I have spent the last two years designing things to sell on POD websites. I am not a designer by nature and my design skills are far lacking. But I manage to do pretty good for my lack of talent. This will be my attempt at explaining some of my success and what I have learned along the way. I have done this part time while having a full time job and two kids.
What are POD websites?
POD stands for Print On Demand. POD websites are websites such as Cafepress, Zazzle, Rebubble and many many more. These websites allow you to submit photographs and design that will be placed on apparel to be sold.
What are the advantages of using a POD website?
- There is no upfront cost. When you submit a design, it will be virtually displayed on a mock up of the item selected. The item is never created until it is purchased by someone.
- You never deal with the customer. All manufacturing, shipping and customer service is handled through the company.
What are the disadvantages of using a POD website?
- You only earn a fraction of the selling price.
- Quality on some POD websites can be lacking.
- Usually no branding which results in few returning customers.
How it works.
This is an example mock up of one of my designs.
I created the design and uploaded it to Redbubble. Rebubble displays a mock up. If someone searches for it and purchases it, I make about 20% of the sale price. Redbubble allows you to adjust your profit percentage. So I could chose another amount. But the price of the item will reflect the amount I choose. So if you price too high you may never sell your product.
Choosing which sites to upload to
Each POD website offers different products. They all offer different prices. Some even target different demographics. So there is no best POD website for everyone. I have three main sites I do well on and several I do OK on. Ranked top to bottom.
- Cafepress
- RedBubble
- Spreadshirt
- Dizinga
- Zazzle
Cafepress is the easiest to upload to. You can setup templates for certain designs and then upload your design to hundreds of products in a matter of minutes. There is a curated approval process that takes a couple of days on average. I make the most of my monthly income from here. Your earnings are a locked in percentage.
Redbubble is the second easiest to upload to. There is no curation. Products uploaded here are instantly available for sale. I make the second most off of this website. You can chose whatever profit margin you want.
Spreadshirt is the third easiest to upload to and I make about half what I make on Redbubble each month. Spreadshirt is limited mostly to shirts and a few other products. You can chose whatever profit you want.
Dizinga is a bit slow to upload to and tedious to keyword. There reporting system is broken and its very hard to figure out what you have sold and how much you made from it. I still make a decent amount from the little work I have uploaded there. Earnings are a fixed price.
Zazzle is a fairly decent earner but the uploading process is the worst in the industry. It is by far the hardest and slowest way to upload designs. They have a good reputation though so they attract a lot of buyer. I sell about on par with Dizinga each month. I just loath uploading here because it feels like a slap in the face to have such a bad system to upload designs. You can chose to change your profit margin.
Find a niche
Find a niche that you are knowledgeable about. Do a search and see how many results come up. If there are not many designs related to a certain niche, create designs to fill the gaps. Some people do great with seasonal or holiday related items. Christmas, Halloween and St. Patty's Day. Others might be fan art(where allowed).
My experience
I average about 400 dollars a month. Its enough to pay some bills or allow me to buy extra things like Camera's, lens and other things that wouldn't normally fit into my budget. If I did it full time, I could probably live off of it if I didn't bore myself to death or run out of ideas to design.
your post looks interesting
I'm a photographer and for the past month I've slowly been adding my work to Society6 in hopes of making some additional income, but unfortunately I've yet to see any sales. Don't think many people coming to sites like this are looking for art prints to be honest. I'm still hopeful that if I'm consistent about uploading work I'll eventually make a few sales here and there. Part of it is just getting popular on the site in the first place.
I uploaded to society6 before. I had no sales. Personally I think its one of the bad sites. I hear some people making earnings on it, but my experience was not good. Plus uploading there is extremely slow compared to others.
Have you experimented with Merch by Amazon at all? I saw someone having some great results with that after just a month or so.
I have looked at this market often but never gone into it. Printful is cool also, especially since you can auto connect a Shopify store.
Hey @rrbeachdesigns , would love to offer to come onto my podcast sometime.
It is all about entrepreneurs; what you are doing, believe in and what difference you are making in the world.
Here is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5CpCNPna6p95oJfKPew0N3ZT0k-khdgg
It is audio only over skype. Does this sound of interest to you?