Welcome to the exciting world of print-on-demand (POD) and Etsy! If you’re an artist, designer, or entrepreneur looking to turn your creativity into a profitable business, then you’re in the right place.
Etsy is a leading online marketplace for handmade and unique products, and POD is a revolutionary way to create custom designs without any upfront costs. But with so many sellers on Etsy, how can you stand out from the crowd and sell your POD products successfully?
In this blog article, we’ll give you all the tips and tricks you need to start selling your POD creations on Etsy, from creating eye-catching designs to optimizing your listings and marketing your products. Get ready to take your business to the next level and make your mark in online retail!
Selecting a Print-on-Demand Partner
There are many POD providers out there. They all have a range of products and a range of prices but how do you choose which one is right for you?
The things to consider when making your mind up on which provider to use are;
- Range of products available
- Cost of products
- Cost of shipping
- Ease of use
- Quality of printing
The truth is most of them will work well and will help you grow an online business. But I like Printify, as it is easy to use, integrates well with Etsy, and has a huge amount of products to personalize. I wrote a blog article on why Printify is good for Etsy here.
I mainly use Printify to print t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies to sell on Etsy and they do a great job. But if you want other products like wall art, Gooten would suit you better. And If you were looking to do personalized jewelry then Shine-on would be the place to go.
Designing Print-on-Demand Products
Design tips for print-on-demand products
Some of the best-selling designs on Etsy are text-based simple designs. There is no need to overcomplicate the design process. If you are a graphic designer or enjoy spending your time with Photoshop editing and perfecting an image, go for it. But it is not required to be successful on the Etsy marketplace.
Take this dog t-shirt. It has 35 product reviews which we can guess is about 350 sales. I normally get a review for every 10 orders. This would take a few minutes to design in Canva and has been really successful. Using this type of design also makes it easy to upscale. By just replacing the word ‘dog’ with cat, car, motorbike, etc you can very quickly create multiple designs.
You can also sign up for Creative Fabrica here. On Creative Fabrica you will find 100s of designs and design elements you can use for Print on demand.
How to optimize product images for Etsy listings
Your product image is essential in getting clicks on your listing. You want to really catch the eye of a potential buyer and this is done by your main image. Below I have 2 screenshots. This first screenshot is the top 8 on Etsy when I did a search for a dog t-shirt.
As you can see they look very professional. The top listings on an Etsy search generally are the ones that have the highest click-through rate. Etsy does this as they want to put the products that are most likely to sell at the top.
This second image is a screenshot taken from page 18 of the same Etsy search.
A couple of the listings look the same and could well be new listings that will eventually get traction and get higher in the search results. But you can see there are a few that just don’t look as professional.
Achieving a professional image is fairly simple. You can purchase mock-ups from sellers on Etsy and then import them into Canva, overlay your design, and then export the image for use on Etsy
Setting Up Your Etsy POD Shop
How to set up your Etsy shop
- Go to Etsy in your web browser.
- Click the “Sign In” button in the top right corner.
- Click the “Register” button.
- Fill in your first name, last name, email address, and password.
- Click the “Register” button.
- Check your email for a confirmation message from Etsy and click the “Confirm Your Email Address” button.
- Fill in your address information and select your country.
- Click the “Save and Continue” button.
- Review and accept the Etsy policy and guidelines.
- Click the “Open Your Shop” button to start selling on Etsy, or click the “Skip for now” button to purchase items as a buyer.
- If you choose to open a shop, fill in your shop information, including shop name, language, and currency.
- Choose your billing method, either direct checkout or PayPal.
- Click the “Save and Continue” button to finish setting up your Etsy account.
Setting Up Your Printify Account
- Go to the Printify website at https://printify.com/.
- Click on the “Get Started” button in the top right-hand corner of the homepage.
- Choose the platform you would like to integrate with Printify. Printify supports a variety of e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and more.
- Create a new account or log in with your existing account credentials for the platform you chose in the previous step.
- Once you have logged in, you will be prompted to connect your platform with Printify. Follow the instructions provided to connect your platform with Printify.
- After your platform is connected to Printify, you will be taken to the Printify dashboard. From here, you can browse the various products available for customization and select the ones you would like to offer in your store.
How to create print-on-demand listings on Etsy
- On the Printify dashboard, click on the “Add Product” button and choose the product you want to sell on Etsy. Printify offers a wide variety of products, including t-shirts, hoodies, phone cases, and more.
- Customize the product by selecting the product color, size, and style. You can also upload your own design or use the design tools on Printify to create a new design.
- Once you’ve customized the product, set the selling price and the shipping price. You can also set up shipping profiles for different regions.
- Click on the “Publish” button to add the product to your Etsy store.
- On the Etsy website, navigate to the “Shop Manager” and click on the “Listings” tab.
- Click on the “Add a listing” button and select “Physical item” as the listing type.
- Enter the product details, including the product name, description, and tags. Make sure to include keywords in the product title and description to help your product appear in search results.
- Scroll down to the “Variations” section and click on the “Add a variation” button. Select “Create a new variation” and enter the product options (color, size, style) that you set up in Printify.
- Set the price for each variation and add the Printify product URL in the “SKU” field.
- Scroll down to the “Shipping” section and select the shipping profile you created on Printify.
- Click on the “Publish” button to publish the listing to your Etsy store.
Best practices for optimizing your Etsy shop for search
Ok, you have the shop up and running and have some products listed so that’s it right? Unfortunately, Etsy is competitive, very competitive! You need to optimize your listings to stand a chance of getting any views.
Optimizing your listings consists of using good images and then writing a good title, description, and tags. We have covered the image part above but that is how you get buyers to click on your products instead of someone else’s.
The first challenge is to get your products to show up in the listings when a buyer searches. This is achieved by putting keywords in your title, description, and tags. Try to think of what a buyer may type into an Etsy search if they were looking for your product. Put these keywords into your title, description, and tags.
Many shops on Etsy forget to use these keywords in the description of their listing. They are missing a trick as Google now read this and can rank you on their search results. This can be an increase in direct traffic to your listing as a buyer may not have even been on Etsy looking for your product.
Marketing and Promoting Your POD Products
How to use social media to market your products
Social media can massively improve your sales if done correctly. The platform I have had the most success with is Pinterest. The beauty of Pinterest is it is more like a search engine rather than social media. You create ‘pins’ which are basically an advert for your product. On these pins, you can add tags that help them be discovered by potential customers.
These pins then stay active forever so potentially you may get someone to search for the items you have listed months after adding them to Pinterest. Users of Pinterest are also generally people looking for inspiration. They may be on there looking for a gift idea for their friend, type this into the search bar and your pin could show up if this is your targeted tag.
If your products are in a particular niche then Instagram could be very useful. Let’s say all your products are related to dogs. You could start an Instagram page and fill it with cute dog images, quotes, and videos. This will grow an audience of dog lovers who will follow your page. Then you can drop your products in randomly and there is a good chance a percentage of the followers would want to buy them.
Ideas for running sales and promotions to boost sales
Everyone loves to get a bargain so why not use this in trying to increase your sales? This doesn’t mean you need to sell your items at cost and not make any money. Brick and motor shops do this all the time. You list the products at a higher price so then you can run a sale to bring them down to the price you would like to sell at. On the face of it, the customer thinks they are getting a bargain as they see think it will cost them more if they don’t buy now.
Another promotion you can run on Etsy is offering free shipping if a customer buys multiple products or hits a certain value. This can be a great way to get higher-order values. You’ve probably done it yourself, gone to amazon and added a product to your basket, and then get told if you spend another $5 you can have free shipping. It is very tempting then to look at the other products.
Running sponsored adverts on Etsy
There are really mixed reviews on running Etsy ads. I feel this is because you get mixed results using them. I have had really good results where for every $1 I’ve spent I have made $10 in sales. But I have also had weeks of spending $3 a day and not even making a sale.
When running a POD store your profit margins can be lower than the sellers who are making the product themselves. This means you have less money to play with before you actually make a loss by running ads.
The times I have been most successful running ads is when the product tends to sell more than one. So these could be girls’ holiday t-shirts. You may spend $3 that day getting clicks and if you sold one t-shirt you’d make very little but if the buyer then buys 5 t-shirts on the same order it was $3 well spent. Try to use this logic when running ads.
Fulfilling and Shipping Print-on-Demand Orders
The hardest part of running a POD store is getting sales. Once you have an order it is very straightforward. You can set within Printify for orders to go straight to print which means you literally do nothing. The order will automatically be sent to your chosen print provider who will then print, package, and send the product straight to your customer. They even update the tracing info within Etsy for you.
If you decide to sell personalized products there will be a little work to do on each sale. For this, you will need to set the order approval to manual within Prinify. This will mean that the product will not be made until you give the go-ahead. This is required as you will need to create the personalized artwork and upload it to Prinify before it can go to print.
It is very important you do this as soon as possible as the print provider can take 1-3 days sometimes longer at busy times to print the product once they have received the artwork.
Conclusion
Selling on Etsy with a POD store is a great business model. It takes little to no money to get started just some of your time. You may be lucky and get a few sales in with your first few designs but don’t be disheartened if it takes weeks and 10’s of designs to get your first sale. It is very competitive as thousands of other people across the world are competing for the same market.
However, overall I really like this business as it can be as hands-on or off as you like. If you need some motivation to keep going read this article on how much you can really make with this business.