T-shirts are a very hot selling item in the world today and using Print-on-demand services can help you make money from the T-shirt business with very little capital. Look outside your window (That’s if you live on a busy street) and count the number of people you can see wearing T-shirts.
From where I am sitting typing this, I have counted at least 3 men and 2 women. This shows you just how hot T-shirts are. So, you can never go wrong by investing in a T-shirt business as long as you do it the right way.
What is Print-On-Demand Services?
Print on demand services popularly called POD is kind of system that allows you to use other people’s services to grow your T-shirt business. Instead of buying large numbers of T-shirts and investing in printing equipment, the company will responsible for all the printing, handling, packaging, customer care and shipping of the T-shirts to your customers.
With POD services, making money from your T-shirt business is as simple as making noodles for dinner. Are you planning to start your own T-shirt business but lack the required capital to do so? Then print-on-demand service is the solution you have been looking for; a solution that allows you to start your business with little or no capital.
How Print-On-Demand T-shirt Printing Works
1. First, you have to select a design that you would want to have printed on your T-shirt. It could be pictures, words or clip-arts. You could design them yourself or buy ready-made designs from stock design websites.
2. Then you would pre-order the T-shirt from the print-on-demand service provider and have your designs printed on them. Sometimes, the company would charge you extra for printing on your T-shirt. You might even skip the pre-order step and wait till you have an order from a customer before you order for T-shirts.
3. The service provider allows you create an online store on their website with which you can promote, advertise and sell your T-shirts.
4. In case of large orders, the print-on-demand service provider helps to warehouse your T-shirts so that you don’t have to worry about storage. You would also be able to avoid overhead costs like cost of storage, handling and shipping.
5. You decide how you want to mark-up your T-shirts and how much you want to sell your T-shirts as well as the profit you would like to make.
6. You generate sales through your online store.
7. The service provider receives payment on your behalf and ships the T-shirt to your customers.
8. The print-on-demand service provider sends you a pay check of your profit at the end of every month.
9. Some service providers charge you membership fees while some others offer different membership levels. And on some websites, you would be expected to pay manufacturing and designing costs while some do it for you without extra costs.
Which Print-On-Demand service providers can you use?
a.Spread shirt-: Spread shirt provides you with an online product designer which is really easy to use so that you can customize and sell your products easily.
b. Cafepress-: Cafepress is one of the most popular print-on-demand website and apart from T-shirts; you can also print a host of other products like calendars, mugs, hats and posters. On Cafepress, you can have your own online store and webpage which you can use to sell your product. You can also have access to free membership options or pay a token for premium membership subscription. Cafepress is very popular because you do not have to pay any fees upfront or pay manufacturing costs.
c. Zazzle-: Another good website that you can use for your print-on-demand T-shirt business is Zazzle.com. Zazzle offers shipping services to over 200 countries which gives you access to more customers from different countries. There are several other service providers that you can use such as Spreadshirts, Streetshirts, CowCow and Redbubble.
How to conduct your Print-On-Demand T-shirt Printing Business
First, you have to select a service provider after giving careful consideration to several factors like-:
- Quality of the company’s T-shirts based on reviews
- Price
- Currency conversion rates-: If you are using a service provider that isn’t based in your country, then you have to know what the conversion rate is so that you don’t lose all your earnings due to exchange rate differences.
- Costs of importation-: If you are using a foreign based service provider to serve buyers from your own country, you need to find out how fast the company delivers so that your customers can be appropriately informed.
- Marketing support-: The T-shirt marketing business is a very competitive one and a service provider that offers sales support by allowing you to create your own store and also hosts it is a better option for you.
After considering the factors listed above, you should go a step further before choosing a service provider. You should try to order a sample from the company so that you can see the quality and also feel the texture of the fabric that is used in producing the shirts.
The next step is to create the designs that you would like to be printed on your T-shirt. This might be photographs or artworks. Whichever one you decide to go with, try to avoid copying other people’s work so you don’t end up with a lawsuit on your hands.
Some designers actually copyright their work to prevent theft from other people and if you end up using such designs unknowingly and the designer decides to sue you, you may be asked to pay for damages worth thousands. If you don’t know how to design, there are websites such as big stock photo where you can buy stock photos and designs.
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