Learn How to Create a Print on Demand Store and Sell Merch
- Description
- Curriculum
- FAQ
- Reviews
Want to start an easy home business that is fun and has huge potential? Maybe you are a graphic designer that has a bunch of designs sitting around that you don’t know what to do with.
This course is for anyone that is interested in starting a print on demand merchandise business.
What is print on demand merchandise?
This is an excellent business model that allows you quickly take designs and have them printed on many different types of merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, hoodies, etc). The best part is there are companies that will fulfill AND ship the order to your customers directly!
I will show you step-by-step how to start a new print on demand business and the best way to set everything up to greatly improve your chances of success. There is a perfect combination of a marketplace and printing partner that make this very easy to do and you will be getting buyer traffic that is interested in your merchandise from the very beginning.
You should have experience with computers and have a general understanding of the Internet. If you can browse the Web, check e-mail, use Facebook, or use any other computer software and can follow directions then you can definitely do this!
Also, you do not have to be a graphic designer or have any experience. I show you how easy it is to make designs OR you can outsource the work for cheap.
I’ve been running this type of business for a while now I wanted to share my knowledge with you and show you why this has so much potential.
Ready to start? Jump in and start your journey now…
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1
Introduction - START HERE -
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What is Print on Demand Merchandise?LESSON NOTES
Before we get started I want to make sure you understand what Print on Demand merchandise is and what we will be doing in this course.
ACTION
Check out the video and then proceed to the first module to get started with the course!
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Massive Opportunity
LESSON NOTES
There is a lot of opportunity with Etsy and Printful, and Print on Demand in general. This lesson highlights all of it and introduces you to what the main course is about.
ACTION
Go ahead and search Etsy yourself for some of the types of merchandise you are interested and discover the potential that is there with some of the larger stores...
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Setting Up Accounts
LESSON NOTES
You need to setup two accounts for the main part of this course, which are Etsy and Printful.
ACTION
Go ahead and setup your accounts so you will be ready to go with creating your first products.
NOTE
Printful recently updated their dashboard/menu after this video was shot. The information is the same but the menu may look a bit different.
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Products You Can Create
LESSON NOTES
There are a lot of different products you can create merchandise with on Printful. This video gives you an overview of the types of products available.
ACTION
Feel free to browse through the Printful site and learn about the type of merchandise you can create with their Print on Demand products.
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What Type of Store to Create?
LESSON NOTES
Should you choose a niche or a general store when setting up Etsy? There are advantages of both…but I recommend choosing a general store to help you test out and sell more products across a wide range of categories.
ACTION
Browse Etsy and Learn the differences between general stores and niche stores. Figure out what type of store you want to build.
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How to Research Product Ideas
LESSON NOTES
This video shows you how to research products and help decide what type of print on demand merchandise you want to create. There are many internet sites to research products on and I show some examples and how to find others.
ACTION
Do some research to start getting ideas on what types of products to create. Make a list of general ideas so you will have a starting point for designs.
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How to Research Keywords
LESSON NOTES
The other part of research is checking out if the keywords for the products you want to make have enough interest to make it worth your time. You can also discover other product ideas by doing keyword research and this video shows you how.
ACTION
Take some of the products you researched before and use some of the sites and tools mentioned to discover the most popular keywords and phrases that you can use when building your listings.
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Trademark Searches
LESSON NOTES
It is a good idea to do a quick search to make sure someone does not have a trademark registered on the merchandise you want to create. I use the terms 'trademark' and 'copyright' together, just so you know to be aware that others may 'own' the rights to words, phrases, designs, etc.
This isn't legal advice, but just common sense to avoid problems down the road. The worst is having your design blow up and start getting sales and you get the dreaded letter to 'take it down'.
ACTION
Take some time to do a quick check for trademark issues on potential merchandise.
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Store Setup Part 1
LESSON NOTES
Now its time to get started with your profit base! This video shows you how to setup your Etsy store from scratch.
ACTION
Take some time to setup your store from the video.
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Store Setup Part 2
LESSON NOTES
This video completes the setup of your Etsy Store with the right settings.
ACTION
Complete the setup of your store so you can start adding products.
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12
Connect Store to Printing Partner
UPDATE
Printful recently updated their dashboard/menu after this video was shot. The menu is now on the left and you can get to 'stores' from there.
LESSON NOTES
This video shows you how to connect Printful to Etsy so you can push products to your store. With this connection you will be able to setup your products in Printful and send them directly to Etsy.
ACTION
Take time to connect them together and you will be ready to rock!
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Printing Partner Settings
UPDATE
Printful recently updated their dashboard/menu after this video was shot. The information is the same but the menu may look a bit different.
LESSON NOTES
This video shows you the basic settings to setup in your Printful account.
ACTION
Take time to setup your account from the recommendations.
ADDITIONAL INFO
One other thing not covered was setting up your Printful Wallet...or tying a credit card to your account. You will need this setup to be able to place the orders on Printful to ship to your Etsy Customers. Check out the article in the resources for this lesson that explains it in detail and how to setup.
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14
Design Files
LESSON NOTES
This video shows the recommended sizes and formats for Printful design files.
The main things you need are a transparent file, that is 300 DPI.
You typically want to save your files as RGB, which was not mentioned in the video.
ACTION
Make sure you understand the sizes for design files and how they are created.
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15
How to Create a T-Shirt Design
LESSON NOTES
It's time to get into it with your first design! This is a basic example but gives you an idea how to create a file that we can upload to create a t-shirt. We will grab a unique font and graphic and put the design together.
I use Photoshop but the concept and process applies to any graphics design software.
You always need to save your design as a transparent .PNG file to allow it to be placed on multiple colored designs.
ACTION
Make sure you understand how to put a design together and save in the right format. Create your first design with the software of your choice or from one of the resources mentioned in this course.
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How to Create a Mug Design
LESSON NOTES
In this example we will create another design that can be used on a mug. The size of the file is a bit different to make it easier to place on a mug in Printful.
You always need to save your design as a transparent .PNG file to allow it to be placed on multiple colored designs.
ACTION
Understand how to create the design that is appropriate for a mug. Create your second design with the software of your choice or from one of the design resources in this course.
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T-Shirt Design to Product
LESSON NOTES
Now that we have our first design we can add upload it to Printful and start creating our first product.
ACTION
Take your first design and add it to Printful as shown.
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Mug Design to Product
LESSON NOTES
Now that we have second first design we can add upload it to Printful and start creating another product.
ACTION
Take your second design and add it to Printful as shown.
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Publishing Products on Your Store
LESSON NOTES
After your designs are created and Printful and pushed to Etsy...the final step is to finalize your listing and publish to make it live. This video shows you the process.
ACTION
Publish your first listing to Etsy and celebrate after your first product is live!
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Optimizing Product Listings
LESSON NOTES
It is important to optimize your Etsy Listings to increase your opportunity to get traffic and help people find your products.
The title tag, description, and tags are very important to have your main keyword in.
A good thing to do is to check out similar listings or listings with alot of traffic and see how they have setup their listings for inspiration.
ACTION
Practice optimizing listings from the recommendations.
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Promoted Listings
NOTE: Etsy recently combined Google Shopping Ads and Promoted Listings into one option, which is now called 'Etsy Ads'. The info in this video has changed and will be updated soon.
How is Etsy Ads different from Promoted Listings and Google Shopping?
Etsy Ads brings Promoted Listings and Google Shopping together into one campaign.
LESSON NOTES
You can increase traffic to your listings and make your products appear at the top of searches by using Etsy's built in Promoted Listings feature.
This is a great way to boost sales on proven winners and you can enable for all of your products, or just one at a time.
ACTION
After you have some products listed make sure you check out Promoted listings and give it a try on some of your listings to see if you can increase sales.
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Shopping Ads
NOTE: Etsy recently combined Google Shopping Ads and Promoted Listings into one option, which is now called 'Etsy Ads'. The info in this video has changed and will be updated soon.
How is Etsy Ads different from Promoted Listings and Google Shopping?
Etsy Ads brings Promoted Listings and Google Shopping together into one campaign.
LESSON NOTES
Google Shopping Ads are another way to get more traffic to your listings. You have less control vs. Etsy Promoted Listings, but you will be driving traffic from outside of Etsy, placing your products in front of some of the best buyer traffic in the form of Google Shopping Ads.
ACTION
You can try enabling Google Shopping Ads, especially on any products that are selling. This is something to run some tests with to see how much extra traffic you can get and if you are getting sales from it. Start with lower budgets and adjust upwards as you start selling more.
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Posting to Social Media
LESSON NOTES
You can link your Social Media accounts and post directly from Etsy, or just use the feature to create a post to quickly have something you can paste into your account manually.
ACTION
On your first listings make sure to post directly to Social Media either manually or automatically by linking your accounts. If you do this consistently over time you will boost your store with Google organic search AND drive traffic directly to your listings for people that see your posts.
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Holidays and Trends
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Personalization Profits
LESSON NOTES
Personalized products are HOT HOT! Etsy + personalized products are the perfect match to sell unique custom gifts.
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Taking Care of Customers
LESSON NOTES
Good customer service is crucial to the growth and success of your store.
Don't let negative reviews happen by being proactive and responsive to customer requests.
The customer is always right! Sounds cliche, but very true. Even one negative comment on your shop can really affect your sales so be flexible with your policies, return requests, etc.
If you have questions about orders you can contact both Etsy and Printful and usually get quick responses.
ACTION
Make sure you understand the importance of good customer service.
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Coupons and Sales
LESSON NOTES
You can use special offers and coupons on your store to push more sales. These work great for pushing shoppers that have considered your store or products, special holiday sales, or grabbing new customers with a special promo.
You can setup these:
Percentage off sale or free shipping
Send offers to shoppers who have favorited an item or added something to their cart and not checked out
Coupon code you can share with anyone
ACTION
Consider setting up a special sale for items in your store to test. (Check out the big list of coupon directories under the Scaling Secrets section of the course for where to submit coupon codes to).
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Featured Listings
LESSON NOTES
Featured listings are a great way to highlight best sellers and the products you think are the most important for people to see.
ACTION
Make sure to set featured listings on your shop, even if you have not made any sales yet. Once you start making sales you can keep those listings at the top, or rotate different products to showcase on your shop.
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Volume Game
LESSON NOTES
To be successful you will need to create a lot of designs quickly over time to see what works.
ACTION
Take what you've learned and start pushing out designs! The more you create the faster you will see success.
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Fees, Margins, and Cutting Losses
LESSON NOTES
There are some fees involved with selling on Etsy, just like any other marketplace where you list your products for sale. Etsy can still be very profitable as long as you price your merchandise correctly.
The other thing to watch is which products are selling over time. As your store grows larger and larger it may not make sense to keep renewing listings that don't sell.
ACTION
Check out the fees page and make sure to understand what selling on Etsy costs, and the margins you need to make the most money possible.
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31
Analytics
LESSON NOTES
This video goes over the metrics available in Etsy and what they mean over time.
ACTION
Look at your own Etsy stats dashboard on your site and watch it as you start getting traffic and sales.
OPTIONAL: I also show you how to setup and connect to Google Analytics for even more insights into the traffic on your store.
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Final Tips
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Resources Overview
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Resource #1
WORD ART TOOL
This Word Art tool creates unique, text based word cloud designs. It allows for commercial use of your designs if you pay for the upgraded software.
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Resource #2
WORD SWAG
Word Swag is an app available for Android/Apple devices and can be used for creating simple typography (text based) designs.
NOTE: Not all fonts available within the Word Swag app can be used for commercial use. Make sure you understand the rights available with the fonts/designs that are in the app and do your own due diligence.
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Resource #3
GIMP
GIMP is excellent software that is a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. If you are on a budget and want to run something locally on your computer this may be your perfect solution. (Works on PC/Mac computers)
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Resource #4
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP & ILLUSTRATOR
Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator are two programs that you can use to creative designs.
Both are part of the Creative Cloud suite that and are considered by many to be the standard for graphic design and illustration software.
I personally like to use Photoshop...and Illustrator is very common for creating designs, especially with professional graphic artists. If you ever get work outsourced, chances are it will be in Illustrator format.
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Resource #5
CANVA
Canva is a great free graphics design program that can be used for a variety of different things, including creating designs.
NOTE: Not all of the graphics and fonts that are available within Canva can be used for commercial use (selling on your print on demand merchandise).
The safest way to use Canva is to upload your own graphics and text (that are public domain, creative commons that allow for commercial use). If you do decided to use the media directly available from searches within Canva make sure you know what rights you have to use them.
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Resource #6
PLACEIT
Placeit is a great resource to be able to quickly create t-shirt designs and nice looking mockups for your products.
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Resource #7
PIXABAY
Pixabay is one of my favorite free sites to get vector graphics and illustrations to use on your designs. I would not recommend using just the graphics by themselves, but taking them and combining with text or other images to make unique designs.
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Resource #8
FREEVECTOR
FreeVector is another great resource to get vector graphics for your designs.
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Resource #9
RESOURCE NOTES
Freepik offers a huge selection of vector graphics you can use for designs.
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Resource #10
FIVERR
Fiverr is an excellent place to get outsourced designs for your Print on Demand merchandise.
As I mention in the video...Fiverr often gets a bad wrap for the quality of the designers, but you just have to know how to properly search to find the best ones to work with. In the video I select 'Level One' as a filter...you can select more levels to get more results (the higher levels typically are more expensive), just make sure that you select at least Level One to not show newer service providers.
If you are considering hiring a graphic designer to do any work I recommend giving it a try as there are some really talented people offering their services for dirt cheap.
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Resource #11
99Designs is a site where you can connect with designers to get work done AND run a contest to get multiple designers to create designs that you can pick your favorite from....an interesting way to get a design done that gives you a lot to choose from.
The prices on this site are higher than other resources mentioned, but worth it as the quality of the designs is as good as it gets. If you are looking for higher end designs and don't have the talent to do it yourself, consider this site.
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Resource #12
UPWORK
UpWork is the top freelancer site where you can hire graphic designers to create designs for you.
I've used UpWork in the past and have had great success finding talented designers at affordable prices.
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Resource #13
HOW TO FIND EDITABLE DESIGNS ONLINE
I show you out to search the Web and find design packs and bundles that you can use for your own designs.
These can be very valuable as design resources to quickly come up with new and unique designs.
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Resource #14
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How to Scale Your Best Products
NOTES
Once products start selling the next logical step is to figure out how to make more sales with those products.
I give you four ways in this video to get more traffic and make more sales including:
Etsy Promoted Listings
Google Shopping Ads
External Traffic Sources
Other Printful Integrations
EXTERNAL TRAFFIC LINKS
Great platforms for sending paid traffic to your listings. My favorites are Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram because the visual nature of the posts + traffic are a great match for our products. You should not be trying these traffic sources unless you have a product that is really selling, as each traffic source may or may not convert. It's all about testing!
NOTE: You can run Facebook Ads from within Etsy but it is very limited, so I recommend using Facebook Ads directly.
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Expanding and Scaling to New Products
NOTES
Another way to scale is putting your winning design on other products. This video covers how to use Printful to create variations of your design on other products.
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Expanding to Amazon
NOTES
Scaling your winning products can be a great way to get more sales on your proven designs.
Amazon is the biggest marketplace on the planet! Definitely check out the integration between Printful and Amazon as you start selling more products and want more sales.
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Expanding to Ebay
NOTES
Ebay is another great marketplace with tons of traffic. The buyers on Ebay are a little different than Etsy so scaling successfully may depend on the types of products you want to list.
Definitely something to check out if you want to expand your product line to a new audience!
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Other Printers that Integrate with Etsy
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Other Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Store
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Coupon Sites and Directories
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Giveaway Case Study: A Powerful Strategy
