One of my favorite mottos related to making money online is that in order to succeed, you just need to stay a single step ahead of the competition.
Printing well-researched niche designs onto quality products will 100%, absolutely make you passive income (as long as you're selling something that the market wants). It's a proven, tried & true method that's working for tons of sellers right now.
I'm a believe that if it's working for someone else, there's no reason it wont work for you.
They say imitation is the best form of flattery, and when I hear about methods people are using to better their lives through passive income streams, my ears perk up and I try to learn as much as possible, and ultimately decide if it's viable for me to pursue!
You don't always have to be the one innovating - it's OK to be late to the party! There's often still plenty of "meat left on the bone", & with eCommerce, there's still PLENTY of meat left for both you and I.
That said, fortune favors those of us thinking 3 steps down the road while other are only planning for 2 steps.
And sometimes the writing is on the wall, right in front of our faces!
Check out this email from Etsy:
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Leading up to the peak Q4 holiday sales rush, Etsy notified us that they made a new field available on product listings where, if enabled, customers could provide customization requests.
Many Etsy sellers were already offering customizations & personalizations, but this was a massive step in the right direction, as this makes it easier & less tedious to offer.
It's now March, 2019 & many sellers offering print on demand products on Etsy are still not utilizing this...
(The light bulb is signifying that I'm onto something here...)
Customers absolutely LOVE customizations AND are often willing to PAY MORE for them!
There's really no reason not to be offering customizable print on demand products on Etsy, so lets get started on how to do it!
How To Sell Personalized Print On Demand Products On Etsy
Printful is my favorite print on demand platform to use with Etsy. I do use their competitor Printify to list certain types of products, like stickers (that Printful doesn't offer yet), but I've got a good thing going with the Etsy + Printful integration that I don't want to mess up.
One of the (many) reasons I'm a huge fan of Printful is that it didn't take them long to support the new Etsy personalization feature within your Printful dashboard!
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VOILA! Just like that we were set & ready to go with streamlining our ability to offer & fulfill customizable orders.
Here's how it works:
- Log into Printful, go to your Etsy store (within Printful's UI), click Orders on the nav & make sure "Import personalized orders as drafts" is checked
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- Log into Manage your Etsy Shop Manager & Manage your product listing. Scroll down to "Personalization" & Set to "On"
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- You can (& should) also instruct the customer what information to provide. I'd also recommend setting an appropriate character limit... I typically use 60 characters
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- After updating, the personalization box should be visible on your product listing
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- Head back to your Printful orders dashboard, find & edit the Personalized order. It should stand out, look for Needs Approval with a blue "P"
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- Edit the print file to add your customization (hover over the design & click "Edit")
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- Use the text tool to type the personalization in manually. You can configure the font family, size, & positioning in the Printful UI
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That's it! Once you've added the customization(s), you can proceed as normal and update the order.
There's no additional cost associated with customizing your Printful products, but as I mentioned earlier, customers are often willing to pay more for it!
As such, it's not a bad idea to indicate somewhere on ALL of your listings that you offer designs on additional products & that customizations are available.
Stay 1 step ahead of the competition!
Don't Sell Personalized Embroidered Designs
This is a quick reminder that while using the Printful + Etsy to sell personalized products is quick, easy, & a great way to stand out amongst other print on demand sellers, it doesn't work for embroidery!
Well, technically it does "work"... but don't overlook the one-time digitization fee associated with embroidered designs.
They used to charge $8.95 but recently reduced it to $6.50.
That said, you'll definitely want to pass that cost along to your customer or price it in if you choose to sell personalized embroidered products. I personally will opt to stay away.
My approach for selling embroidered designs is to offer them on multiple products in hopes that the first sale will cover the digitization costs & render me a few bucks of profit, & after that I reap the benefit of having a digitized file & higher margins on future sales.
