Think twice before starting a print-on-demand business

In 2018 my second daughter was born and I turned from high school teacher to stay-at-home mum. I was busy and at the same time longed for a hobby that was compatible with the baby´s hours of nursing and naptime. As you can guess, I found Instagram like so many other moms before me. After a few weeks of sharing and connecting, I was contacted by a company selling birth posters. You know those kinds of offers, where you feel flattered they contacted you but you would need to pay for the product. You would get a sale code of 5% if you would post about your purchase on Instagram. I did some research about that company and learned for the first time about the so-called print-on-demand business.

Print-on-demand - what is that?

Let us break it down:

You are an artist or a small business owner and you do not want to stock a huge amount of products in your office or your home or take care of packaging and shipping of products. Yet, you want to sell for instance posters or t-shirts with your prints or phone cases showcasing your art or coffee mugs with motivational quotes. The solution to that problem is called print-on-demand.

There are two ways:

1. Print-on-demand websites that are a marketplace at the same time. Here you register and open a creator account. Then you can add your design/ print onto their products and showcase them in your account on their website. If you have your own homepage you can embed your product list on your own homepage, too. Examples are:

• Society6

• Fine Art America

• Redbubble

• Zazzle

2. Print-on-demand companies with a b2b strategy meaning they just offer their products to artists/businesses. The artist/ business can add a design or print on different kind of products and sell them in their own e-store on their own homepage only. No other marketplace is involved. Examples are:

• Printful

• Printify

How does it work?

You open an account at a print-on-demand company. From their catalogue of products, you pick what you want to sell. You upload your design, print, image or motivational quote digitally, place it on the products you chose, set a price and upload them. If you sell your products on a print-on-demand website that has its own marketplace like Redbubble or Society6 your work can be found and purchased right away. If you picked a b2b print-on-demand company like Pritnful you would need to connect the products with the e-store on your own homepage. Most homepage providers offer an easy way to start both an e-store and to connect it with print-on-demand companies.

Customers can now shop for these items. The moment they purchase a product, the print-on-demand company gets contacted automatically, prepares the order and sends it directly to the customer. You, as the artist or small business owner, have nothing to do with the production and shipping.

Sounds amazing, doesn't it? Well, it has a price but let us first look at the advantages of print-on-demand.

Advantages of print-on-demand

A big advantage of print-on-demand is that you don't have to take care of the production and shipping. No need to stock your items or to take care of packaging and finding the right shipping company. You can focus completely on creating, marketing and customer service. The print-on-demand companies offer all kind of products to customize with your design. There are canvas, framed prints, posters, postcards, t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, towels, tod bags and many more. It is almost impossible for a small business owner or artist to offer such a range all by yourself.

The print-on-demand companies with their own marketplace have the advantage that they already have customers and amazing organic reach through eg search engines. People go to these websites like Redbubble or Society6 to search for articles and you profit from this rather large market and its reach.

Disadvantages of print-on-demand

On the downside, all this convenience comes with a price tag. The print-on-demand companies want to have a piece of the cake obviously. The royalties and profit margins are different from company to company and good research on which side is giving your art the best conditions is absolutely necessary. Some companies let you set your own profit margins, others don't. My advice here, create a good old excel file and count it all the way through. How much is the price for the design, the article, the printing, the print-on-demand cost, the shipping, tax and your profit margin. Is it worth it?

Even the advantage of great reach on print-on-demand marketplaces can turn to a disadvantage. The competition is huge as many artists and small business owners compete against each other for customers. It is a lot tougher to stand out as a brand or artist because the customer is just a click away from the products of another artist or brand.

In my perspective, the biggest disadvantage is the inconsistency in the quality of the products. Print-on-demand companies and websites work with different print companies all over the world. The print quality differs a lot and it is very little you can do about the quality problem. You can always buy test prints. But if you don't like the quality then you have no possibility to change that and even if you like the quality, there is no guaranty that the next order will be produced by another print company with worse quality.

My experience

I have been using both print-on-demand companies with products just sold in my own e-store and print-on-demand websites with an extra marketplace. Was it convenient? Yes! Was it easy to set up? Yes! Was it a great start for my own e-commerce? Yes! Do I still use print-on-demand? No!

The reason is simple. I am too much an artist to oversee the problems with quality, non-existing influence over the production conditions and the anonymous way of packing and shipping. I put hours and hours into creating my images. That is love, guys. If you buy my art, you and my images don't deserve anything less than fabulous paper and ink, careful and personal packing and save shipping.

I can just guarantee all that when I work with print companies close by, where I can say hello, discuss new products and sizes with them; when I take care of the packing myself or a trusted assistant; when I can write a little thank-you card for you and send everything off with the safest shipping company I can find.

If you are a small business owner with a huge amount of sales every month, that is not possible for you to do. I understand that. Maybe in your case print-on-demand is a wonderful option.