g VS Print on Demand What's Best for My Online T-Shirt Business?
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HOW DOES EACH PROCESS WORK
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WHAT DO I NEED TO START SELLING
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HOW MUCH MONEY CAN I MAKE
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LOW COST MARKETING STRATEGY
TABLE OF CONTENT S
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH POD AND DROPSHIPPING: There’s a lot of confusion going on between the Print-onDemand and Dropshipping industries, which is why I decided to clarify some of the most common doubts on this matter. The old times when you needed to hire a professional to build a website for you are long gone. Nowadays there are tons of companies that allow you to both have an online t-shirt shop and take care of inventory and fulfillment for you. The traditional selling/shipping method has a huge potential problem where most entrepreneurs fail: lack of organization. There’s stock to purchase, printing companies to deal with, packaging dilemmas to go through, shipping companies to negotiate with and many more. There’s a whole lot of newbie errors to make! Let’s go ahead and put the Print-on-Demand and Dropshipping T-shirt Businesses side to side and learn which business model is better for you.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POD AND DROPSHIPPING
A Print on Demand company has a very unique retail fulfillment method. This production method consists in creating products only after the customer requests them / pays for them, drastically reducing waste, at least for us sellers. POD platforms not only allow you to sell online but they will also set you up with an online shop (not that customizable) where you will be able to showcase the products you decide to sell.
Dropshipping is the process of passing customer orders on to a supplier partner, who then ships the order directly to the customer. Dropshipping can get a bit confusing. The dropshipping businesses we are interested in are the ones of the like of Printful, Printify, Printaura, Customcat, Alloverprint, Teelaunch, etc. which handle fulfillment.
HOW DOES EACH PROCESS WORK POD vs Dropshipping
Print on Demand Process
#1 You choose a print on demand website and upload your design to a product or several products. No monetary investment whatsoever.
#2 A customer sees your design on a product he/she likes and decides to purchase. #3 . With the customer’s money, the Print on Demand company then prints your design on the selected product. #4 They pack it up and ship it to the customer.
#5 You, as the seller, will receive the accorded profit margin and the customer his/her product with your design on it.
Dropshipping Process
#1 A buyer places an order on the seller’s website which will most likely be powered by Shopify or Woocommerce.
#2 The seller forwards the order details to their favorite dropshipping company.Â
#3 The 3rd party retailer ships the order directly to the customer.
WHAT DO I NEED TO START SELLING POD Vs Dropshipping
For POD: 1. You first need t-shirt designs to sell. Once you have your designs ready, getting started selling on Print on Demand websites is easy as pie. 2. As soon as you visit these sites you will see a big “GET STARTED” “START SELLING” “UPLOAD YOUR DESIGN” or “SELL YOUR ART” button inviting you to become a seller. 3. A few clicks later you will asked to populate your shop by uploading your awesome designs and selecting the products you want to print your designs on. 4. Now you will be asked for a bank account or a verified PayPal account to where these companies can deposit your well earned money. 5. That’s it! Once you do this you will have an up and running e-commerce shop with your designs on as many products as you wish.
For Dropshipping: 1.First, you need a domain. Go and get yours at GoDaddy or similar websites. Be sure it’s original and catchy. 2. Once you have a domain, a best practice is to open an online Shopify store. 3. Both WordPress and Shopify provide easily customizable templates to jumpstart your web design/creative process and create a decent website for showcasing your products to the world. 4. The website setup process is pretty straightforward but it’ll still take some time since there are quite a few aspects to cover up before making your site go live. 5. now go and power-up your shop with the Shopify Product Sourcing App or WooCommerce + Dropshipping extensions of your choice. 6. After selecting a partner, go show your tshirt designs on mockups in order to start populating your shop with
HOW MUCH MONEY CAN I MAKE POD Vs Dropshipping
From POD: Sites with custom profit margin per tshirt sold:
Threadless Zazzle Teespring Redbubble
Sites with fixed profit margin per t-shirt sold:
TeePublic Society6 Design By Humans Teefury Merch by Amazon
From Dropshipping: All the different dropshipping companies allow you to choose your desired profit margin. Also, since your t-shirt designs are hosted on your own website, customers won’t be able to shop around and get distracted by what could be available on other artist’s shops. Price your design as desired. Just keep in mind that very few people will be willing to pay more than $40 USD for a t-shirt. Do your research, ask around, and find the appropriate price for your products. Don’t forget to take your expenses into account.
PROS AND CONS OF POD:
Pros
Cons
Super-quick setup
Low profit margin.
No starting costs
Products might end up being a bit expensive
No need for storage space or inv entory
Non-instant payments
Easily reach internationa l markets.
Your Your designs designs will will be be featured together together with with many many other other designs designs
PROS PROS AND AND CONS CONS OF OF DROPSHIPPING: DROPSHIPPING:
Pros
Cons
Decent profit margin.
There There are are some other added costs like costs like hosting, hosting, domain, Shopify Shopify etc. etc.
No need for storage space
You pay upfront
Almost instant payments to sellers
Some sites might ask for a monthly fee.
Easily reach internationa l markets.
If a supplier fails, your business reputation goes on stake.
LOW COST MARKETING STRATEGY That will actually get you some sales
LITTLE OR NO MONETARY INVESTMENT 1. Set-up dope social media accounts, publish 80% entertaining/informative content and 20% salesy content. 2. Set up a blog and write relevant content for your target niche and you subtly mention the cool t-shirt designs you sell 3. When images don’t help enough, reviews from previous customers will always be there to solve your doubts. It’s as easy as installing a plugin to allow customer reviews on your products. 4. Get a strong SEO game so when a user Googles products like yours, you come up in the first page of the search results, leading new users to your shop. 5. Come up with a hashtag for your brand and ask your customers to tag your brand whenever they take a selfie with your product or upload a picture of them wearing your t-shirts. Then immediately re-share these images on Social Media
YOU GOTTA SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY
#1 ABANDONED CART
 When a potential customer provides their contact information but doesn’t complete the order, their cart is stored as an abandoned checkout. With the right plugin, you will be able to email these visitors with coupons to encourage them to purchase.
#3 FACEBOOK ADS
This is the best way to get more t-shirt sales. The advice here is to learn about how to advertise your t-shirt business.
#2 FACEBOOK PIXELS You can replace the image This is an analytics tool to help you measure the success of your advertising. Use the information that the Facebook Pixel collects to retarget, optimize, and track the effectiveness of your t-shirt advertising campaigns.on the screen with your own
CONCLUSION!
Make a choice and make it soon. As with any other business, the sooner you get to it, the faster you will overcome obstacles and get ahead of the competition. Both options are good, you just have to choose the good option for you. Only you know your skills and the time you can allocate to this new project of yours.
Thanks for watching!
VS
Does anyone have any questions? hello@smbelal.com smbelal.com