond ensuring product quality samples are also good to have on hand for taking your own product photos for your website and social media even when you're not shipping products yourself you're going to want to make sure that you're setting the right expectations with your customers about costs and shipping time make sure that you're accounting for how long it takes for something to print first of all and then adding that to shipping time rule of thumb is to add anywhere from two to four days for production it can sometimes be more depending on the product always be upfront about your shipping times or you're going to get customers with questions and complaints and outline what to expect on your faq page or you can consider creating a separate shipping page to explain lead times to customers if you can try to partially or fully absorb your shipping costs into your retail price year after year studies show that surprise shipping costs added at checkout deters customers from buying on the flip side you can use shipping deals as a tool to entice customers to make a purchase free shipping is a great sales sweetener so try using conditional free shipping to encourage customers to add more to their cart to reach a certain threshold you can use free shipping to justify longer wait times at that point you can go for less expensive slower shipping services as many consumers will wait a little bit longer for an order that they know will save the money on shipping model pictures help drive sales but mock-ups are also an effective alternative for your product photography many print-on-demand services can help you create your own mock-ups by showing your products on a person or as a flatlay but there are other services and plenty of free mock-up templates that can help show your product clearly these mockups are what will sell your products to customers so it can literally pay to go the extra mile placeit is an easy to use mockup generator that lets you create photo and video mockups for eight dollars each check out mockupworld or behance for photoshop templates if you're comfortable in photoshop marketing is what ultimately determines the success of your business but if you're targeting everyone you're not really marketing to anyone that's why niching in is so important having a clearly defined audience like specifically targeting dog owners for example can actually help you create products that are in demand it lowers the cost to acquire customers and maximizes your potential profits often people think that if they niche in they're going to lose potential customers but the opposite is actually true if your audience is too broad you'll appeal to no one and lose potential customers in that regard there are countless possibilities for acquiring a niche audience with marketing but here are some ideas to get you started first start an instagram account and create or curate content for your target audience get followers and build relationships among your prospective customers next try running facebook ads targeting the interests of your target customers you can also use facebook ads to test out your designs for as little as 10 to see which ones resonate with your audience one of my favorite tactics is collecting emails from visitors once you start to pick up some steam so that you can continue to market to them for free and finally get your products into the hands of influencers who can introduce your products to their audience and help you make sales print-on-demand services offer an accessible source of inventory for new entrepreneurs or for anyone who just wants to test out an idea before they invest in it if one of your online business ideas pans out and you start to generate a meaningful number of sales you can always graduate from using a print-on-demand site to holding your own inventory so that should give you a pretty good head start and some insight into print on demand in today's video we covered what print on demand is some services you could use how to work with a designer and some strategies to keep your business running smooth and profitable i'm curious to know why you clicked on this video let me know in the comments what you plan to use print on demand for i'm excited to see all of your creative ideas and if you've already launched drop me a link to your store so i can check it out hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future videos and remember we're a channel for small business owners with big plans i'm your host michelle thank you so much for watching and i will see you in the next one you