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Disclaimer: The information provided is for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.
One of my favorite ways to earn online is through drop-shipping (refer to previous article: Monetizing Your Blog or Website), specifically Print-on-Demand.
Print-on-Demand is a drop-shipping method where you upload your designs onto products and a manufacturer prints and fulfills orders for you, so that means you won't need inventory at all! The profits would be lower since you're paying a supplier for the item, but it's good for those who like to work from anywhere.
\You can design products using a graphic software like Canva (either free or paid), ProCreate, Adobe Illustrator, etc. You can sell through your own website (using 3rd party integration - we'll discuss this later) or on an e-commerce platform (see previous article).
The POD supplier would print your designs at its manufacturing warehouse and ship the products directly to your customers and you'd just manage orders.
✔️ To summarize, you would:
1.) Choose either Wordpress(.org), Non-Wordpress(.org) site or an E-commerce platform. **For Wordpress, WooCommerce is the best, in my opinion
2.) Connect any 3rd party integration, as needed
3.) Make your designs, upload, and publish
4.) Use social media marketing and/or other advertising to bring traffic to your site
5.) Be patient & keep promoting consistently!
Some products you can design are ... crew sweaters, t-Shirts, hoodies, hats, coconut wax candles, 100% soy candles, tote bags, phone cases, laptop cases, blankets, coffee mugs, tumblers, mouse pads, candles, wall art & canvases, kitchen items, windshield sun risers, and more.
🌸 My Recommended Print-On-Demand (P.O.D.) Partners: these are 3rd party tools that you'll need to integrate with your platform
🌷 Printful: very popular, HUGE catalog of products, can be integrated with *MANY* platforms
- Pros: high quality, international fulfillment
- Cons: shipping times can vary
🌷 Art of Where: artsy products
- Pros: high quality, custom packaging
- Cons: smaller product range, fulfillment is in US and Canada only
🌷 Gooten: good selection
- Pros: good customer service
- Cons: quality depends on the provider since Gooten uses 3rd party suppliers and doesn't print in-house like others on this list
🌷 Gelato: fulfillment in lots of countries, local shipping
- Pros: fast shipping, good prices, good wall art/photos
- Cons: not many apparel options
🌻 Tip: Each POD partner is different and one may offer items that another doesn't. In some cases, depending on which platform you choose, you may be able to combine and use multiple POD partners.
- Let's go over some set-up examples. For instance, if you wanted to sell custom designed P.O.D. T-shirts, there are many ways you can do that, depending on which path you choose:
🔸 Example 1: Amazon Route: Sign up for Amazon Seller Account —> Request GTIN exemption for each category you plan to sell under —> Connect Printful to Amazon —> design & upload your products onto Printful (for example), set up shipping, taxes (how to charge taxes), etc.
(**Since you won't have product barcodes, a GTIN exemption just lets you list products without a barcode.)
🔸 Example 2: Wix eCommerce Route: Sign up for a Wix eComm store & pick a plan —> Go to the Wix App Market —> Find the Printful app & connect —> design & upload your products onto Printful (for example), add products to store, set up shipping, taxes. etc.
🌻 Tip: I personally like to make sure the process goes smoothly before I launch my store. I started a Shopify store years ago... but I got a challenging full-time job so I didn't continue with it ... but on the store, I purchased an item from myself (I was my 1st customer) and later paid the sales tax that I previously paid to myself. Simple process - but it helped me to better visualize the process as I was new to e-commerce :)
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