Print on Demand

A side-hustle with the print on demand industry

For the first 20 years of the web, online marketers took advantage of affiliate schemes to earn money. But it has become increasingly difficult to make money with affiliate programmes.

Google has become effective at removing affiliate sites and big programmes such as Amazon have slashed their commissions to make it harder to earn good money.

Print on Demand is much more stable, sustainable and scaleable. All three are needed to earn regular income over time. This is my series of videos of my experience of print on demand.

With Wordpress and Woocomerce combined with print on demand and a sustainable business is possible.

 

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A great side hustle for people without much in cash reserves is print on demand.  This allows you to run a clothing brand or other designer products without having to go to the expense of spending money on custom print stock.

You make the designs, promote them and outsource the production of the item to another business. This business then prints and dispatch for you. It means you get the money first and can pay for the print and keep any profits.

There are two main ways to do print on demand;

  1. Marketplace print on demand.
    This is when you upload your designs to another website who do all the sales support etc and they pay you a commission or royalty for each item sold. You still do the marketing to get sales and make the design but nothing else. The products will be shipped under the marketplace branding such as Red Bubble or Zazzle.
  2. Outsourcing print on demand.
    This is where you have you own website and take the money yourself and provide all the after sales support. You set your own prices. The company will ship out your products in unbranded packaging or branded with your own branding. This is companies like Vistaprint Advantage or Printful.

Which method you use pretty much depends on how much involvement you want to get involved in the running of the business and how much risk you are prepared to take.

With marketplace print on demand you have no risk and no after sales service to deal with. But you can be limited as to the price you can sell at. Also if you breach their rules -mainly on copyright infringement - you lose your account. You just need to wait for your monthly commissions and royalties to come through. You don't need a website as you can sell from your own shop on the marketplace website.

With outsourcing print on demand you need to take on the after sales service. You also take on the risk of paying refunds and other financial costs. It's great for cashflow as you get paid when the order is made and then you pay out to the printing company when you order. You need your own website and meet legal requirements of having a returns address etc.