Updated on December 30th, 2023 at 12:47 pm

One of the most exciting money-making opportunities that have come with the rise of the digital era is what is called print on demand dropshipping.

This business model allows you to sell products to your customers without ever handling the products yourself, doing inventory, or even shipping them.

Talk of an amazing semi-passive income stream and print on demand dropshipping comes right at the top of the list.

The print on demand industry is getting more lucrative by the day. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global print on demand market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.1% from 2022 to 2030 and it’s projected to reach 39.40 Billion US dollars in 2030.

But what exactly is print on demand? How does it even work? And can you make decent money with a print on demand business in 2024?

If any of these questions have crossed your mind, you’ve landed on the right page. In this post, we’ll talk about the ins and outs of print on demand, how it works, and how much money you can make doing print on demand.

I’ll also take you through the step-by-step process to create your online store today and start dropshipping ASAP.

PS I created my own test Etsy print-on-demand store for this post and I’ll show you exactly how I did it so you can start yours too.

Let’s get started.

How Does Print On Demand Work

If you’re a complete beginner to the idea of dropshipping, here is how it all works.

Print on demand drop shipping allows you, the shop owner, to sell products on an online storefront without having to handle any of the production, inventory, or shipping aspects of the business.

To do this, you usually partner with a supplier of white-label products which you then customize with your own unique designs and put up for sale in your store.

These products can be anything like;

T-shirts
Hoodies
Sweatshirts
Socks
Shoes
Hats

The most exciting part about this business model is that you only pay for the cost of the white-label product after you’ve made a sale.

This means that you’ll require absolutely no capital to start a print-on-demand business because the customer pays for the initial cost of the product when they buy it.

Isn’t that pretty smooth?

And after you’ve made the sale, the supplier handles everything from the digital printing to fulfilling the order to shipping it to the customer.

So all you do is sit back and watch the money roll in.

Don’t let that statement fool you though, nothing is that easy. There’ll still be work to be done on your part before you can start seeing good results from your business.

That aside though, print-on-demand is really one of the easiest and fastest ways to make money online.

Let’s take a closer look at how to make print on demand work for you.

How To Start A Print On Demand Business In 5 Simple Steps

1: Decide On What Products To Sell

Before you can start your print on demand business, you’ll need to have a clear plan about what kinds of products you’ll be selling.

You might be thinking… What are you talking about Henry? I’ll sell anything and everything.

No, you won’t.

Or rather, you don’t want to.

Imagine this… You see a product like a sweatshirt on Etsy and then out of curiosity you follow the link and open the shop to find that not only do they sell sweatshirts, they also sell pretty much everything else. They sell jewelry and toys, and earrings and shoes.

Would you trust that store? Would you be confident that they are specialists and that the sweatshirt you want to buy is of the best quality?

You probably wouldn’t. Why? Because they are a jack of all trades. And jacks of all trades tend to be masters of none.

That’s why it’s super important to choose a specific niche and focus everything on it. Now if you found a store on Etsy that focuses only on custom-made necklaces you would trust that they are necklace specialists and would therefore be inclined to buy from them.

The same applies to you as a beginner, you need to decide on a specific niche and work with it. Choosing a niche for your products will also help you when you are coming up with a Name and brand for your business.

Also, choosing a niche doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to sell only one specific product. No, you can choose a broader niche like say clothing and create products under it.

The important thing is to make sure you don’t stuff your store with products that aren’t even remotely related.

When deciding on your products, you also want to do some market research. For this, you can go to Etsy and check out what other people are doing.

Check out the top performing stores, the products they are selling, and what prices they are selling at.

All of this will give you important insights to help you with creating your own shop and products.

2: Choose A Good Print On Demand Platform

The next thing you’ll need to consider is which POD platform you’ll be working with.

This is an important step because the print on demand platform/website handles a good number of important processes for your business, and so you want to make sure you get a good one.

Some of the things a POD platform does include:

It connects you with your supplier(s)
It handles the inventory of your products
It fulfills any orders you receive
It’s where you design your products
It’s where you get paid

Owing to the rapid growth of the print on demand industry, there are lots of print on demand platforms available right now. You’ll need to do some good research to make sure you pick the right one for your business.

If you asked me though, I’d recommend you go with Printify.

Printify has the largest global print network and they have over 800 high-quality products ready for you to customize and start selling.

Some other amazing print on demand platforms you can consider are:

Printful
Gooten
PrintBase

For the shop that I created, I used Printify.

Printify’s sign-up process and design capabilities were just top-notch, that’s why I highly recommend you use Printify for your business.

3: Choose A Marketplace For Your Products

The other thing you’ll need to consider is what marketplace your products will be available on.

A good marketplace will give exposure to your products and your brand, enabling more people to see them and therefore translating to more sales.

There are lots of marketplaces available where you can easily set up shop and start selling your print-on-demand products.

One of the biggest and most common marketplaces for these kinds of products is Etsy. It’s also the one I used for the hoodie store I created.

Setting up a shop on Etsy is super simple.

To get started, visit the website here, then scroll down to the very bottom of the page. Click on ‘Sell on Etsy‘, then follow the sign-up process and you’ll have your shop up and running in no time.

Some amazing Etsy alternatives include Shopify and Walmart both of which you can sign up for easily as well.

4: Come Up With A Business Name

Okay, now that you’ve decided on what products you’ll sell, where you’ll sell them, and which print-on-demand platform you’ll use, it’s time to come up with a name for your business.

Remember how we said choosing a niche will help you with deciding on a name, now is that time.

You want the name of your new business to reflect the kind of products that you deal in.

Not to worry too much about this though, there’s this website that uses AI to generate business names and it’s completely free.

Namelix.com

You’ll need to fill in some keywords related to your niche and your products, and the AI will do the rest. It will generate hundreds of names and then you can choose the one you like the most.

Namelix will also give you suggestions as to how your business logo could look like and if you’re interested you can go ahead and buy the logo to use for your business.

If not, you can easily create a new logo for free using an online tool like Canva.

Related: How To Start A Profitable Youtube Channel

5: Create Your First Product

Once you’ve set up your accounts on both the marketplace of your choice and the print-on-demand platform, the next step is to create your first product and publish it.

For me, I used Printify and Etsy. The two work seamlessly together and they made the whole process super simple. Which is why I’d recommend you go the same route.

When using Printify and Etsy, you’ll also need to connect your Etsy storefront to your Printify account, which you can do in a few simple steps.

To do this, you’ll need to log into your Printify account. Once logged in, click on your account at the top right corner.

Then next, you’ll click on Manage My Stores.

This will take you to a page where you’ll see all the available marketplaces. Select Etsy and then follow the process to connect your store.

An Etsy page will appear asking you to grant Printify access to your store, once you grant the access, the two will be connected and you’ll get a message like this.

Once your store is connected and ready, it’s time to create your first print on demand product and publish it on your Etsy store so it can be seen by buyers.

The process to create a new product with Printify was quite easy when I did it.

It only takes a few minutes to acquaint yourself with the design features, and you’ll be able to make amazing designs in no time.

For my shop, I designed a unisex hoodie with a tiger at the front.

I thought it was alright… what do you think?

To get started with your own first product on Printify, simply scroll down on Printify’s Product catalog and select the product you want to customize.

You can also access the catalog at the very top of the page and select a specific category to see the products available in it.

Once you select a product to customize, you’ll be taken to a page where you can select the supplier you’ll be working with for that particular product.

It’s recommended to select the very first supplier on the list because they are listed according to Printify’s ranking. Meaning the first one has the highest ranking and is therefore the best choice.

Once you select the supplier, simply click on ‘Start Designing‘.

This will take you to the design page, and you should see something a little like this.

Here you’ll be able to add all kinds of customizations to your product. You can add text, images, or graphics. You can also change its colors to the one you prefer.

You can add all types of customizations to make sure the product looks just the way you want it.

For some of the elements like the tiger I used for my hoodie, go to the following website. It has a huge collection of images and png elements that you can browse and download for free to add to your designs.

RawPixel.com

To add a downloaded image to the design, simply click the ‘My Device‘ button on your right and then upload the element.

Once you are done customizing and designing the product, click ‘Save Product‘.

This will take you to a page where you can see your new product and adjust things like pricing and available variants. The system will already have generated suggested prices for the product but you can go ahead and change them if you’d like.

Once you are satisfied everything is looking good, hit the green button labeled ‘PUBLISH‘

This will automatically publish your new product directly to your Etsy store and make it available for buyers to buy.

And with those few steps, you’ll have launched your print on demand business.

But… you’re not done yet.

Market Your Products

This part will be very important.

Don’t just create and publish products and then sit back and relax.

If you want to see any success, you’ll need to invest in a good marketing strategy for your print on demand business.

A marketplace like Etsy already has its own in-house advertising program to help you push your products to be seen by more people. I suggest you get on board with that.

You can also use social media to inform people of your products and encourage them to buy.

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest can help you reach many people and channel them to your products, which would translate into more sales and more money.

Final Thoughts

Print-on-demand is a fast-growing industry and anyone that jumps on it has a good chance of making good money with the business.

There is however lots of work that goes into building your print on demand business from the ground up.

If you want to succeed, you’ll want to make sure you choose a good print-on-demand platform, come up with amazing product designs, and market those products so that you can drive sales.

I hope that this guide has given you a good starting point so that you can get started with your print-on-demand business.

All the best.

FAQ’s