Are you looking to start an Etsy shop and wondering how to create and sell custom products without having to invest in printing equipment, manage inventory, or handle shipping yourself? Print-on-demand services like Printify might be the solution you need.
In this blog article, we’ll explore the benefits and disadvantages of using Printify with Etsy, a popular marketplace with a growing market share.
We’ll look at how Printify works, what products and printing options are available, and how it can help you save time and effort while growing your business.
We’ll also discuss potential drawbacks and offer some tips on how to make the most of using Printify with Etsy. So if you’re interested in selling custom products online, keep reading to learn more about how Printify and Etsy can work together to help you succeed.
What is Etsy?
Etsy is an e-commerce platform that allows individuals and small businesses to sell handmade, vintage, and unique goods online.
Launched in 2005, Etsy started as a destination for customers looking for unique, one-of-a-kind items and for sellers looking for a platform to sell their handmade or vintage goods.
Etsy now has millions of active sellers and buyers from all over the world and reaches over 300 million people a month.
Etsy provides a simple and easy-to-use platform for sellers to list and manage their products and offers a wide range of tools and resources to help them grow their businesses. With millions of active buyers and sellers, Etsy is one of the largest online marketplaces.
Get 40 free listings when you sign up for Etsy here.
What is Printify?
Printify is a print-on-demand (POD) e-commerce platform that connects e-commerce store owners with a network of printers and fulfillment centers.
With Printify, store owners can create and sell an ever-growing list of custom products, such as t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, and more, without having to worry about inventory management, fulfillment, or shipping.
Printify handles all of the production and fulfillment processes, so store owners can focus on marketing and growing their businesses.
The platform offers a wide range of customizable products, as well as a simple and intuitive design tool to create and upload designs.
How Can Printify Help Grow Your Etsy Business?
One of the main advantages of using Printify for Etsy is the ability to offer a wider range of products. With Printify, store owners can choose from a selection of over 250 customizable products, including t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, and more. This increased product selection can help attract more customers and drive sales, as customers are more likely to find what they’re looking for when browsing through a larger selection of products.
If you were to solely rely on just the items you can print yourself, as a startup or small business, you would not be able to test as many different markets.
For example, you may decide to design and print t-shirts yourself. You will need room for all the equipment and blank t-shirts in your limited space and then you may get a customer who loves one of your designs but requires it on a mug. If you don’t have the space for this extra equipment and stock you would be unable to fulfill that order. This would be where Printify would come in.
Printify also makes it easy for store owners to create and list new products on Etsy. With the platform’s intuitive design tool, store owners can create and upload custom designs quickly and easily, without the need for technical expertise. This streamlined product creation process can help store owners save time and focus on growing their businesses.
Printify even creates mockups for you of the product it can supply. This can be very useful when you are starting out as you may not have the knowledge of how to create these yourself
Another advantage of using Printify for Etsy is that it eliminates the need for inventory management and fulfillment. When a customer places an order on an Etsy store that uses Printify, the order is automatically sent to the selected print house for them to print, package, and send out to the customer. They will even mark the item dispatched on Etsy for you and add any tracking details.
Additionally, Printify offers competitive pricing and shipping options compared to some other print-on-demand companies. While it is more expensive than printing the items yourself you can then use the time saved printing to promote your shop.
Overall, Printify provides a comprehensive solution for e-commerce store owners looking to grow their business on Etsy. By streamlining the product creation and fulfillment processes, offering a wider range of products, and providing competitive pricing and shipping options, Printify can help store owners save time and increase their profits, allowing them to focus on growing their businesses.
With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive services, Printify makes it easy for store owners to get started selling custom products online through an online marketplace or their own website.
How To Integrate Printify With Etsy
Integrating Printify and Etsy is a straightforward process that can be completed in a few easy steps.
- Head over to Printify here
- Click on Sign Up in the top right-hand corner
- Enter your email address and create a password
- Answer a few questions about yourself and click next
- When you arrive at the next page with the welcome message click on My New Store
- On the next page in the center you will see not connected, click this
- This will bring up a list of store types you can connect
- Click on connect next to Etsy
- This will bring up a prompt. Read this and click on allow access
- And that’s it. You now have connected Prinify to Etsy
Now you have connected your Etsy shop to Printify you will see a little Etsy icon at the top of the screen in the dashboard. Click on the downward arrow and this will bring up the Manage My Stores tab.
Here you will have all the settings for your store. This includes your store name and your preferences. Work through these settings to make sure you are happy with them.
The main one is the order approval. This is where you can select the manual or automatic approval of orders. If you intend to do personalized items this will need to be set to manual. This means that Prinify will not print the order until you tell them to. If you are doing personalized orders this is required as you will need to do the artwork for the order and upload it before it goes to print.
If you are just selling designs that are not personalized you can choose the automatic settings. These are 1 hour, 24 hours, or a set time every day. It is always worth having a bit of time to allow customers to cancel orders. Occasionally you will get an order and then a few minutes after get an email asking to cancel as it was a mistake or they didn’t read the delivery time until they placed the order.
Adding An Item To Etsy With Printify
Now you have all your settings done it’s time to add your first product. This is straight forward just follow these steps
- At the top of the page, there is a tab for Catalogue. Hover over this to bring up a list of products
- Select the product you would like to add. For example Men’s Clothing > T-shirts
- This will bring up all the t-shirts available in the catalog. Just select the one you like
- This then will give you a list of all the print providers that can print that item. It will even give you a rating for each
- Read through them and decide which one you like. Click on Start designing
- This is where you add your artwork. On the right-hand side, you have the options to upload it from various places
- Select Prices and variants in the top right-hand side to set what color and sizes you wish to offer
- Once you have uploaded your design you can size and position it on the item
- When happy click on Save product. This is down in the left-hand corner.
- Prinify will then create mockups of the product for you. These can be changed if you wish to do your own
- Add your title and description and set your pricing
- The last thing at the bottom is to select the shipping profile. These are the ones you have on your Etsy shop.
- Then you just need to click Publish
This is all you need to do to get the product onto Etsy. Within a few minutes, you should see the product active in your Etsy listings.
You can then edit the listing on Etsy to add your tags and any other info you would like to add.
Advantages Of Using Printify With Etsy
Printify has a massive range of products including clothing, accessories, home decor, and more which you can have printed and sell through Etsy. Unless you have a massive factory with skilled staff you would not be able to offer the number of products that they can personalize. With Printify, you don’t need to worry about sourcing materials, managing inventory, or investing in expensive equipment to print your products.
By handling the printing, packaging, and shipping of your products, Printify saves you time and effort. You don’t need to invest in printing equipment or storage space, and you don’t need to worry about packing and shipping products yourself. Instead, you can focus on creating new designs, managing your Etsy store, and growing your business.
Printify’s print-on-demand model allows you to test new designs or product ideas without committing to large volumes, reducing the financial risks associated with traditional manufacturing.
They can cope with any size order, so if you are contacted by a customer that would like to order in bulk they can do this for you and you can get discounted prices for the large order.
As seen with our step-by-step guide, connecting your Etsy shop to Printify and getting products on is seamless. There is no need for coding or any website-building knowledge
Disadvantages Of Using Printify With Etsy
Although I believe using a Print-On-Demand company like Printify is a great way to grow your business there are a few drawbacks to consider.
With a POD service, you may have limited options for customizing the product. You may be limited in the materials, colors, sizes, and printing options that are available. If you are printing the products yourself, you have more control over the customization of your products. For example, you may want a print to run down the side of a t-shirt and this may not be possible using Printify.
Quality control Is out of your hands, which should not be a problem as the Prinify selected printers are all monitored with customer feedback. But It will never replace the business owner checking everything as it’s made to make sure it is up to standard.
Your profit margins will be lower. This is understandable as you are not doing the printing work yourself. This can make getting early sales as a new shop harder as you can not match the prices of shops making the items themselves.
Shipping times are also out of your hands. As the busier times come around like Christmas, POD companies have to deal with a larger amount of orders. This can slow down their dispatch times which is out of your hands. You can’t jump a job to the front of the queue after a customer has offered to pay more to get the item sooner.
Conclusion
In conclusion, using a print-on-demand (POD) service like Printify with Etsy can offer several benefits, including a wide range of products and printing options, convenience, and cost savings. Printify handles the printing, packaging, and shipping of your products, which saves time and effort and allows you to focus on other aspects of your business, such as creating new designs and managing your Etsy store.
However, there are also potential disadvantages to using a POD service, such as limited customization options, quality control issues, the potential for higher costs, longer shipping times, and a lack of control over the production process. Therefore, it’s essential to consider the pros and cons before deciding whether a POD service is the right choice for your business. Ultimately, the decision will depend on your business needs, goals, and priorities, and what works best for your customers.