My Experience with Print on Demand (3 Months)

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0:00 Intro
0:14 How Much I Made
3:05 Growing Pains
5:15 Advice & Lessons

[JessicaT]

You always give the best REAL tips, no gimmicks. Thanks, Tim!

[brettgoldspink]

I agree with the time it takes to design, tweak and manage your design even before you get onto Etsy. You also need to invest in platforms / programs that will upscale your image resolution and keep track of files (naming deisgns... not looking at a bunch of images in a file with random names). You need to get to know your babies!! You need low res for mock ups, high res for POD, a 'raw' file of your images and remove background files etc... All of this has to happen b4 you even think of opening an Etsy store! Banners, logos and a list of ideas for tags and descriptions are also handy to have on standby in the background in Word to C&Paste. And yes.... don't believe every YouTube clip you see about £5k in a month - it doesn't happen... particularly with POD - they boast sales figures without subtracting costs (which you did!) and also new starters who need to lower their profit margins to get the first sales before establishing their brand / shop before pushing them up the the recommended 40% P/fy suggests. An honest clip and there is a lot to learn B4 earning the £££

[Rexie]

Ahhh, I just had a random day where I felt like researching how the stickers from Etsy are made and can’t believe I found you. I’ve been a customer of TurtleTags! 🥰

[hc]

I suggest Gelato if you are worries about on time shipping. They are shipping 2-3 days faster than printify. And also, as soon as your order becomes "in product" states in Gelato, they provide a tracking number. So you can manually complete your order with that tracking number. Order will be in pre-ship status for a few days. But it is not a big deal like late ship.
Also I think gelato working with providers that has better printing quality.
Downside, Some of the products are 5-10% more expensive than printify.

[GingerNinja]

Two things you could do that could fix your POD headache is find out other manufacturers that the POD is using. Printify has a section in your ordering where you can choose a specific manufacturer. Second option is if you are using Printify try using Printiful and vice versa.

[metropolismade]

Subscribed! Your videos are genuinely useful and full of hard earned knowledge, I appreciate that!

[WinSJ]

I am glad you acknowledged that the seller has to front the money 1st which takes some sellers by surprise. Your advice and guidance is always superb!

[kelly.is.jelly.]

Always looking forward to watching your uploads!! Gives me the momentum to start my etsy shop one day 🙏🏼

[averagemegan]

I was LITERALLY just looking for a video like this. Perfect timing!

[djeankitchen]

Thank you for sharing! You always inspire me.

[misosoupafly]

Thanks for sharing your progress! Appreciate the transparency 😊 definitely a nice passive income

[mintgreen]

Thanks for sharing the pitfalls. I've been interested in POD, but concerned with dispatch times, quality control, and customer returns. I have some competitors that sell a blend of digital and POD products. They can't maintain Star Seller status, I think purely because of unreliable POD printing times. Your tip about paradox of choice is so good to remember. People think more options are good, but they're not! Hope it works out for you, would love to see an update on this in another couple months.

[GehirnGoldmine]

Very interesting. And your authenticity makes it really fun to experience your vid.

[penelopesparrow]

Yeah they definitely throttled you due to the late orders - in fact if you ship from the US and that order goes via USPS, you should be aiming for a delivery date of 7 days or less. I don't know (yet!) if that's possible with POD, I just know Etsy are moving to prioritise sellers with faster delivery. Excellent video, good to see some POD advice that approaches it more like a real business and less like 'mAkE 10K WItH AI mUgS!!1!' 🙄

[numberoneappgames]

Do you use Printful, Gelato, or Printify along with Shopify?
Thank you for the video!

[EponaDreams-AmbientDreamscapes]

It's a balancing act for sure... POD costs and reduced control but with increased product range snd access to better products vs your ability to scale via your own productivity, the value of your time doing menial tasks such as printing, cutting, packaging, and posting orders. Their costs. Dealing with returns, the value of your time that could be better used for something else.

Considering all of the above, if you aren't selling something you love, and only want to make money, you will likely give up when experiencing too many hurdles.

As someone who helps people to sell on Amazon, i wouldn't waste my time on Etsy. You can print out a bunch of products all at once, send them for FBA, and take some pressure off yourself.

Between 2005 and 2011, I sold over 400 different types of chess products on Ebay and Amazon. And that taught me a LOT!

[ModernIntuitionist]

Incredibly useful video! Thanks so much, Tim

[trevors]

As you know Printify doesn't print anything that I am aware of. They are a middle business that have accounts with many print houses. Anything can cause a delay and most of the time it is unexpected so there is no way to give you a heads up of how long it will take. It could be an inventory issue if supply didn't come in when it is suppose to, to equipment malfunction or an overwhelming amount of orders the print house received. You give up quality as well. If you cancel a customer order due to delay are you still paying Printify or will they refund you?

[TonyOldFish]

I would def cutoff POD from your store that’s focusing on digital products only. That will help you to niche down the business strategy and simplify it as well. At the end of the day, you want your business to be as efficient as possible, then simple money cash flow will come.

[deaf-metal]

It helps that you already have an established customer base and following from your previous venture. I’m curious what these numbers would look like and how long the ramp up time would be if you were starting from scratch with no previous platform.