How To Start A Print-On-Demand Business With Printful

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Start Making Money From Your Designs Using Printful

 

What is Printful?

Printful describes itself as an on-demand printing and fulfilment company as it handles the production and shipping process of your products. This service can be known as print-on-demand or dropshipping, and is very common amongst artists who want to monetize their creativity.

 

As one of the most popular and widely known print-on-demand services, Printful is a great option for new, smaller businesses but also a risk-free avenue to explore for more established brands. 

 

There’s never been a better time to start your online business. Sellers can benefit from exclusive Printful deals when they sign up now – and be sure to keep an eye out for future promotions in the coming year.

 

Benefits of using Printful

✔  No initial cost or monthly fee. Users are only charged base cost when a sale has been made, which is taken off your profit margin.

✔  Easy to use with useful design tools and product mock-ups.

✔  Wide range of products with individual variations.

✔  Easy to integrate into your ecommerce store. 

✔  Uses and controls their own fulfilment centres, ensuring high quality products.

✔  Eco-friendly products, as well as a sustainability and responsibility section on their website.

✔  Packaging can be customised to match your branding and theme.

 

How To Start A Print-On-Demand Business

 

 

Make an online store

Before Printful becomes involved, you’ll need to choose a platform in which to host your business. This is where your store will operate from, with two main categories to choose from. Both have their own perks and concerns – so make sure you do your research.

 

Online marketplaces

Amazon, Ebay and Etsy are all examples of online marketplaces, where businesses can create their own individual store within a shared selling space. These are pretty easy to set up and do not require any pre-existing following or customer base to get started. 

 

There is already a lot of traffic on these sites for you to tap into, if you have something desirable to sell and know how to market it. However, do be aware that the competition is high, and lack of store customisation makes it harder for customers to differentiate. 

 

As you’re joining a marketplace with all their features and audiences available, there will be some fee in the form of commission. This is how their business makes money; they earn through the sales you make.

 

Ecommerce platforms

Unlike online marketplaces, ecommerce platforms are a single-seller site, allowing you to fully customise a store website. Your shop is not contained within an existing marketplace – instead, your traffic has to come from elsewhere. But the shopping experience is more immersive, and the potential of a customer switching over to another store is significantly reduced. 

 

Ecommerce sites do take slightly longer to configure with all their levels of customisation, but you don’t need to be a web designer to get started.

 

Like online marketplaces, ecommerce platforms need to make money too. They’ll usually require a subscription fee to host your site, with different levels depending on your type of membership. This might not be the most cost effective method if you’re just starting out.

 

Joining Printful

Now your online business is set up, it’s time to create a Printful account. Follow the simple instructions outlined by either signing up with your Facebook, Google, Apple or email account.

 

 

Link your ecommerce store

The most important part of setting up your Printful business is the linking of your ecommerce platform and your account. Once logged in, head over to your Dashboard where you should find an option for Stores. You’ll then be prompted to choose a platform from the wide variety that Printful works with. This is where your existing online store that you set up earlier comes into play.

 

The actual process for connecting your store to Printful depends on what platform you’re using, but each one should be fairly straightforward. Most of the time, your platform will require you to install the Printful App and add it to your store, like with Shopify for example.

 

 

Returns Policy

Whilst making your store eye-catching and exciting is important; it’s also key to have your basic policies in order. Printful recommends displaying your return policy clearly on your storefront, with free policy templates to use and adapt. With this, you should also state a customs disclaimer if you’re selling internationally.

 

Legal

Then there’s the legal side of running a business. In this case, it’s best to consult a professional to get legal and tax advice. You’ll need to register your business officially and submit tax information to Printful so they can ensure your business practices are valid. Read more here to learn how Printful calculates their taxes.

 

Choosing Printful products

Printful has plenty of products to choose from, so spend some time deciding what you want to offer in your store. The products that you associate with your brand are very important, they’re not just random. 

 

 

Carefully consider who you’re marketing to. Knowing your target audience will help you find your niche and style – which in turn, informs the products that you choose. To make sales, the items in your store need to make sense with your designs. It’s also key to understand who your competitors are and what they’re selling. If the market is already saturated, it might be best to choose something else. 

 

Adding Products and Creating Designs 

This is the part where your creativity gets to shine. Printful lets you upload your own original designs or create new ones from scratch using their specialised design maker. You can even try using Canva which is a great tool to create click worthy graphics that sell. 

 

You’ll also get the chance to choose between a number of customisation methods, including direct to garment printing, embroidery and more.  Watch this walk-though of the Printful design maker.

 

 

Uploading Existing Designs

Uploading your existing creations is easy with Printful. Once you’ve created and tailored it with editing software, make sure you’ve downloaded it as a JPEG or PNG file. As well as being eye-catching and resonating with your audience, your product designs need to align with Printful’s acceptable content guidelines, so check this out before choosing. Then when you’re ready use the Choose File option to select your design and upload it. 

 

Creating New Designs

Printful’s design maker is well equipped with all the accessible tools you need to make an exciting design. Choose from a wide selection of free fonts, graphics and clip-art all at your creative disposal. For those who want more advanced and tailored design possibilities – there are two subscription based services: Printful Plus and Printful Pro. These services include customs mockups and background removal tools as well as useful marketing features.

 

Product Templates

To save time, create products for future use by creating templates. This way, you can combine various designs with different colours and sizes – storing them for when you need. It’s good to have a variation of products, as you’ll cater to a wider customer base without having to manually create new products.

 

Details and Descriptions

Now you’ve chosen a combination of designs and products – it’s time to start filling in the details that will sell your item to consumers. 

 

Firstly, choose a great looking mockup. This is an image of the final product once your design has been added. This image will be seen across your store and will be what the customer first looks at.

 

Next, you need to give your customer information about the product by providing a title and thorough description. Keep your language simple, whilst also showing your brand’s personality. The description is intended to provide additional information but in a way that attracts the buyer. It’s also a good opportunity to boost your SEO – so that your products show up when someone searches specific keywords.

 

 

After you’ve successfully created and set up products, you can push them to your storefront via two methods: the Product Push Generator or by manually syncing. The option you go for depends on your preference and Printful integration.

 

Pricing Strategy

 

 

Deciding on your pricing strategy is a key part of creating Printful products. There’s many factors to consider before selling anything, so if you’re stuck, try using some simple pricing formulas to get started.

 

Luckily, Printful breaks down their pricing strategy into 3 sections for you. 

 

Printful price – this is what Printful charges for the product itself. This cannot be changed.

Retail price – this is what you as the seller decides, and is what the customer will buy the product for. Changing the retail price will affect the profit outcome.

Profit – this is what you’ll earn from each sale.

 

 

You might want to factor in shipping costs to your retail price, as offering ‘free shipping’ at checkout is a real incentive for customers. But we’ll go into more detail later. (tip graphic)

 

Once you’ve input your prices and are happy to continue, click submit to store.

 

Processing Payments

Now you’ve set up your product prices, you need a way of processing the money once you make a sale. So when you’re setting up your ecommerce store, you’ll be asked to provide a payment gateway so customers can make a transaction. 

 

Transactions pass through your Printful Wallet, keeping everything organised and secure in one place. Money is both deposited with sales and withdrawn from fulfillments in an automatic process so you don’t have to worry. 

 

You may want to manually add funds to your Printful Wallet so the fulfilment fee comes straight from there instead of having to bill your card or bank account.

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You can find both Billing Methods and your Printful Wallet in your Dashboard when you’re ready to make changes and set up. But first, spend some time reading over the information provided by your individual ecommerce provider to find the best payment gateway for you and your business.

 

Shipping

 

 

Shipping and postage is a major part of all ecommerce businesses, requiring a bit of organisation before you start.

 

Rates 

Shipping rates can either be flat or live. Live shipping rate gives the customer the best price at that very moment, whereas flat rates are Printful’s fixed prices calculated in accordance to weight, size, shipping distance and so on. Check to see if your ecommerce provider supports Live rates, as not all do.

 

Shipping Strategies

With Printful, there are 3 different approaches you can take when deciding on shipping pricing – keeping the rates in mind.

 

– Display the full shipping price and let customers pay this on top of the product retail price.

– Slightly increase the product price to cover a decrease in added shipping price.

– Offer ‘free shipping’ by including the shipping cost into the retail price.

 

 

Remember that customers love free shipping, with additional shipping costs being a main reason for cart abandonment. This should help to inform the shipping strategy that you decide to use.

 

The process of customising shipping prices will vary between each ecommerce platform, so be sure to check out the instructions of your individual site. 

 

Can you make money through Printful? 

And just like that, your Printful ecommerce store is open for business!

 

Making money on Printful is very much possible. However, selling online in general can be a hard business, especially when trying to get that first sale. That’s why it’s important to have good branding and marketing methods to turn your creative dream into a successful reality.

 

 

Branding

To become memorable, you’ll need to think of a good brand name. Keep it simple and catchy, making links to your style or particular niche. A key factor in deciding on a brand name is originality. Ensure that there isn’t another business with that name or something similar, the last thing you want is customers getting confused. 

 

Your brand name will also make up the majority of your ecommerce domain, so make sure you’re happy with it before cementing the idea.

 

Don’t forget the visual elements! Make your business stand out with a great logo and accompanying packaging. That way, you’re building a visual identity that customers will recognise and want to support.

 

Marketing

A sure way to turn customers away is by having an inaccessible, visually inconsistent and hard to use website. So to start with, make sure your business presents and works well so a potential customer enjoys the experience of shopping with you. 

 

But how do you drive people to your shop? With an online store, it’s a good idea to have a social media presence. Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are all great avenues to explore – that way, you’re building an audience that can easily head over to your ecommerce store. Post interesting and engaging content that works with current trends to get the ball rolling.

 

Collaborate with friends and family online to spread the word online. Whether it’s reviews, comments or shares – any boost online is beneficial. Before customers buy, they’ll want to see some kind of proof that your product is worthwhile. User-generated content helps to do this.

 

Motivate your customers to buy your products by offering exclusive discounts, giveaways and free shipping. Do something that puts your brand above the others, so customers will always choose you. This doesn’t have to be drastic – start simple.

 

With marketing, consistency and persistence is key. Don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t seem to work straight away. 

 

 

Summary

In essence, Printful is an easy and successful way to start your own creative business. Following the steps outlined above is important when establishing the basics, but as time goes on, you’ll be sure to develop your own tips and methods to making money. 

 

There’s plenty of Printful help and advice out there to help make the process as smooth as possible – so don’t put it off!

 

HAVE YOU USED PRINTFUL BEFORE? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Don’t forget you can always share your art with us! Become the next Artist of The Month or tag us on Instagram @darkyellowdot.

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NEED MORE ADVICE?

ARTICLES TO HELP:

How To Turn Your Artistic Passion Into A Profitable Stream Of Income

11 Best Print-On-Demand Companies To Use In The Uk

5 Easy Tips For Building Your Instagram Presence As A Digital Artist

SITES TO HELP: 

Printful Checklist

Print-On-Demand: A Low Risk Way To Sell Custom Products | Shopify

What Is Print-On-Demand? | Printful

COURSES TO HELP:

E-commerce For Artists: Selling With Print On Demand

Print On Demand For Artists: Earn Whilst You Sleep

Print On Demand Course For Beginners