Dropshipped Print on demand combines two money making methods: dropshipping & print on demand, creating a scalable passive income stream that individuals can easily take advantage of.
In short, with this approach we want to take up as much "internet real estate" as possible, meaning if we create a single digital design, we want to post it to as many products on as many online marketplaces as possible.
Following a sale we have automated systems in place that download the orders, fulfill them, and ship the goods out to the customers.
The workflow looks something like this:
- Upload your designs to products & list them on the marketplaces
- Following a sale, the order is automatically downloaded to the third party fulfillment platform via API
- The product is produced & shipped to your customer by the third party company (you are billed for materials + shipping)
- You are paid by the online marketplace where the sale took place
What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping refers to making sales without holding inventory.
Early on during the dawn of the internet era, popular marketplaces like ebay took off, where people could list household items for sale. Following a sale, they would take the item to the post office and pay to ship it to their customer.
Today that workflow has evolved in a way that allows sellers to make more sales in a scalable fashion, by outsourcing storing, picking, packing, and shipping inventory.
When we outsource these things to a third party company, we are "dropshipping".
What is Print on Demand?
Print on demand refers to selling products that don't exist yet.
The raw material that the digital artwork will be printed on is kept in stock, such as the blank t-shirts or coffee mugs.
Following each sale, the (blank) ordered product is picked & has the design printed or embroidered onto it. It's then shipped to the customer, and tracking information is updated on the order automatically via API.
Popular Print on Demand Platforms
There are more and more dropship printing companies popping up online, but not all are created equal. Lets take a look at some pros & cons of our options.
💰 Monthly Cost: 100% FREE
Amazon Merch, or just "Merch" for short is an incredible opportunity for a number of reasons:
- Merch listings Prime eligible, drastically increasing the potential customer base.
- It's 100% FREE. Unlike almost ever competitor out there, Amazon Merch will deduct product costs from the order fee and pay the seller a royalty. You never have to provide them a credit card.
- Ease of use: Most competitor platforms require API integrations with the various marketplaces, whereas Merch lets you list directly to Amazon's massive catalog (without opening a Seller Central account).
- The massive user base: Tens of thousands of people upload to Merch, which in turn means there are tons of helpful communities & resources available to learn from.
- Two negatives about Merch: #1 Amazon provides little to no support at all to Merch sellers #2 The automated system in place to prevent infringement is very rudimentary and not documented well at all.
💰 Monthly Cost: Free
(Your credit card is billed on a per-order basis to cover the cost of the product, shipping, & there is a 1-time file digitzation fee for embroidery)
Printful is an incredibly well thought out and well put together fulfillment partner. The name "Printful" comes from "Print" (Print product) & "Ful" (Fulfillment service). They've invested over $13 million dollars into their printing equipment & infrastructure, have over 500+ staff working between their USA & Europe locations, and have fulfilled over 4.5 million orders.
Here are some of the reasons I would recommend using Printful for your fulfillment needs:
- Easy to use UI: Printful's user interface is beautiful, intuitive, and easy to use. They make it easy to search for, change, and cancel orders as well.
- Product selection! Printful offers a wider range of product selection than any of their competitors that I've seen
- Easy + FREE integrations: Printful very easily integrates with many of the most popular e-commerce platforms, at no cost. I use it for Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Etsy, & Shopify, but it integrates with even more!
- Custom branding: You can easily include your own custom branding on each order, or leave them as white label
- Support: Printful support is helpful and responds typically within 24-48 hours.
- It's international: Not only do I use Printful to sell dropshipped print on demand items in the US, but I also use it to offer a wide array of products on Amazon.co.uk
- QUALITY! If I had to rank Printful against competitors (including Amazon Merch), I would rate the quality of their printing, embroidery, and products as top notch. Returns are a pain in the ass - don't overlook the importance of quality products.
- Test Orders: As a seller, Printful allows you to place up to 3 orders per month of up to 4 products per order at a 20% discount with free shipping.
- Two negatives about Printful: #1 Having the ability to do seller-fulfilled Prime would be great (or the ability to send items in for FBA). #2 The product costs are higher than most competitors.
💰 Monthly Cost: $27-$97/mo
Fee applies per platform integration (If you negotiate with them, you may be able to get lifetime integrations for a one-time fee)
Gearbubble is very similar to the aforementioned Printful, except that they charge a recurring monthly fee for each API integration to the Amazon, ebay, and Etsy.
- Low Prices: 11oz white mugs cost only $4.95, t-shirts have a $6 base cost, and shot glasses cost $2.95.
- Quality: I prefer the lowest-priced Printful t-shirts ($8.95) to the Gearbubble shirts, but outside of shirts the GearBubble mugs & shot glasses are great.
- User Interface: The Gearbubble UI is OK at best & definitely in need of some love from a front-end web developer (call me!). They require that you email their seller support to change or cancel orders.
- FBA POD Items: Gearbubble allows seller to purchase items for FBA at a discounted rate. For instance, if you buy a single mug it will cost you $4.95, but if you buy a case of mugs for FBA, the price is cut to $3.95 per mug. You pay them for the case of mugs and buy the shipping from Amazon, and they will ship them to FBA on your behalf.
- Necklaces & Bracelets: The most successful Gearbubble sellers to my knowledge sell jewelry. Gearbubble offers various necklaces and bracelets that can be laser engraved, and (apparently) sell extremely well (I don't sell them, but I should probably be focused more on them).
- Support: Gearbubble support is very help, kind, and easy to work with.
- Three negatives about Gearbubble: #1 The high monthly fees #2 Cancelling orders is a pain becuase you have to email their support team #3 Production times appear to me to be much longer than their competitors, often taking 7 days to send the product out to the customer.
💰 Monthly Cost: 100% FREE
Redbubble is another print on demand platform that can hold its own with the best of them, namely because it's 100% & it lists products on its own marketplace that is integrated with Google Shopping. Here are my thoughts on Redbubble:
- Google Shopping: Listing a product on Redbubble means that your product will show up for sale on Google Shopping. Given that Google is the most trafficked website in the world, this is a great way of getting organic traffic.
- Easy to use UI The Redbubble user interface is clean, intuitive, and easy to use. It's more tedious than Printful, Merch, & Gearbubble if you just want to upload a t-shirt design, but if you want to place your design on multiple products, they make it very easy to do all at once.
- Integration: One downside is that Redbubble doesn't integrate with other online marketplaces, so you are essentially uploading your designs to products that will only sell through their marketplace. Sometimes I manually cross-list products such as popular stickers onto other marketplaces, but I'm forced to manually create the order to the customer in an online arbitrage fashion when they sell.
- Pricing: I don't know if this is more positive or negative, but you can't control your profit margins on a per-design basis. Rather, you control your margins on a per-product basis and you do so by entering a % markup that will instantaneously be applied to all of your product listings (making it hard to target price points like $19.99).
- Three negatives about Redbubble: #1 Inability to control product costs on a per-product basis (& cost control lacks flexibility) #2 Lack of integrations with other marketplaces #3 People steal each other's work from Redbubble all the time
Print on Demand Products
Different platforms offer a multitude of different print on demand products, sometimes even offering different brands of the same product to choose from.
The most commonly sold print on demand are t-shirts and coffee mugs. What sets most dropship printing companies apart are the additional products in their catalog.
Here is a non-definitive look into products offered by each other four dropshipped POD platforms that I use:
- T-Shirts (Standard, Premium, Long Sleeve Options, Sweatshirts, Hoodies)
- PopSockets
- T-Shirts (Many brands, Tank Tops, Long Sleeve, 3/4 Sleeve, Sweatshirts, Hoodies)
- Pants (Leggings, Skirts, Dresses, Sports Bras)
- Hats (Trucker, Snapbacks, Dad, Mesh, Beanies, Bucket, Visors)
- Swimwear
- Accessories (Bags, Backpacks, Socks)
- Home & Living (Coffee Mugs, Aprons, Pillow, Wall Art, Beach Towels, Phone Cases)
- T-Shirts (Many brands, Tank Tops, Long Sleeve, 3/4 Sleeve, Sweatshirts, Hoodies)
- Jewelry (Necklaces, Bracelets)
- Hats (Flat Bill, Beanies) * manual approval is required to sell hats, which is not easy to get...
- Mugs (11oz, 15oz, Color Changing, Travel, Shot Glasses)
- Pants (Leggings)
- Home & Living (Wall Art, Pillow Cases, Phone Cases)
- T-Shirts (Many brands, Tank Tops, Long Sleeve, 3/4 Sleeve, Sweatshirts, Hoodies)
- Pants (Leggings, Skirts, Dresses)
- Mugs (11oz, 15oz, Color Changing, Travel, Shot Glasses)
- Accessories (Stickers, Bags, Backpacks, Socks, Notebooks, Clocks, Art Boards, Acylic Blocks)
- Home & Living (Coffee Mugs, Aprons, Pillow, Wall Art, Beach Towels, Phone Cases, Duvets, Scarves, Tapestries)
