r/printondemand

As those youtubers say is it just taking designs from redbubble or ai

then list it i know there is the marketing too

but because i am learning digital marketing i don't think it won't be that hard for me.

do i need to have some art or creative skill to design designs that sell or people like or

even basic design can sell with good marketing?

Hi there, long story short: I'm helping a client who has set up an ecommerce store, and they are using printful. They're making some good sales right off the bat, so that's great.

The issue is that printful is charging my client a tax on every order, in every state. Now, my client has not uploaded their reseller certificate yet, which I am telling them to do. However, their reseller certificate is for New York, which is the only state where they have a nexus.

My understanding is when they upload this:

Printful will stop charging them tax on *every* order, not just ones in NY, because they've uploaded a reseller certificate - which is basically saying, "we're dealing with the taxes, don't worry about it."

Is this correct - will that happen: if they upload a NY reseller certificate, printful will stop charging them tax on every order to every state?

Or will my client continue to be charged tax by printful in every state except NY? And in that case, how do they prevent this?

Thanks in advance!

idk what to do, i've been increasing artist margin but it also increases the fees

I have been working on a few T-shirt designs recently, but I’m still trying to understand what customers actually buy, not just what looks good to us as designers.

For those already selling POD products, what works best for you: simple text-based designs, small chest prints, or larger detailed graphics? And do you think the niche matters more than the design itself?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experience, including any mistakes you made when you first started. I’m still learning and would love some honest advice from people who are actually doing this.

I’ve been using a spreadsheet to track profit on my Etsy POD sales, but I’m terrible at keeping it updated.

The annoying part is that the sale amount obviously isn’t what you actually made. By the time I account for Etsy fees, the print provider cost, shipping, etc., the profit can look pretty different.

I’ve been thinking about making something for myself that would automatically pull the order numbers together and show actual profit per order/product instead of manually updating a spreadsheet.
Before I spend a bunch of time on it, I’m curious how everyone else handles this.

Do you:
use a spreadsheet?
use Etsy’s numbers and estimate from there?
use another app/software?
just check your print provider + Etsy separately?

And if you do use a spreadsheet, is keeping it updated annoying for you too, or am I making this into a bigger problem than it actually is?

Especially interested in hearing from people doing enough orders that manually tracking everything starts getting messy.

can someone help me convert my ai designed shirt to svg with editable layers?

I’m looking for reliable print on demand suppliers that ship to EU countries.

Ideally:

Good-quality T-shirts

Low base prices (preferably around €5–€10)

Reasonable shipping costs

Good print quality

No crazy delivery times

Which POD suppliers are you currently using, and what are your actual costs per shirt + shipping?

Looking for POD supplier recommendations for caps/hats and bags

I currently sell on Etsy and I'm looking for a reliable print-on-demand supplier specifically for caps/hats and bags.

What I need:

• No minimum orders or stock holding

• Direct fulfilment to customers

• Etsy integration/automated fulfilment ideally

• Selling mainly to both the USA and UK - Worldwide is a bonus

• Fast production and shipping, ideally delivered within 5–10 business days

• Good selection of caps, especially pink baseball caps, dad caps or trucker caps

• Printing/DTF is absolutely fine, it doesn't need to be embroidery

• Bags such as drawstring/gym bags, totes and similar accessories

• Reasonable product + shipping costs that leave enough margin for Etsy

I've already looked at Printify, Printful, Gelato, PrintKK, PrintDoors, InterestPrint, PeaPrint, Merchize and a few others.

The cheaper suppliers I've found tend to have 10–20+ business day delivery, while the faster suppliers can get very expensive.

Has anyone found a POD supplier that hits the sweet spot of good prices + fast USA/UK fulfilment for caps and bags?

Would I be best finding a UK POD for one listing and a USA one and make another listing?

Would especially love recommendations from people who have actually ordered from the supplier recently.

should i start to sell digital products?

I already sell pod products like graphic tees and sweatshirts/hoodies at my etsy shop. but i'm thinking about adding some digital products too. because i'm already a graphic designer and maybe i can get more sales rather than ai slop products on etsy. what do you think? This was my first month on etsy and i got 24 sales with tshirts. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!!🌸

https://preview.redd.it/rbvds568hbjh1.png?width=2922&format=png&auto=webp&s=2bc7f4183e3813698f69b028a896c681d91f2a79

I see a fair amount of bad advice around POD on here, so thought I’d share a few things that have worked for me. I’ve built two stores doing 7 figures a year through Shopify using POD (one shown here), but I’ve never really approached it like the classic POD model of uploading thousands of designs and trying to capture search traffic. I basically just built a clothing brand, and normally have no more than 100-120 products live at any one time.

For me, until you’re doing well over $100k a month, almost everything comes down to two things: your offer and your product.

1. Your offer

By "offer," I don’t mean discounts or some buy-2-get-3-free deal. I mean the whole reason someone would choose to buy from your brand rather than the other 500 clothing brands they’ve seen that week.

• Brand image / positioning: You need to actually look like a brand. Good photography, consistent creative, a clear customer type, a clear aesthetic, and products that all make sense together. I think a lot of people get caught up trying to optimize conversion rates or seo when the actual problem is that nobody really wants the brand. (CRO/web design is my favourite part of this entire clothing brand thing but if u get the basics right, it's not that important I cl)
• Meta ads: You have to understand paid social if you want to scale properly. Setting up Meta campaigns is incredibly easy nowadays and I mostly just run simple CBO campaigns. I’ve been testing cost caps recently as well, but honestly I think people massively overthink campaign structure when the bigger variable is just how much good creative you’re feeding the account.
• Creative volume/diversity: You need a ton, and it actually has to be different. I use a mix of Instagram creators, people who DM us, some AI, and, platforms like Trybe, where creators upload content and get a cut of the revenue they generate. Trybe and other similar apps (there are others I haven't tried, them tho) are great because they’re motivated to keep making good content rather than one shitty video.

 

2. Your product

People love to argue about which is more important: marketing or the product. Both matter, obviously. But when I first started, I massively underestimated just how much the actual product matters. I think its more important than marketing tbh.

• Your fulfilment matters way more than you think: I used to fulfil through Printify and Printful and it eventually became a pretty big problem. The product quality just wasn’t where I wanted it, my Trustpilot was horrible, Instagram comments were horrible, which deterred potential customers. If you’re trying to build a proper clothing brand, it’s difficult to charge good money for a generic Gildan or Bella+Canvas tee with a tiny print slapped on it.

• Repeat customers are becoming essential: Customer acquisition just keeps getting mroe and more expensive across basically every platform. A good returning customer rate, I think, is now almost necessary because you can’t just keep paying Meta to acquire completely new customers forever. We’re at around a 32% repeat-customer purchase rate, which I’m pretty happy with, and all of that comes down to people actually liking what arrives.

• Find a supplier that helps the brand rather than just fulfils orders: I'd steer clear of the big boys. I used them probably abt three years ago, so not sure what they are like now, but I'm seeing that after the merger, apparently Printful is now worse, and Printify has always been pretty crappy imo. Again, I haven't used them in three years so they might be better idk. 

• I currently use Airventory, which has been great. Their blanks are great, the print areas are huge, and what's especially important to me is being able to brand my stuff, so I like that they offer custom polymailers and sewn-in woven neck labels. I’ve also heard of people doing really well with good local print houses, especially because you can build a personal relationship with them and be one of 10 important customers rather than one of 100,000. There are good options out there u just need to spend time looking for them. if you have the cash please order samples, You need to know what ur sending out.

• Design testing is where POD is ridiculously powerful: You can put a design live and let the market tell you whether it’s good. If nobody buys it, you’ve lost nothing. If something takes off, you can scale it easily. I’m constantly looking at bigger brands to understand what prints are working. Don’t copy them, obviously, but don't reinvent the wheel. Just blackbird what they are doing.

I also think the whole “POD is dead” conversation is pretty stupid. POD isn’t really a business model; it’s just a way of manufacturing and fulfilling a product. Saying POD is dead is basically like saying clothing manufacturing is dead. If the product is bad and the brand is boring, POD won’t save it, but neither will ordering 5,000 units.

I personally don’t think I’ll ever fully move to bulk, even though there are definitely products where it would make sense financially. The extra margin often isn’t really there once you account for lost sales when something sells out instantly, plus the products that don’t move and end up getting cleared at 50% off. 

on top of that, you’ve got months of sampling, paying for stock upfront, storage fees, moving inventory between warehouses, and getting stuck with products that just didn’t sell. I still use bulk for things like small runs of jackets and mohair knits where on-demand obviously isn’t possible, but those are usually more useful for building the brand image than actually being the main money makers.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is just to stop thinking about POD as its own type of business. Treat it exactly like you’re building a normal clothing brand, because that’s what you’re doing. The advantage is just that you get to remove a massive amount of the inventory risk and operational headache.

Have fun with it, and know that it takes time. It took me 6 months to get my first sale and then like another 6 months after that to get my first 1k day.