Print on Demand Business

What is Merch by Amazon?

Merch by Amazon helps you increase revenue through the sale of t-shirts designed by you and produced, sold, and shipped by Amazon. Merch by Amazon is a simple way for you to get started selling your merchandise from a product page on Amazon.com. You provide a print on demand design for a t shirt and Amazon will produce the product for any artwork that makes a sale for you using their raw materials. Even if it only sells one. You provide a POD image that people like enough to buy, and Amazon do the rest.

What is Amazon FBA?

You sell it, Amazon ship it. Amazon has created one of the most advanced print on demand fulfilment networks in the world, and your business can benefit from their expertise. With Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), you store your own products in Amazon's fulfilment centres, and they pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for these POD products.

Fees and Differences Between the Two

There are a few differences between the two, the main being that with FBA you have to order the stock and get it sent to the Amazon fulfilment centre, with Merch by Amazon you only need to create a design and open a print on demand product listing and everything else is sorted by Amazon. This can lead to reduced Amazon warehouse fees as the product is only produced by Amazon once sold.

Fees with both differ as Merch by Amazon has a set cost price for the t-shirts plus a listing fee, which means anything above this will be your profit. Whereas with FBA you will have costs for your stock, Amazon warehouse fees, pick and pack fees and any advertising you decide to do on Amazon.

That makes FBA sound more expensive, but you will be able to get a much cheaper price for your product from the supplier, so the costs can work out cheaper. FBA gives you the option to sell anything you want whereas Merch is print on demand T shirts only.

The main disadvantage of using FBA compared to Merch is that you can only sell the products you have purchased whereas with Merch by Amazon you can create up to 25 designs without even making a sale!

Benefits of Using Amazon

Using Amazon ahead of your own sales platform has great advantages, with the main one being that all the products are sent from their fulfilment centres, meaning that you won’t need your own storage space or to pack any of the products when making a sale.

Amazon also offer a free return option which can help with customer service. It also offers reviews, which are critical to your products success. You can contact customers that you have sold to asking to leave reviews on Amazon.com which in turn will shoot your product further up the product rankings.

Amazon also offers paid advertising, which is a great, as it’s another source of advertising. When you sell product’s, most people will use targeted Facebook ads, but you can also do this with Amazon as well. This means you will have two sources of targeted ads for your print on demand merchandise, you can set as many of these as you want and can cost anywhere from $0.10 - $2.00.

In summary for simplicity of business choose Merch particularly if you have creative designs but if have a bit of capital to invest you might want to you back yourself with the FBA system.

Print On Demand Versus Drop Shipping

What is Drop Shipping?

Drop shipping is a method of retail fulfilment, used by many on their own stores, Ebay, Etsy or other retail websites. It is choosing a product from a third party and selling them to customers, once sales are made this is then sent directly from the third party to the customer with the merchant (you) never seeing or handling the product.

What is Print on Demand?

Print on Demand is also a method of retail fulfilment, where the merchant decides what the artwork or print looks like on the merchandise. These are often sold in the merchant stores, Ebay or Amazon, and are sent directly from the third-party supplier directly to the customer.

Advantages of Drop Shipping:

No Inventory – you don’t need to Stock any of your POD products as once a customer has made an order you will then place with your supplier, this means the start-up cost is significantly lower.
More Product Variety – you can list multiple items because you haven’t spent so much money stocking one product. You can offer so many varieties of products or other products entirely with Drop shipping.
Low Risk – Unsold products is money lost for the seller, with this method there won’t be any items unsold, minimising your Risk.
All packaging and postage is taken care of – this is paid for by your customer so there is no cost to you and you don’t need to handle any inventory.
No minimum Order – with your supplier there isn’t a minimum order, so you can get started with selling one product.

Disadvantages of Drop Shipping:

Less Control – Passing the shipping process to a 3rd party means you lose some control. If the drop shipper makes an error with the product or postage, then that reflects on your business. Therefore, it is vital to have a close relationship with your drop shipper.
Stock Reliability – the amount of stock you have relies on your drop shipper. If, suddenly, they are low on stock and you are selling a huge amount then you may not be able to make any more sales.
Higher Pricing – Because you haven’t bought a lot of stock your prices may not be as competitive as they would be.
Product Artwork – if a customer asks you for a unique photo of your product then you can’t provide one.

Advantages of Print on Demand

No Inventory – As with Drop Shipping you don’t need to keep stock of your products, which in turn means no warehouse fees or labour when moving the Print on Demand products.
It’s a great business for the creative – anybody with a design background can get involved with producing products of their own.
Making unique products – every Print on Demand product created will be unique and by you. This means you can decide exactly what the artwork looks like, and on multiple options like Mugs, T-Shirts, Hoodies etc.
Low Minimum order – the minimum order with a lot of these POD products is 1, which means it’s a lot easier for you to make sales.
You can select a niche for your merchandise to be in – sales will come easier as you can find a Print on Demand niche that is suitable to your art, this makes it a lot easier for advertising.

Disadvantages of Print on Demand

Pricing – although you can set your own prices to sell at, the prices are set by the Print on Demand seller with no room for negotiation. This means that no matter what you will always have a standard cost per product to pay.
You must make sure your PODnNiche has a market – if you choose products that no one wants then it is a waste of your time, and if you have spent money on advertising then a waste of money too.

Conclusion

In summary of the two I hope you understand that they are both good business models, but it really depends on the type of product you want to sell. If you are looking at selling large quantities of products and scaling your business with minimal demographic research, then Drop shipping would be right for you.

But if you have a number of people with certain interests, hobbies or careers then Print on Demand is perfect. You can target these people and, more often than not, if it is something they can relate to then they will purchase your products. Also, if you don’t have a target audience but know who you want to grow one and sell to them this is easily obtainable through Facebook Ads.

How to Make Good Print on Demand Designs

If you would really like to start a Print on Demand business but think you have no design skills, then don’t despair. There are several ways you can get over your lack of ability with graphics.

You will still have to come up with the original idea, but you can hire a freelance graphic artist from a services website like Fiverr or Upwork. This can be done quite cheaply and quickly but research the sellers thoroughly. As with anything some are better than others and some are more expensive than others.

My experience tells me that some of the cheaper ones are not any more artistic than you or me. They just rearrange stock images and a bit of text in a nice font and have it done in a few minutes. Trust me you can do that too. So if you decide to pay somebody to do your Print on Demand artwork for you look, for a slightly greater level of creativity and pay a bit more if you must. Be careful not to end up with a POD design that looks very similar to somebody else’s. It can happen quite by accident when using stock images.

Create Print on Demand Images on your Phone

More fun than paying somebody is using an App on your smartphone that creates great looking images. There are quite a few useful artistic apps that can be a huge help coming up with artistic combinations of text and artwork. If Photoshop is not your forte then Apps such as Wordswag , Over and Typorama are making things very simple by combining template text styling with images.

I probably chose Typorama because the very first thing I saw when researching which app I wanted was that the first background in the choices was transparent. Transparent backgrounds are very useful when putting together the artwork for your Print on Demand products.

However, it has a bunch of useful features including 47 different text styles with more than 100 different fonts randomly used. Some of these styles are free and others are available in the Pro version for a small one-off lifetime fee. It is worth the small extra fee. Template sizes, colors, angles, gradients are all fully adjustable, so you have everything you need.

Cropping size templates to fit your posts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube video thumbnail, LinkedIn post, iPhone wallpaper and all the other sizes. You can share your Print on Demand designs easily everywhere. Thousands of free photography stock readily at hand to choose from Pixabay.

The other apps are similar in that they have a free version and an upgrade for a fee. I suggest you start by seeing if you like the free version and then decide if you want to move onto the upgraded version.

Although I am recommending them to use as a tool for your Print on Demand product artwork they are probably designed for and used more for making great Social Media Posts particularly on Instagram. You will certainly have the option of using them for far more than just product design. Also the fact that you can do the design on your phone makes it a handy as you can do your art designing anywhere. If you are on the train or in the coffee shop you can be putting a POD design together.

There are plenty of ways to create your artwork online. There are lots of free image editing websites you can use. Pixlr is a good one that is widely used. The phone apps make it that much easier though. If you are going for something more complicated, you can always make an original on your phone and then tart it up on your computer.

There are no rules you just need make an image that works for you.

Print on Demand Is Not Just T-Shirts & Mugs

It would be very easy to just see the Print on Demand industry as people marketing funny slogans on T shirts and Coffee Mugs. Amazon’s Print on Demand department consists of t shirts in its entirety for goodness sake.

There is so much more to Print on Demand and I suspect if you do a little digging you can find some interesting items that will be fun to bring to market and also earn you some cash at the same time.

Jewelry is a big print on demand market. Declarations of love or sentiment for people or pets on necklaces and bracelets are big business. There are obviously peaks in the calendar for jewelry with Christmas and Valentine’s Day being really good times to be marketing this type of POD product. There are plenty of suppliers offering a good variety of base products that can either be printed or engraved. It is a good market to be in because you can charge a little more for jewelry without seeming to be charging too much.

The great thing about doing sentimental Print on Demand merchandise is that even with just one item you can have it personalised and it becomes even more appealing. You can add your wife’s name or a picture of your dog and get it delivered in a very short space of time. I still find it fascinating how flexible this system can be.

All over printing seems to be back in fashion at the moment. There are plenty of suppliers offering this facility on clothes. Particularly t shirts, sweatshirts, vests, dresses, socks, tote bags, bedspreads, cushion covers and phone cases. I have seen a couple of firms that do shoes like deck shoes or canvas boots in the style of the Converse Chuck Taylors. They look really good. A bit expensive but unique so probably worth the money. I think that might be the next print on demand product I test out because I know people would love a one-of-a-kind pair of shoes.

Do your research on supplier costs because they do vary and you will need to be paying the best price. They all seem slightly high at first but that is the cost of flexibility. There are also several suppliers that like to print posters, canvas and various forms of art for the wall.

Use Many Print on Demand Products

One thing that is really great about Print on Demand is that you can choose to do lots of designs and put them all on t shirts or you can choose to have one or two designs and put them on lots of different types of product. It doesn’t matter because you are not holding any stock.

I like the second option for two main reasons firstly, you don’t need many good designs and secondly you almost automatically niche your shop and so it becomes easier to name your shop and give it an identity. Your shop is also more interesting just because you are offering a variety of products.

If you are thinking about starting a Print on Demand business make sure you do a bit of research and find yourself some interesting products.

Seasonal Shopping for Print on Demand

Most industries have peaks and troughs. Selling products using Print on Demand is no different. There are seasonal aspects to selling and you will find that some parts of the year are far more lucrative than others.

The good news with this type of Print on Demand business is that you carry little in the way of overheads. Traditional businesses still have to find money to pay for their business property, electricity, staff, stock etc in the slow times whereas the POD business has little to find in the way of running costs. Cashflow is less of a factor or worry for the POD industry.

A sensible Print on Demand vendor will be using the quiet periods of the year to build their strategy for the busier times. You need to work out which products you are going to run and get your artwork in place and advertising campaigns ready to roll because the bulk of the sales come in short bursts that can feel like they are over quickly.

Most sales will generally come at the back end of the year. November through to Christmas is most people’s peak with Black Friday through to Christmas being the busiest time. If you have been collecting customer details and put an email marketing strategy into place, then you might be able to extend this into January with a post-Christmas sale.

In February you can take advantage of Valentine’s Day. Jewelry is particularly good for this one if your Print on Demand niche is suited to it. I suggest you aim your advertising at men buying for women as your best option. Be creative because you can get a good couple of weeks at a time of year that is quiet in most industries if you get it right.

The next significant annual event to aim at is Mother’s Day. It is a good one. You can’t really ignore Mother’s Day. Unlike Valentines everyone has a mother, and a gift is required, so make sure you have something good ready to go. If you have international sales set up then there is more than one Mother’s Day you can have a crack at. Certainly, Mother’s Day in the US and the UK are separated by a couple of months in the Spring and there is no reason why you can’t be set up for both.

Father’s Day follows on to complete the action in the first half of the year. It isn’t at the same level as Mother’s Day, but it is still significant and worth having special Print on Demand products and artwork ready. Obviously, poor old dad gets forgotten about a bit more than mom, but you are there to remind people to buy something for the man of the house. He deserves appreciation too.

The Summer Months are Usually Quiet for Print on Demand Sales

The summer is generally the flatter sales period of the year, so it is up to you to be inventive and find markets that suit the summer. For instance weddings are a good summer niche. Target people that are engaged to be married on Facebook if you have a good wedding product.

Products that suit vacations perhaps like beach towels or flip flops with an all over art print might work.

Perhaps there are some events you can concentrate on. Look at the calendar and see if you can find something of interest coming up and try and create something for it. This is when you need to think outside of the norm to create revenue in the troughs.

The biggest chunk of Print on Demand business is done in November and December so be ready for it and try and hang on to a bit of whatever you make to help you move smoothly through the rest of the year.