Do you have an idea for a funny t-shirt design or a unique design you know would look great on a hat? If you do, do you know that you can sell items that bear these designs on a WooCommerce store? Selling physical products is one of the most lucrative options for making money with WordPress and WooCommerce, especially if you can grow a following or tap into an enthusiastic community.
Setting everything up so it works smoothly and efficiently can be difficult and costly, especially for new business owners and those who want to sell to a global customer base. You do not have to set up any of the systems needed to make selling your product a reality because you can use print-on-demand services.
What is Print-on-Demand?
Print-on-demand is similar to a collaborative effort between a business owner and a print-on-demand business. The business owner provides the designs, and the print-on-demand business provides white-labelled products – products without branding on them – on which they print the designs. These products include most things that can be printed on, but the most popular options are t-shirts, hats, pillows, bottles, mugs, bags, and stickers.
Once a customer orders any of these printed products on your WooCommerce website, the print-on-demand business prints, packages, and ships it directly to the customer. The most important parts of this whole process are setting up a WordPress integration and integrating print-on-demand services.
Why WooCommerce is Perfect for Print-on-Demand Businesses
WordPress is the most popular option for building websites, with current reports estimating that over 43% of the top 10 million websites run on WordPress. WooCommerce leverages WordPress’s features, versatility, and popularity to give businesses the power to sell anything they want in their stores.
WooCommerce is perfect for print-on-demand businesses because it is:
- Free to download – It is a free plugin that you can install on any WordPress website.
- Customizable with numerous themes and plugins – Although a basic WooCommerce installation gives you everything you need to build a powerful e-commerce website, you can improve it further by using themes and plugins. There are numerous free and paid options in both categories, with the free options allowing you to only pay for hosting and a domain name when starting a WooCommerce website.
- Easy to set up – WooCommerce presents several simple steps when you install it so you can get everything set up as you want when you install the plugin. Once you complete the initial setup, you can always tweak any setting you wish to inside the WordPress dashboard.
- Full of useful features – These include smart product search, order management including calculations, numerous payment methods, and the ability to connect the installation to any fulfillment services, including print-on-demand services.
Essential Steps Before Integrating Print-on-Demand Services
Before integrating these services, you need to decide what you want to sell, who you want to sell to, and the print-on-demand partner you will use.
Even if you have great design ideas, you still need to complete thorough market research to ensure a market for what you want to sell. As you do your market research, you should always keep your ideal customer and audience in mind. Think about their passions, ideals, and how your products can benefit them.
Consider doing a pre-sale once your target audience and customer base start shaping up. You can take orders or show a few people a mock-up of your designs to determine their interest in buying your products.
Once you have a defined customer base that you know will buy your products, it is time to find a fulfillment partner. The best print-on-demand service has high-quality printing processes and can print on whichever product you want to sell. It should have reasonable shipping rates, white-label product pricing that allows you to make a profit, and a worldwide reach. They should also have a fast printing and fulfillment turnaround time and provide excellent customer care for you and your customers.
Setting Up Your Products
Setting up your products with a print-on-demand service entails picking the products you want to sell, uploading your design, and mocking them up on their website. Services like Printful have handy tools that help you mock up different products, after which you can see how they will look once printed.
You should also add a product name, description, and price. The product name should be descriptive and catchy enough to attract customers when marketing the products. The descriptions should address points like what the product is, what materials it is made of, why your customers should buy it, and what benefits it has over other products if applicable.
Setting the price entails balancing what your audience expects and making a profit. When setting your price, remember to factor in what the pay-on-demand services charge for the white-label products. The good news is that these services will not let you make a loss by entering a price that is lower than the cost of the unprinted product.
Integrating Print-on-Demand Services on a WooCommerce Website
There are two main ways to integrate print-on-demand services; using an API and using a plugin. The recommended option is to use a plugin provided by the service. Since WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress, they all have a plugin for the platform.
Once you install the plugin, you must activate it and connect your website to the service. Doing this entails logging in and confirming the integration. The plugin will then pull all the products you created on the print-on-demand service into your website for easier management.
If you want to change any details about specific products, you can change them on your admin dashboard or the print-on-demand platform, although most only allow you to change on their platform.
You can also use the handy dashboard provided by the print-on-demand service to set which products to show on your website and which not to show. Setting a product to not show is common when businesses conclude a sale or no longer want to sell a specific product.
Print-on-demand services allow you to sell physical products on your website without holding inventory or worrying about high storage fees. Once you set everything up and integrate the services on your website, you should market your products and manage customer relationships to ensure happy and satisfied clients.
