How to Start a Print-on-Demand Business in 2023: Step-by-Step Tutorial
Nowadays, it becomes more and more necessary to start our own online business as a way to achieve the famous financial freedom, offering a valuable service, or selling products that people need. One of the most popular business models, with a high potential for success and income, is Print-on-Demand (translated into Portuguese, Print on Demand). In this article I will explain step-by-step how you can start your own Print-on-Demand business today, in 2023.
The Print-on-Demand business model, what does it consist of?
On-demand printing consists of product models, such as t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, or even decorative pillows, displayed in our online store, with exclusive designs, which will only be produced (transformed into a current product) at the time that the customer of our store orders one of the products, whose models we have there.
It means that we don’t have stock in advance, nor do we have unnecessary expenses with the production of the items, because these will only be produced/customized when they are actually purchased and paid for by the customer.
Why Print-on-Demand?
Because, to begin with, we don’t have to have stock beforehand, nor do we have to incur expenses with stock that we might end up not selling, or with prints and ink that we might spend and then not be able to sell the designs.
What’s more, because it’s a business model similar to Dropshipping, we also don’t have to worry about handling the product and sending it to the customer.
And the big advantage compared to Dropshipping is that, instead of selling a flashlight or a gadget made in China that everyone can sell the same, in Print-on-Demand, we will be selling exclusivity and authenticity through designs that we we created it ourselves (or hired a designer to create it).
A print-on-demand transaction is processed as follows:
- The Customer orders the product on its website (the images of which he has seen come from a model of the product and not from a final product already produced, although with 90 to 100% similarity to the final product).
- When placing the purchase order on its website, the customer proceeds with the respective payment using the payment methods provided.
- After payment has been processed, the order is automatically placed with the supplier, who deducts the payment from his bank account and immediately begins production, handling and shipping to the customer.
- Upon receipt of the article by the customer, the reader will only have to deal with subsequent setbacks such as: wrong sizes, or defective prints.
Is this business model viable in 2023?
Undoubtedly yes, but it is still the jungle that the internet is today. Nearly 100% of people surfing the internet are looking for ways to earn money online or start a business or even expand their own physical business into the online realm. You will have to be very disciplined and ready to accept that you can fail, but the good thing is that you can always start over and attack another niche.
Niche Diversity
As I told you before, there are lots of niches where you can base your website. From the famous t-shirts, hoodies and sweatshirts, passing through Yoga Leggings to mugs, decorative pillows, among other varied pieces that you can find available for printing at your Print-on-Demand supplier.
So How To Start A Print-on-Demand Business Today?
- The first step is to start thinking about your brand identity, from the logo, through the colors you want to adopt, whether for the logo or to establish the entire brand identity, such as the website and online store. You can hire a graphic designer. See how to quickly hire a Graphic Designer in this article (Opens in New Tab).
- The second step will then be to start setting up your Online Store, once you already have an idea of the identity you want to adopt and a logo, everything will be ready for the creation of the store. There are several platforms you can use to create your online store with just a few clicks and a click-and-drag page editor like Shopify. See how to create a Shopify store in this Step-by-Step Tutorial (Opens in New Tab).
- Next, register a domain that reflects the niche and identity you want to convey to your potential customers. To register a domain you will need to do it with an online company that provides domain registration, such as HostGator or NameCheap. See how to register the domain for your store in this article (Opens in New Tab), but note that you can also do it in Shopify itself.
- After your store is created and set up, you must then provide means of payment so that your customers can effectively pay for purchases on your website. Sign up for Stripe (Opens in new tab) and start accepting payments on this highly robust platform that integrates with Shopify.
- Next, you must connect your store to the chosen print-on-demand supplier and configure the entire payment process with the supplier so that there are no delays or setbacks. See here the best PRINT-ON-DEMAND provider in 2023 (Opens in new tab).
- After this, it’s time to get designs for your products to be able to upload to the mockup configurator. If you don’t have ready-made designs, you can use templates and create really good designs on the Envato Elements platform, get to know Envato Elements in this article (Opens in a new tab). Or you can, once again, resort to a designer through the Fiverr platform (opens in a new tab).
- Now that you have designs, just go to Printful, choose the product from the catalog of many different products, and start setting up your first mockups. Congratulations! You now have an active store, with products listed!
- Finally, create Instagram, Facebook and TikTok pages, and start creating promotional content for your store’s items, preferably with promotional videos for the products. You can create videos with real models of your products on PlaceIt (Opens in New Tab).
- As I said before, you will have to invest in paid advertising, start with what you have, nowadays, putting an ad on a social platform is not expensive, you can start with little, and gradually invest as sales come up.
Conclusion
Starting a Print-on-demand Business in 2023 is not difficult, but it requires commitment on your part, believing in your abilities to make a real business prosper that can, with the right steps described in this article, bring you the much-desired financial freedom.
