If you have a creative flair for crafting designs people want to purchase, print on demand could be a great way of profiting from this skill. The custom t-shirt printing business alone is expected to generate more than $10 billion by 2025.
Before moving onto the mistakes to avoid, you ultimately have to decide if print on demand is the right fit for your business. There are similar alternatives such as dropshipping with Ali Express, which offers different advantages that might better fit your business idea. Industry experts Oberlo pitted print on demand against Ali Express dropshipping, coming to the conclusion the latter works better in certain situations.
However, if you are set on going with print on demand, here are five mistakes that are vital to avoid:
Don’t Sell Amateurish and Generic Designs
When you take into account how big the print on demand industry already is, you have little chance of succeeding with generic or amateur designs. You need to get creative. Produce designs with flair, with originality, with love — these are points that will appeal to customers.
When doing this, it is also recommended to place all your efforts into a specific — and profitable — niche.
Don’t Stick with Just T-Shirts
While custom t-shirts are big business, they’re not the only items that receive the customization treatment. The likes of posters, hoodies, mugs, phone cases, socks, etc. can all be imprinted with your designs using tools like t-shirt templates — and you shouldn’t miss this opportunity.
Remember: you don’t have to buy any inventory. You don’t have to keep any stock around. There’s no reason not to stick your design on other products.
Don’t Forget to Invest in Ads
If you don’t put in the legwork to promote your designs, you’re going to struggle to generate significant sales numbers. Thankfully, there are many different ways to promote your business. The likes of Facebook ads are valuable, but even marketing on Reddit could be just as effective.
When doing this, avoid advertising too early. Ensure your store is ready with a logo, policies, and all your designs in place.
Don’t Ignore the Opportunity to Follow Up
If you manage to gain a sale from one of your designs, that’s fantastic. It means someone has loved your work enough to make a purchase.
However, don’t simply leave it as a sale. This presents a prime opportunity to gain precious research from a customer. By following up, you can ask them about various points, including:
- How they discovered your products
- What was good about your products
- What improvements your product requires
Don’t Expect Instant Success
Even if you picked up a sale or two, don’t start believing this will create a snowball effect towards instant success.
Due to the ease of setting up a print on demand business, many people believe it will be simple to produce a profit. Yet this simply isn’t the case. If it isn’t money, you will need to invest a lot of time in ensuring you gain sales.
