Sourcing Suppliers Archives - A Better Lemonade Stand

13 Best Print On Demand Companies for Your Online Store in 2022

A Better Lemonade Stand — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 16:00:11 +0000

Print on demand companies can do more than just sell you a custom t-shirt that you can sell on your online store. These days, print on demand services offer unique products, such as jewelry, makeup, leggings, notebooks, and so much more. If you’re looking to sell custom products that are still dropshipped from a print on demand company, then you’ve come to the right place. While you’ll still need some design chops to create a custom product, you can get on your way towards building a unique brand that stands out from the competition using the 13 best print on demand companies of 2022 we’ve compiled in this list. So, let’s compare these POD companies and start designing some custom products!

13 Best Print On Demand Companies in 2022

1. Printful

Print-on-demand companies like Printful offer a wide-range of items that you can add your design to. While most print-on-demand companies likely have t-shirts, Printful also has other items that are harder to find on other platforms. For example, skirts, dresses, bean bags, jewelry, fabrics, pet products, and more can all be designed using Printful’s services.

When it comes to labeling, your products can come in custom packaging. You could also add your logo to the inside of clothing to ensure that people wear your label.

Printful has integrations with some of the most popular ecommerce platforms from Shopify to BigCommerce to Wix, allowing you to add Printful to your website’s backend. You’ll be able to easily add products to your store in only a few clicks after the design has been completed. Printful also integrates with sales channels like Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, and more in case you want to sell on other social platforms.

One of the best features of Printful is that there are extra services you can also add on. For example, if you want custom photography for your website, Printful is able to take professional lifestyle or studio photos for you that you can use for social media, your website, or other marketing purposes. Not only that, but you can even use their video services to make custom videos for you.

Check out our Printful review for more information about this print-on-demand company.

2. Gooten

Print-on-demand companies, such as Gooten make it easy for you to create custom merch, personalized products, and to stock your online store with unique products. So whether you’re an on the rise influencer or an up and coming entrepreneur, you can use Gooten as your print-on-demand company.

Gooten boasts over 150 trending products that you can add your design to. When it comes to unique items you could sell, Gooten allows you to add custom designs to puzzles, kitchen accessories like tablecloths and tea towels, wall calendars, stickers, magic mugs, and so much more.

Gooten integrates with ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce, Etsy, WooCommerce, and Shopify. Though its preferred platform is Bigcommerce.

You can also use Gooten as a learning hub, and learn from their webinars, blog posts, ebooks, and other content on how to succeed in e-commerce.

3. Printify

Print on demand companies like Printify have countless products ready to ship with a custom design you made from Creative Market or Photoshop. Printify, specifically, has a collection of over 500 print-on-demand products.

You’ll find unique products, such as car seat covers, teddy bears, airpod cases, shower curtains, handbags, lamps, suitcases, and hundreds of other products. You can add any design on these items to make them a one-of-a-kind piece your customers want to buy.

You can use a mockup generator on Printify to see how the design looks on the product. Doing this will help you understand if you need to alter or make changes to your website in any way.

Printify integrates with eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and many other platforms to make designing and selling your products easier. Large enterprises also benefit from having branded customer support when using Printify so you can outsource customer support to the manufacturer who has better insight into issues.

4. Custom Cat

Custom Cat is a print-on-demand company you can use to design your own products. While most of their items are in the apparel space, they also offer housewares and accessories. Items like pillows, drinkware, blankets, towels, bags, and flip flops are among some of their unique POD products they offer.

Custom Cat integrates with traditional ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.

When you create products, you can choose to order a sample of every item you create. You can then use the sample to create unique photos and videos with them for your online store and social media.

You can sell your products internationally to over 30 countries, and many of them include full tracking.

One of the benefits of Custom Cat is that fulfillment typically takes about a day and a half so that products could get to your customer much quicker.

5. TeeLaunch

Print-on-demand companies like TeeLaunch surprisingly offer much more than t-shirts despite the name. While you’ll still find plenty of t-shirts, tank tops, and other apparel on this platform. Their whole collection of products boasts some gems that could be great additions for your online store. You can offer print-on-demand balloons, car chargers, mats, cutting boards, plates and bowls, backpacks, headphones, die-cut metal signs, wall tapestries, and more. With over 300 products, you’ll likely find a few great items to add to your Shopify store.

This print-on-demand company integrates with Shopify and Etsy.

6. Redbubble

Redbubble isn’t a traditional print-on-demand company. Instead of owning your own website, you can sell your unique products on Redbubble’s website. One of the benefits of doing this is that you don’t need to pay for hosting or marketing. Redbubble will market your products for you. However, you’ll need to create a design that stands out on the marketplace so that people will want to snatch up your products because it can be more competitive.

You can design dresses, leggings, kid’s clothing, scarves, tech accessories, stationery, and so much more. Their product collection includes over 70 different items.

Once you upload your design, you can optimize your title to maximize views by optimizing it for search engines. You can then benefit from Redbubble’s existing audience to draw visitors to their site, when someone buys your product, they’ll ship it to them themselves. And finally, you get paid. As your products grow in popularity, you can have items featured under Gifts or your own artist page.

7. Society6

Similar to Redbubble, Society6 allows artists to sell unique products that they sell to customers. You won’t need to create your own online store, your audience will be Society6’s website visitors. While the platform specializes in wall art, they’ve expanded their product line beyond that to include furniture, comforters, office supplies, sunglasses, and more.

Your designs can get more visibility if your work gets included in a featured collection, such as “yoga and mindfulness” or “Black History Month.” You can also rise to the top by becoming a featured artist by becoming a best-seller, ending up on a curated list, and so on. New artists also get featured so you can get an early boost when you sign up.

8. Cafe Press

Print-on-demand companies like CafePress allow you to sell on their platform. All you need to do is design your product, they’ll market it for you, and you earn money. Your designs will need to be original as they do monitor for infringement, though.

Cafe Press’ website is divided into multiple categories that allow you to help increase your visibility in their searches. People can search by product, interests, pop culture shows like Star Trek and Peanuts, who the recipient is such as gifts for mom, and by occasion.

There are dozens of products you can add your design to, such as clothing, accessories, stationery, phone cases, stickers, home decor, drinkware, and much more.

9. Zazzle

Zazzle is another print-on-demand company that allows you to sell to their website visitors. They have an extensive collection of products you can add your designs to. For example, you can sell wedding invitations, party supplies, business supplies such as posters or promotional supplies, phone grips, flash drives, baby blankets, and seasonal gifts.

Zazzle has collections for gift guides, trending products, and much more that you can optimize your designs for.

If you’re a designer in the wedding or business niches, Zazzle could be a good option for you as that’s their area of speciality. Wedding, bridal and baby shower invitations tend to be one of the most popular items you could sell on the platform. Though, their product collections are quite extensive if you plan on expanding into other verticals.

10. Sellfy

If you’re looking for print-on-demand companies that allow you to have your own website, look no further than Sellfy. Using this print-on-demand company, you can sell products ranging from physical to digital goods all from one convenient website. You could charge monthly subscriptions and allow customers to stream videos without worrying about piracy.

Sellfy integrates with YouTube, Wix, WordPress, Facebook, and more. You can sell products on any platform using a link or Buy Button.

Their product collection includes t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and hats.

11. Spreadshirt

Independent designers looking for a print-on-demand company that acts as a marketplace can turn to Spreadshirt. You can add your design to products, such as clothing, accessories, stuffed animals, embroidered items, phone cases, mouse pads, and much more.

The website is categorized into collections, such as birthday gfits, baby gifts, graduation, wedding, and much more. Optimizing your designs for popular collections can help you get the most visibility for your products. By producing many items for a single collection, your likelihood of finding success increases.

If you’re not design savvy but are looking to create products that you can sell on your business, you can even invest in the design services that Spreadshirt offers. This will likely work well if you’re looking to create business swag or for personal use, though.

12. Teehatch

Teehatch is a Canadian print-on-demand company for those looking for a cheaper alternative instead of paying in USD. Their product collection includes trending products, such as face masks, t-shirts, polos, long-sleeved shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, pullovers, sweatpants, jackets, and tank tops. They also sell hats, tote bags, and aprons.

They’ll ship the products out to your customers for you. That means, all you need to do is design and market your products to generate sales for your online store and business. Right now, the tool only integrates with Shopify.

13. Printeez

Print-on-demand companies like Printeez offer a wide-collection of products that you can add your custom designs to. Popular products include t-shirts, leggings, jackets, tote bags, caps, and beanies among others. You can choose between screen, embroidery, and digital printing for your products.

Unlike other print-on-demand companies, Printeez offers add-ons, such as hang tags, hem tags, or sizing stickers in case you’re planning on selling these items in a retail store. You could also add inside tags for clothing. Folding and bagging services are also available for an additional fee.

Like other print-on-demand companies, fulfillment is available so Printeez will ship your items directly to your customers, retail store, or to your business. So as long as you’ve got the design covered and can handle marketing and customer support, Printeez will cover the manufacturing and fulfillment of your business.

Conclusion

After comparing the best print-on-demand companies, you might notice that many offer unique products you can’t find anywhere else. You could use a combination of different services as most POD companies don’t charge monthly subscriptions. Using their individual product fees, you can add unique products from multiple sites to create a comprehensive collection of products. You could build an everything store with unique designs no one can find anywhere else. So, which print-on-demand companies are you excited to work with this year? Let us know in the comments!

The post 13 Best Print On Demand Companies for Your Online Store in 2022 appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

85 Easy to Sell Print-on-Demand Product Ideas in 2022

A Better Lemonade Stand — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:00:18 +0000

For most new entrepreneurs, one of the easiest and fastest ways to start their first online business is to source print-on-demand products. “Print-on-demand” is a term that refers to the exact process of sourcing an ecommerce product to sell. Print-on-demand products are typically blank products that are created with the sole intention of having a custom design printed on them. In this article, we’ve rounded up 85 print-on-demand product ideas that exist on the market right now, so entrepreneurs can stock their stores with them.

How Does Print-on-Demand Work?

A print on demand company supplies the products, and they’re usually completely blank products that have no identifying markings on them that merchants or customers can print their own designs on. For merchants, this means they can create their own unique products on what would otherwise be a blank product, and for customers, it means they can create custom one-off items they might not be able to find in a store.

How to Start a Print-on-Demand Business

To start a print-on-demand business, you don’t need very much experience and you don’t need a lot of resources. You can use an ecommerce platform like Shopify to host your website which helps you get your website set up quickly and easily, and then you need to find a print-on-demand product supplier to source products. We’ll list print-on-demand product suppliers throughout this article for each specific product, but some of the main print-on-demand product suppliers include:

One of the main advantages of using Shopify to set up your print-on-demand store is that these print on demand services are all found in the Shopify App Store. You’ll be able to add a print provider to your website in a click of a button, allowing you to automatically import your newly design custom products on your own online store. Some of the top recommended print-on-demand suppliers in the Shopify App Store include:

Note: For more great dropshipping apps on the Shopify App Store that don’t necessarily fit into the print-on-demand category, check out our list of the best Shopify dropshipping apps.

Print-on-Demand Apparel Products

T-SHIRTS

This is one of the most well-known print-on-demand products to sell, and is likely one of the first types of print-on-demand products that was ever sold! In fact, we started our very own ecommerce store in 24 hours by selling print-on-demand t-shirts, and we documented the entire process in our How to Start a T-Shirt Business in 24 Hours with $24 and How You Can Too article. You too can sell t-shirts using the print on demand services below.

LEGGINGS

Activewear apparel has become a trending product in recent years, and the demand for it continues to grow. One of the top popular products in the activewear market are leggings, and with print-on-demand suppliers, you can stock your own custom all over print leggings in your online store.

TANK TOPS

Similar to t-shirts, tank tops are another good print-on-demand product idea. If you’re already selling t-shirts in your ecommerce store, consider stocking tank tops as well with the same designs! This will give your customers more choice and since you don’t have to purchase any additional inventory upfront from your print provider, it will be at no extra cost to you.

BASEBALL (RAGLAN) TEES

Baseball tees, otherwise known as raglan tees, are another popular variation of the more traditional t-shirt design. With their distinctive sleeve design that’s typically three-quarter length and a contrasting color to the main body of the top, it gives a casual and sporty look to the garment which could be desirable for some brands using a print on demand service.

LONG-SLEEVED SHIRTS

Keep it simple and add long-sleeved shirts to your ecommerce store! Long-sleeved shirts are a classic and a staple in many people’s wardrobe, and a product that can easily be revamped with a fun, clever and custom design and sold on your own website.

POLO SHIRTS

If you’re interested in selling digital printing t-shirts online but feel that the niche might be oversaturated, polo shirts might be a better option for you. They’re slightly more niche than just plain t-shirts and polo shirts with custom designs are more difficult to locate in traditional retail stores.

HOODIES & SWEATSHIRTS

For the ultimate casual comfort, consider stocking hoodies or sweaters on your online store! They’re also a great addition to your store if you’re selling similar products like t-shirts and tank tops as they give your customers more options to choose from.

SKIRTS

This is one of the less saturated options when it comes to products that are available on the market, and it’s definitely one worth exploring if you want to offer something different or if you want to round out your store’s apparel offering and sell for a good retail price.

DRESSES

Dresses are a versatile product which can be made into unique items with interesting custom designs. Try adding them to your product offering along with skirts to expand your options so customers can have more choice. Selling both can help customers save on shipping costs when they order multiple items from your online store.

SWIMWEAR

A popular product to sell with an all over print is swimwear. To create a comprehensive online store centered around swimwear and other related products, add custom beach towels and hats to round out your product offering.

ACTIVEWEAR

If you’re starting a fitness apparel online store, you can sell various activewear items. From sports bras to leggings to tank tops and more. You’ll find print on demand services have various activewear items that you can design custom products for your own store.

BODYSUITS

Bodysuits are a popular product primarily in the women’s apparel niche, as they’re something that can be worn in both casual or formal contexts and they can be as subdued or loud as the wearer prefers. There’s lots of versatility in this apparel item, so if you’re looking for a simple core product you can jazz up with custom designs, this could be a good option for you.

Printful Bodysuits

KIDS’ CLOTHING

Creating custom products isn’t just for adults, kids’ clothing is an existing business audience you can start selling products for. When it comes to kids’ clothing, the designs can often be more colorful, loud, bright and bold, so there’s lots of room to be creative when designing print-on-demand kids’ clothing.

BABY CLOTHING

Not only is there a huge market for kids’ clothing, but there is for baby clothing items as well. In this category of print-on-demand products, consider the entire spectrum of baby clothes and accessories: Bibs, beanies, onesies, tops, blankets and more. Many print on demand sites offer baby clothing allowing you to design white label products for babies. Parents can save on shipping costs when they buy multiple items from your company.

Print-on-Demand Accessories

HATS

Although it’s a hugely saturated market, there’s still demand for hats and they never seem to go out of style. Whether it’s baseball hats, trucker hats, dad hats or something in between, hats are a popular accessory that can easily be spruced up with creative printed designs. You can also sell toques, beanies, bucket hats, and visors, giving you the flexibility to sell multiple hat styles from various print on demand sites.

PHONE CASES

Phone cases are a top-selling item, and also a product that’s been trending in recent years. Since people tend to upgrade their smartphone every year or two, it often means that these same customers upgrade their phone cases as well, meaning demand isn’t slowing down any time soon. Learn how to start your own phone case business. As phone models change, the styles available by print on demand services also adapt so you can always sell the most popular cases.

TOTE BAGS

A highly customizable product, these bags are a blank canvas in the accessories world. With essentially a blank slate to work with, create any design you’d like: Use images, patterns, designs, words, typography, etc. They’re also a product that’s gaining momentum in a growing market as consumers become more conscious of their environmental impact and switch from plastic shopping bags to reusable ones.

DRAWSTRING BAGS

Drawstring bags are another great reusable bag option for order fulfillment. If you’re considering stocking other bags in your ecommerce store, consider also stocking drawstring bags so your customers have more product choices to choose from.

BACKPACKS

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, but you can redecorate it! Backpacks have stood the test of time and there’s very stable market demand for them, so if you’re looking for a really solid product idea you know will sell but you still want to inject your brand’s personality into in some way, then sell custom products like backpacks.

SOCKS

Another product that has stood the test of time (no pun intended) are socks. You should start selling custom products like socks as they are a main piece of nearly every person’s day-to-day wardrobe. They’re also a product that fosters so much potential when it comes to creativity and design, plus they’re an easy product for customers to switch up in their wardrobe. You’ll find many print on demand companies who give you the option to do an all over print so you can sell socks people love.

TRAVEL BAGS & WEEKEND BAGS

Travel is a big part of many consumers’ lives, so you should sell products like travel bags. This is a great product idea to sell online in the travel niche using a print on demand company.

COSMETICS BAGS

Print on demand companies sell a lot of fun products like this cosmetic bag. They’re also practical products used by consumers for both travel and storage so they have many different potential uses for which the designs can cater towards. You can set your own prices by selling high quality products like this with a unique design. The fulfillment process from the various print on demand companies makes running an ecommerce business in the beauty space so much easier.

SCARVES

Print on demand companies are starting to diversify their product collections to include items like scarves. Currently, two print on demand services sell this popular winter item, which makes a good addition for a clothing, accessories, or scarves ecommerce business. Your existing website can include these direct to garment printing products.

MAKEUP

There is currently a print-on-demand company that allows you to sell private label makeup. You could add your logo to makeup so that your brand receives recognition as the creator. For those looking to sell lipsticks, skincare products, brow kits, bronzer, mascara, and more will be able to sell makeup in 2022.

Blanka Makeup

BANDANAS

This a product that can round out any accessories store as bandanas have been rising back onto the fashion scene as of late. If you’re including bandanas in your ecommerce store, consider the types of designs you’ll get printed onto them to make them appealing to your target market. The print quality on fabrics is typically high quality, making the final product a great addition for your product line.

Gooten Bandanas

SHOES

Print-on-demand companies also sell a range of footware that you can add custom designs too all over. Whether you create a shoe store or a fashion store that includes shoes is your choice, but either option could work successfully.

NECKTIES

Print-on-demand services are starting to sell POD neckties to potential customers like you. If you’re interested in customizable products like neckties, get ready to have lots of fun designing the prints that will be printed onto them.

Gooten Neckties

BELT

Print-on-demand companies allow you to sell belts with a unique all over design on them. You could create belts in solid colors that aren’t typically found in stores, or you could add a unique design to them to stand out from the competition.

Printify Belt

COMPACT MIRRORS

Most merchants probably don’t think about compact mirrors when they think about POD products to sell online, so if you’re looking for a less conventional product idea, this could be a good option. Consider also adding this as a product to your store if you’re selling cosmetics bags like we mentioned above.

Gooten Compact Mirrors

LUGGAGE AND ACCESSORIES

Another accessory that fulfills the needs of the travel niche, suitcases and luggage tags can be a useful addition to travel-inspired stores. Pair this type of product with travel bag products for a well-rounded ecommerce store using a print-on-demand service like Printify or Gooten.

JEWELRY AND ACCESSORIES

The best print-on-demand product is one that caters to a big market. Jewelry is a popular niche you can sell in. The print quality is high with this product and the order fulfillment process is quick. Since the product is small you’ll also benefit from cost effective shipping.

YOGA MATS

As an accessory for athletic consumers whether they’re working out at home, in the gym or in studios, yoga mats are a versatile product that have lots of room for creative designs to suit whatever their main target market is.

PUZZLES

A less-conventional POD product, but one that you as a merchant can have a lot of fun with, puzzles are a tried-and-tested product there’s steady demand for. If you chose to pursue this product idea, think about the type of niche you’ll target with the designs to separate yourself from competitors.

PIN-BACK BUTTONS

Pin-back buttons are a rising trend in recent years, especially within the music scene and for consumers interested in participating in social or environmental campaigns.

Gooten Pin-Back Buttons

Print-on-Demand Homewares

DINNERWARE

Plates and bowls can be manufactured by print on demand companies like TeeLaunch. You could design elegant patterns, holiday designs, and more for people looking to find dinnerware sets.

CANDLE

You can also find candles with printing options. They can come in a range of scents making the product quality high. You can add your own branding using POD companies like Printify. These customized products can be sold on ecommerce platforms like Shopify.

APRONS

Another practical item that can be used by so many different types of consumers, this type of product can be a great addition to homeware stores or stores selling kitchen-related items. This is another product where the design printed on it is what makes it unique, so take thoughtful consideration into the niche market you want to appeal to if you choose to supply print-on-demand aprons.

COFFEE MUGS

An essential product in most household, coffee cups are one of those items that never falls out of style. With steady demand for this product you can be sure that it’s something your target market will likely have a use for, and it’s something you can make unique to your store with custom designs, patterns or slogans printed on it.

THROW PILLOWS

A popular home-decor item, throw pillows are typically interchanged and updated throughout the seasons so they can be a lucrative product to sell. They’re very versatile in terms of what designs and slogans can be printed on them, so it’s possible to create an entire brand around them.

PILLOWCASES

Similar to throw pillows, pillowcases are an additional option to stock in homeward-related ecommerce stores. With pillowcases, customers can switch up designs and patterns more easily on their throw pillows which can make them more versatile throughout the year.

MAGNETS

You can also sell magnets. Custom products like magnet invitations for weddings or ones with business logos can help you sell more magnets. You could also sell magnets with popular designs on them.

WALL ART

If you’re an artist or creator interested in selling your own work, this is a great type of product to pursue. Bring your creations to life and sell them to your customers so they can display them in their homes

POSTERS

Similar to print-on-demand wall art, posters are virtually the same thing except they’re printed on poster paper rather than more high-quality printing paper. This means that posters are generally a less expensive option, which could be more ideal for your store depending on your target audience and the types of designs you sell.

BEACH TOWELS

This is another less common print-on-demand product idea that there’s lots of consumer demand for. It’s also a product you as a merchant could have lots of fun designing as there’s plenty of room for creative approaches depending on the niche market you serve.

CANVAS PRINTS

For a more professional and polished look, consider selling canvas prints of your artwork or designs. Canvas prints are more robust and hearty than wall art or poster prints, as they resemble more of a real painting effect. If you want to provide a more luxury print-on-demand product, consider stocking canvas prints in your ecommerce store.

BLANKETS

With so many different avenues to pursue when it comes to print-on-demand blankets, the possibilities are endless and this type of product could cater to so many different niches. Create baby blankets, blankets for movie-buffs, print your own artwork on blankets, etc. The only limit is your imagination.

LAUNDRY BAGS

Reusable bags are trending right now, and it doesn’t just stop with shopping bags. Reusable laundry bags are another environmentally friendly option and a desirable addition to sell alongside clothing or accessory products.

PLACEMATS

Dine in style with custom-printed placemats! This is another type of product you have free reign when it comes to the types of images, designs, patterns or slogans you print on it and one that makes a welcome addition to homeware-focused stores.

Gooten Placemats

TABLECLOTHS

Create beautiful and unique tablecloths for your ecommerce store, no matter what your niche audience is. With essentially a blank canvas to work with, there’s lots of room to create a great product whether you print your own designs, artwork or slogans onto it.

Gooten Tablecloths

TABLE RUNNERS

Dress up any table quickly and simply with a unique table runner! These types of products are meant to be the focal point of a table so they can be completely unique and custom. You have plenty of space to add images and designs to so let your imagination run wild.

Gooten Print-on-Demand Table Runners

CUTTING BOARDS

This is the type of product you can have a lot of fun bringing to life as a print-on-demand product as cutting boards are typically sold in very generic and simple colors. If you want to offer something different, consider creating cutting boards your customers have never seen before by getting images, photos, patterns, or slogans printed onto them.

KOOZIES

Bring your own brand of drink koozies to your store with these print-on-demand options! These are a well-loved item you can stock as a quick add-to-cart product or upsell to suggest to customers at checkout. If you sell beverage products on your ecommerce store too, these could be a relevant bonus product to encourage customers to purchase as well.

Gooten Koozies

BOTTLE OPENERS

Another quick add-to-cart product are bottle openers, especially if you’re selling kitchen items or beverage-related products. These are also easy products that you can add to your site and although they’re small, so there’s not much room to print on them, if you make use of the space efficiently you can come up with some clever designs.

Gooten Bottle Openers

LUNCH BOXES

A print-on-demand service can allow you to design lunch boxes for people who work in an office. The lunch box will help keep their food warm or cool and separated from other things in their bags. Currently, the only print-on-demand company to offer lunch boxes is Printify.

CLOTH NAPKINS

Add cloth napkins as a final addition to your print-on-demand product offering to round out your ecommerce store. Consider printing the designs, artwork or slogans you print on your other products onto this product as well so you can create matching sets or give your customers more choice.

Gooten Cloth Napkins

ICE BUCKET

Print-on-demand companies have started selling ice buckets. You could add summer designs, your brand’s logo, or reach out to licensed brands for permission, such as sports teams, Disney, or other big brands, to add their designs on your ice bucket.

Printify Ice Bucket With Tongs

OVEN MITT

Print-on-demand companies like Printify also allow you to sell kitchenware like oven mitts. You could add unique colors, holiday designs, or cool patterns to sell unique oven mitts people will love.

Teelaunch Oven Mitt

ACRYLIC TRAYS

These products are convenient for using as a catchall tray in entrances for keys or on tables for trinkets, and they’re also used as a decorative item, especially if they’re printed with an eye-catching design or an interesting slogan. Add them to your store to provide customers with a unique homeware item they might otherwise think to purchase.

Gooten Acrylic Trays

TEA TOWELS

These are perhaps one of the most widely-used homeware items in every kitchen and they’re certainly something you have lots of space to print your own designs or images onto. Print your own artwork, sketches or creations onto tea towels for a unique upgrade on conventional tea towels, or bring the tea towel of your dreams to life with whatever pattern or design you’d like to see printed onto a tea towel.

SHOWER CURTAINS

There’s certainly a lot of room for unique shower curtains on the market, so if you’re stocking any other homeware items from this list onto your store, consider offering your same designs onto shower curtains as well. There’s steady demand for this type of product, so you don’t have to worry about a lack of market demand.

BATH MATS

Another homeware staple, bath mats are an essential item in every bathroom. If you’re rounding out your bathroom-focused ecommerce store, a bath mat is a perfect product to add to your inventory. When creating designs for this type of product, remember that bath mats are generally made out a fuzzy, carpet-like material which means that small details won’t show up well. Go for more bold designs or slogans and contrasting colors so it’s clear what the bath mat is depicting.

BATH TOWELS

An essential product in every household, bath towels are a product that have stood the test of time. This product can be made to appeal to so many different types of niches so there’s no limits with what can be printed on the bath towel of your brand’s dream.

OTTOMANS

This is one of the biggest print-on-demand products you’ll find on this list, which, if you’re well versed in shipping ecommerce products you’ll know that shipping large products like ottomans can be quite costly. With this information in mind, be aware that if you choose to sell ottomans on your ecommerce store, you’ll have to price your products carefully so that they cover the cost of shipping as well as the other costs required to print and pack the product. This is just something to be aware of, and your print-on-demand supplier will likely be able to help you price the product so that you can cover all manufacturing costs plus make a profit on the item.

Gooten Ottomans

RUGS

One of the slightly more unusual print-on-demand products, rugs aren’t your run-of-the-mill customizable items. Take this opportunity to add a great product to your inventory that your customers wouldn’t normally expect to see.

Gooten Rugs

TAPESTRIES

Not only can artwork be printed on posters or canvases, consider printing it on tapestries, too. They make stunning wall hangings and they’re often easier and less expensive to ship than artwork printed on canvases, which means your profit margins will be more generous.

COASTERS

A classic product and one that has served its purpose throughout the ages, coasters are the kind of item that can be printed with anything on them. No matter what niche you’re serving or who your target audience is, you can print relevant artwork, designs or slogans on them. Create an entire store around coasters or add them to your product offering, they’re the type of product that can stand alone or with others.

Gooten Coasters

STOCKINGS

A staple item throughout the holiday season for some consumers, holiday stockings can be decorative or functional parts of holiday celebrations. Depending on your niche, this might be a product you want to offer, however, bear in mind that the sales for this type of product fluctuate throughout the year and will likely have low sales rates outside of the holiday season.

HOLIDAY TREE SKIRTS

This is another product where the sales fluctuate throughout the seasons, so take that into consideration if this is a product you’re interested in selling. Tree skirts are most popular around the main holiday period, as they’re used to decorate the floor area around the base of a holiday tree, and there’s very little similar use for them throughout the year. To boost the sales for this type of product year after year, consider making limited edition versions of this product that your customers may be interested in collecting year after year.

DUVET COVERS

A common household item, duvet covers are the perfect canvas to print designs, artwork, and slogans onto. Since there’s so much room for versatility, they make a great product to sell to nearly any niche and audience. With this product, however, it’s important to remember that you’ll likely have to stock different sizes of the product, as duvets typically come in more than one size. This means that you’ll have to list multiple Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) for every design you list on your store, which is just an important piece of website housekeeping to be aware of.

OUTDOOR FLOOR MATS

Create unique floor mats your customers can lay on their doorsteps to welcome visitors to their homes with custom print-on-demand floor mats. Since this product is slightly on the larger and heavier side, it’s going to be more complicated and costly to ship, so keep that in mind when determining your product pricing.

OUTDOOR PILLOWS

Rather than just focusing on indoor pillows like throw pillows, outdoor pillows are another great product option that aren’t typical print-on-demand products. This type of product will also be slightly more costly to ship because it’s bulky, so think about that when developing your product pricing.

Gooten Outdoor Pillows

ORNAMENTS

Another predominantly seasonal item on this list, ornaments rise and fall in popularity around the holidays. Turn your own designs into ornaments, create custom slogan ornaments or print images onto them, the options are endless when it comes to ornaments. No matter what your niche is, this product type could be a welcome addition to your store’s product offering every season.

Print-on-Demand Stationery & Office Supplies

JOURNALS & NOTEBOOKS

Journals and notebooks have been a trending product in the last few years so if you’re looking for a print-on-demand product that on the rise, this could be a good option for you. When creating a business around journals and notebooks, take into consideration that there are so many brands selling similar products on the market, so ask yourself how your products will stand out from the crowd. Since you’ll be using print-on-demand, this differentiation will likely come from the designs, patterns or slogans you get printed on journal cover itself.

GREETING CARDS

Greeting cards have a huge amount of versatility and they’re a great product to sell if you have your own artwork or writing to sell on them. They make a great addition to any stationary store, so if you’re looking to create a well-rounded ecommerce store for stationery lovers, consider adding greeting cards to your roster.

CALENDARS

Calendars are another relevant item that can be added to stores that sell stationary-related products, however, remember with calendars that they have an expiration date, so to speak, in that they are only relevant for a year and then they’re outdated. Since you’ll be using the print-on-demand business model though, this won’t be a major concern for you because you’ll be purchasing stock one-by-one as your customers order it, so you won’t have to worry about whether you’ll be able to sell out of all of your stock before the new year comes around.

Gooten Calendars

TABLET CASES

Tablet cases are a practical product that can be lucrative to sell as their margins can be quite comfortable. Remember, however, that when tablets get updated to new versions it’s likely that their cases will have to be as well, meaning that you’ll have to constantly be on top of stocking the right cases for the products that are currently being sold on the market. Again, because you’ll be sourcing from dropshipping suppliers that have no MOQs, this shouldn’t be a problem because you won’t be purchasing inventory in advance.

ACRYLIC BLOCKS

These transparent picture frames are a trendy and modern approach to conventional picture frames and they make a simple yet striking addition to any room. These are a unique print-on-demand product to sell and one that can be used to showcase artwork, designs or slogans.

Gooten Acrylic Blocks

STICKERS

Depending on the niche you target, stickers can be a useful and sought-after product. An audience that’s highly interested in stickers, for example, are teachers and another use case for stickers includes brands where they use them as brand merchandise and in the shipping box packing process. Although not all niche markets have a use case for sticker products, the ones that do will likely purchase in bulk and they may even repurchase over and over, so it could be a high-volume ecommerce product to pursue.

MOUSE PADS

This is another instance where not every consumer has a use case for this product, however, there are certainly niche groups that do. For example, avid mouse-users like computer gamers and office workers likely still use mouse pads frequently, so we recommend thinking carefully about your target audience if you choose to pursue this print-on-demand product and possibly consider offering as an add-on product at checkout.

Print-on-Demand Pet Supplies

DOG BEDS

Stocking products for furry friends rather than humans? Why not sell dog beds with your own custom designs printed on them!

PET BANDANAS

While you’re at it, how about selling pet bandanas, too? They’re a versatile product that almost every different breed of dog can wear and you can even zone in on creating breed-specific designs to hone in on a certain niche of dog lovers.

Gooten Pet Bandanas

PET LEASHES

Gooten and Printify are print-on-demand companies that allows you to sell pet leashes. You could customize the leash with your customer’s pet’s photo, your logo, or a popular design.

PET COLLARS

A print-on-demand company like Gooten also sells pet collars that you can customize with your customer’s pet’s name or with an attention grabbing design.

Gooten Pet Collars

PET BOWLS

Gooten is the only print-on-demand company that sells pet bowls. You can customize the pet bowl in numerous ways to appeal to all pet owners.

Gooten Pet Bowls

Conclusion

That’s our roundup of 85 print-on-demand business ideas you can choose to start your own print-on-demand business! With the information and ideas in this article you should have an understanding of how to get your print-on-demand business started and some product ideas to get started selling!

The post 85 Easy to Sell Print-on-Demand Product Ideas in 2022 appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

How to Start an Online Marketplace

Richard Lazazzera — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 16:00:22 +0000

An online marketplace is a type of ecommerce business that can be rewarding to create, however, it comes with its own unique set of challenges. If you’ve ever thought of doing some online selling like the marketplaces you see online already such as Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, Etsy, or Airbnb then this is the perfect article to start off with. In this article, you’ll learn all about online marketplaces, what they are, how to start one and how to become marketplace sellers.

Ready to start online selling? Read on.

What is an Online Marketplace?

An online marketplace is an ecommerce store where multiple sellers can sell goods or services to customers. Examples of online marketplaces include Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, Etsy, Airbnb, and eBay. These online stores are considered to be online marketplaces because there are many merchants (hundreds of thousands, in fact) who can sell their products to the customers that browse the online shopping website.

Traditional ecommerce stores sell the goods and services of one brand, but not ecommerce marketplaces, which have many marketplace sellers who sell online on their site. They have a greater product offering which can draw more visitors to browse the website. One of the main advantages of online marketplaces is that they draw in lots of digital foot-traffic, which can mean greater exposure for the merchants on their site.

What unites all the online sellers together is that there’s one checkout process. When customers shop on an ecommerce marketplace, they don’t need to click away to different websites to complete the transaction, they can purchase from many different merchants on the marketplace at once, even if the merchants aren’t associated with one another.

When customers make purchases from sites like Facebook Marketplace or Amazon, the merchants they purchase from get a notification that someone has purchased their product, and then each online seller can individually ship and send the customer the products that were ordered from them.

This means that although a customer can complete just one transaction when purchasing from multiple different sellers, their products will be shipped from each seller individually meaning they’ll receive a shipping package from each merchant they ordered a product from.

Essentially, for online shoppers the experience is like shopping from several different online sellers at once, while being able to pay all the merchants in one transaction rather than in many transactions.

Another thing that unites online marketplaces together is that they usually are focused around one particular niche. Amazon, for example, started as an ecommerce marketplace of booksellers. Airbnb started as an online marketplace to rent rooms in San Francisco. Facebook Marketplace started a profile for users, which eventually lead to building a big userbase, which made online shopping possible. When they center around one niche, it’s likely to become successful because it gives consumers a reason to shop there and when they do shop there, they know what to expect from the online sellers.

It can also referred to as a “Collaborative Economy” or a “Sharing Economy” because it’s usually made up of merchants who work together to share or sell their idle assets on a community-accessible marketplace.

Why You Should Create an Online Marketplace

One of the main reasons to start an online marketplace is to either help third-party sellers sell more product and to help shoppers get access to goods or services more easily.

Online marketplace sellers benefit from you creating a place where they can sell goods, spaces or services online at a cheaper price, better quality, or in a more convenient way.

Starting online marketplaces is great because you don’t have to own any inventory to run one. This makes them an attractive option for entrepreneurs who want to provide a service or solve a pain point without investing a lot of their own capital into the business. Since merchants sell or rent their goods or services on ecommerce marketplaces, they source the inventory.

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.” – Tom Goodwin

How to Create an Online Marketplace

There’s plenty of online literature documenting how ecommerce entrepreneurs can start their own online businesses, but those online businesses tend to focus on solo entrepreneurs who are interested in selling their own products on their own websites. That’s not how online marketplaces work, so another approach must be taken.

1. Building Online Marketplaces

The best online marketplace platform we’ve come across, and the one that we recommend building yours on, is Sharetribe.

Sharetribe is well-recognized in the ecommerce industry as being the most reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective way for entrepreneurs to start their own online marketplace. With their software, any entrepreneur will be able to build a well-designed online marketplace in the most efficient and secure way possible.

Creating one from scratch with a team of web developers would cost you thousands of dollars, but Sharetribe doesn’t cost nearly as much and you’ll be able to have your site up and running faster than if you were to completely have it built from scratch. Keep things simple, streamlined and efficient by starting your online marketplace on a hosted platform like Sharetribe.

2. Ecommerce Marketplaces Niche

Honing in on one particular niche will ultimately lead to greater success. Select a niche market that your online marketplace will cater to.

This is an important step in the process of starting an online marketplace because it will impact what you sell on your website, the merchants who sell there, and the customers who are online shopping.

Note: Need help finding a niche? Check out our free downloadable guide of 500 Niches. It lists a variety of niches in a range of different industries and it can help you think outside the box and really focus in on a niche for your online marketplace.

3. Determining Your Minimum Viable Product Category

With Facebook marketplace and others in the world, it can be easy to get wrapped up in thinking about how you’ll scale yours to service millions of consumers right away. We encourage you not to get caught up in this way of thinking, because it takes a long time to grow one as big as Facebook Marketplace, and you can still build a successful one without being a giant in your industry.

When you’re just starting out, we suggest focusing on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and creating that. Don’t get caught up in thinking about how you’ll create the biggest ecommerce marketplaces, just focus on creating an one that a small subset of your niche market really believes in, and start from there.

By thinking too big too soon, you’ll likely cause yourself to feel overwhelmed in everything you have to do and accomplish to get there. However, by zoning in on creating your MVP, you’ll be more likely to stick with it for years to come and that’s how you’ll grow.

Create something that at least 10 or so users can be interested in and use their feedback and experiences to grow from there. Like we mentioned earlier, Facebook Marketplace and Amazon started small too, and so can you.

4. Establishing a Budget for Online Sales

Just like any ecommerce business, starting an online marketplace will take some funds to get going. Fortunately, you don’t have to purchase or create an inventory for online selling to happen, which is pretty light on the budget. The main aspects of your budget will likely include:

The Cost of the Ecommerce Platform: Using a hosted online marketplace platform like Sharetribe will require monthly or yearly payments.
The Cost of Advertising to Online Sellers: You’ll need merchants with products to sell to set up shop on your online marketplace, and when you’re just starting you’re going to need to reach out to a lot of sellers to get some to actually start selling on your site. This means plenty of outreach which likely means you’ll need some cash to spend on advertising. Whether it’s advertising on social media, influencer advertising, print advertising, etc. it’s likely that you’ll have to spend money on some form of advertising to get sellers on your ecommerce marketplace.
Cost of Advertising for Customers: Customers will not come running before they know you exist. You’ll likely have to spend some money on advertising to get customers to start online shopping on your site.

Don’t spend too much in the early days when you’re still learning. It can be tempting to pump as much capital as you have, but remember that it’s going to take some time to grow.

In the beginning, focus instead on hustling to get free advertising whether it’s through SEO or your own social media. Let your online marketplace generate its own revenue before you invest too much more into it. Even if it’s slow growth, it will help to validate your online marketplace idea.

5. Knowing Your Value

Finally, when it comes to creating an online marketplace, don’t forget to focus on the main outcome of the online marketplace. Ask yourself, what are you aiming to achieve with your online marketplace? How does it add value to those in the niche market it services.

The goal of any online marketplace is to connect merchants and customers within a niche to sell or rent goods or services, so think about how that actually works and how you want to bring that to life.

Types of Online Marketplaces

There are several different types of online marketplaces, and although they all run in a similar fashion, there are slight differences to them which can impact the shopping experience, the types of products that are sold, the customers that shop there and the service that the online marketplace promises to fulfill.

1. Physical Products

Some online marketplaces focus on selling physical products only. This means that the merchants create or supply physical products that must be shipped to the customers who purchase them.

When you have an online marketplace that sells physical products, customers will receive shipping packages from each merchant they order a product from, which can impact their user experience. It means that they’ll be receiving multiple different packages, which can be confusing for them if they don’t know to expect that. Be upfront with customers who shop on your online marketplace—if it’s a physical product online marketplace—that even though they may be completing one transaction, the products are sourced from individual merchants and the products they’ve ordered will be arriving individually from each separate merchant.

2. Digital Products

Another type of online marketplace that exists is digital product marketplaces. These online marketplaces sell digital products that can be downloaded to computers or smart devices immediately after purchase which means that customers don’t have to wait for their products to be shipped and they won’t be receiving products one-by-one from each separate merchant they order from.

An example of a digital marketplace is Creative Market, where designers and creators sell digital assets like stock photos, logo templates, graphic designs and more. We wrote a complete Creative Market Review, and we’ve even rounded up some of Creative Market’s Best Instagram Templates, which we highly recommend checking for your online marketplace.

3. Property and Spaces

Another type of online marketplace is one that rents or sells property, rooms, event spaces or locations to customers. A great example of this type of online marketplace is Airbnb, which is an online marketplace for property owners to rent out rooms, apartments, houses or properties all over the world.

This type of online marketplace comes with its own unique set of challenges, such as government regulations, property insurance, and booking confirmations that must be adhered to and organized in order to be viable and successful.

4. Services

Other online marketplaces can sell services to their customers, where merchants can rent or sell their own specialties to the marketplace. These types of online marketplaces can provide digital services that can be carried out online, such as website development services, or they can provide services that take place in-person, such as painting and restoration work, for example. For example, Fiverr is one of the top online marketplaces to sell services on.

The Challenges of Starting an Online Marketplace

Building online marketplaces is quite different from building online stores. Here are a few of the top challenges you can expect to face when starting an online marketplace:

1. Convincing online sellers and online shoppers to choose you

When you first start an online marketplace, attracting both merchants and customers to use your marketplace is going to be your biggest challenge. Because you’re new, you’re going to have to build trust within merchants to sell on your site and you’re going to have to make sure customers know your marketplace exists so they even think to shop on it.

It will be challenging for you to convince merchants to come sell on an online marketplace if there aren’t customers already shopping there, and it won’t make sense to attract customers to your online marketplace if there aren’t any merchants selling their inventory there yet.

By reaching out to suppliers first before attracting customers to your online marketplace, you’ll also build the inventory supply that your marketplace has to offer which is crucial for customers when they start landing on your online marketplace. Without any inventory, there’s no incentive for your customers to shop on your marketplace at all, so secure the goods and services before you start reeling in customers.

In order to start finding merchants to sell goods and services on your online marketplace, consider reaching out to merchants who are already selling on Amazon, eBay, Facebook, or Etsy. This shows that they’re already comfortable selling on online marketplaces and if you give them a good enough reason to sell on yours too, they might be interested. Look for merchants that sell products that align with your online marketplace’s focus niche.

Sharetribe’s article on How to Build Supply for Your Marketplace can be an invaluable tool to help you attract merchants to your online marketplace when you are first getting started.

2. Providing a useful service

Online marketplaces can only be successful long-term if they solve a real problem for both merchants and customers. This is why it’s so important when starting your online marketplace to make sure that you validate your idea beforehand so you don’t find yourself months or years later with a failed marketplace because it didn’t provide value to merchants or consumers.

Like we mentioned before, take your time building your online marketplace and don’t invest too much capital upfront just in case your online marketplace idea isn’t something that can withstand the test of time. It’s better to grow your marketplace slowly so you can adjust and adapt to merchants’ and consumers’ needs as you go which can result in you creating an online marketplace that provides value to those merchants and consumers and thus, becomes a successful online marketplace long-term.

Focus on solving a problem for both the merchants and the consumers, and you’ll be more likely to provide a useful service for both parties.

3. Dealing with competition

Even if you think you’ve come up with a great idea for an online marketplace, it’s likely that someone else has already thought of it, too. Competition can be a hindrance to starting and growing your online marketplace, however, it shouldn’t completely deter you from pursuing it, either.

If there’s already an existing online marketplace, then you have to find a way to compete against them. Try competing on price, selection, quality, choice, the number of merchants, the geographic area or something else that gives your online marketplace an edge over any others.

If you aren’t sure whether there are any existing online marketplaces that are in direct competition with your online marketplace idea, then be aware that there probably is someone else also working on the same idea and you will eventually have competition. If this is the case, your only option is to execute your online marketplace idea better or faster than anyone else starting a similar online marketplace, so consider how you can make that happen.

4. Marketplace Costs

Every marketplace needs to earn revenue and profit to survive, so you’ll need to determine a viable strategy to ensure that your marketplace earns the revenue and profits that it needs to last without eating away at sellers margins and scaring them away. Here are some tips on managing the costs:

Funding needs to come from the community you’re serving, so consider how your users will fund your online marketplace
You need to “own” each transaction which usually means you charge a commission on every transaction you facilitate. This helps you generate revenue for your online marketplace. On average, top online marketplaces charge around 20-30% commissions as seller fees.
Focus on how many transactions occur on your online marketplace, not users. Your online marketplace exists to facilitate transactions, and that’s likely how you’re going to be earning your revenue, so that’s the most important metric to keep track of.
Think about how you will pay your merchants and how they will earn revenue from providing your online marketplace with inventory. You also need to consider when to move each transactions’ money from the customer to the merchant. It generally makes sense to only transfer the money from the customer to the merchant when you’re sure the customer will be receiving the goods or services they paid for, without any issues, such as refunds.

For great information on financing your online marketplace, check out this article on How to Design Your Marketplace’s Transaction Flow.

How to Run a Successful Online Marketplace

1. Select An Online Marketplace Business Model

Your online marketplace business model will impact how you will earn revenue and profit and how your merchants will earn revenue and profit, as well. It’s a fundamental aspect of every online marketplace and one that you should decide on before you launch.

The different types of online marketplace business models you can choose from include:

Commission-Based Business Model: This is the most common type of online marketplace business model and means that you will earn a commission from every transaction that takes place on your online marketplace. It’s an ideal business model because you’re guaranteed to earn revenue from each transaction and it builds trust within merchants and customers because they know that facilitating successful transactions is important to you because you have a stake invested in it.
Membership/Subscription Fee Business Model: This business model sets up your online marketplace so that each merchant or customer pays a membership fee in order to sell or buy on the online marketplace. Using this business model ensures that you get a consistent amount of revenue monthly but it can also deter merchants and customers from using your online marketplace.
Listing Fee Business Model: By using this business model your online marketplace will charge merchants a fee for listing their goods or services on your online marketplace. The listing fee could be based on a flat-rate amount or a percentage of the value of the good or service, and it’s typically used when there’s value in how many listings a merchant has posted on the online marketplace.
Lead Fee Business Model: This business model is more common in Business-to-Business (B2B) industries, as there’s often a lot of value at stake. When using this business model, the customer posts a good or service they’re looking for and merchants pay a fee in order to bid for the work. This isn’t a very common online marketplace business model, but it can work well for some industries.
Freemium Business Model: This is a great business model for online marketplaces that facilitate sales of low-cost items. When using this business model, merchants and customers can use the online marketplace for free, and the online marketplace will offer other services to the merchants and customers can purchase that boost the value of the online marketplace. These types of services could include providing insurance, vetting services or delivery options.
Featured Listing & Ads Business Model: When using this business model, merchants can often list their goods or services for free on an online marketplace but in order to promote their listing to a viable audience, a fee must be paid. This ensures merchants use the marketplace but the online marketplace can still earn revenue from merchants who are eager to sell their goods or services.
Any Combination of These Business Models: Oftentimes, these business models are combined together to create more favorable conditions for merchants to sell their products and for online marketplaces to earn consistent revenue.

2. Create a Positive User Experience

A large part of creating a great online marketplace includes creating a great user experience. If merchants can’t run their online business or customers can’t do their online shopping the way they want to, then they’ll simply go elsewhere.

Make it as easy as possible for customers and merchants to connect with one another so a transaction can take place. There are some important aspects you can integrate into your online marketplace to help make this as efficient as possible:

Have a Smart Search Function: When customers come to your online marketplace with a purpose, a search function is going to be instrumental to their success. Make sure you have a smart search function embedded onto your online marketplace so customers can use it to find exactly what they’re looking for as quickly as possible.
Make Your Marketplace Browse-able: Some customers may come to your online marketplace knowing exactly what they’re looking for, while others may not. Customers who aren’t sure what they’re looking for need a way to browse through your marketplace, so make your online marketplace friendly for browsers. This could mean using categories, filters, and menus to help browsers navigate around your marketplace.
Use Systems: If you’re providing services, in particular, or if your online marketplace is focused more on renting items rather than selling them, you may need to use certain systems to ensure that everything operates smoothly. These types of systems could be calendars, booking systems, maps, etc. and could be essential to how your online marketplace operates.
Merchant & Customer Profiles: It’s likely that merchants and customers will need to create profiles on your online marketplace to ensure that they can create listings, access their purchase history, manage their orders, etc. so your online marketplace will need to be equipped to handle these profiles and define how they’re able to interact with one another. Keep in mind that most people prefer to check out as Guest, so don’t forget to add that as an option for customers.
Mandatory Listing Information: It will be useful for you to determine upfront what kind of information merchants on your online marketplace will have to include in their listings so it can remain consistent across all merchants. Having consistent information across all third-party sellers will help customers make informed purchasing decisions which can drastically affect their experience on your online marketplace.

Best Practices for Launching Online Marketplaces

When it comes to bringing your online marketplace to life, your launch will play a role in how your marketplace continues to progress over the course of its lifetime. Utilizing promotion channels like an email list, advertising, press, influencers and online communities such as Product Hunt to get the attention of people who might be interested in what your marketplace has to offer.

No matter how you choose to draw attention to your online marketplace when it launches, it’s arguably most important to build trust within each and every user that enters your website as soon as you launch. No matter how many people your promotion tactics bring to your website on launch day, focus on building trust within them as they experience your online marketplace.

Tactics to instill trust in visitors to your online marketplace include:

Create a Good First Impression: How your website looks, the types of products you sell, the quality of your merchants and their products, your FAQ Page, and your About Page can all affect a visitor’s first impression so put in the work to make it a great impression.
Have Inventory Ready to Sell: Make sure there are products ready for your customers to purchase. You don’t want to be driving visitors all the way to your website with nothing for them to actually buy.
Be Transparent: If there is still room for improvement on your marketplace, let customers know that you’re working to make things run more efficiently and that you’re putting in effort behind the scenes to make it the best possible online marketplace experience for them. Customers appreciate transparency, so if you experience any hiccups throughout your launch, be sure to let customers know what’s going on.
Be Honest: No matter what your online marketplace promises customers, make sure you deliver on it. Don’t make claims you can’t fully commit to.
Allow Reviews: Customer reviews help all websites build credibility, so leave a place on your online marketplace for customers to leave their thoughts and feedback. Customer reviews are generally non-biased in favor of the brand, so other customers are more likely to trust what they have to say. You may not have any reviews when you first launch but as your brand grows you’ll be able to accept reviews as they come.

Note: Need more help with launching your online marketplace? Check out our downloadable Ecommerce Launch Checklist to ensure that you cover all your bases.

Conclusion

You’re now well-equipped with the knowledge to start your own online marketplace. Remember that choosing the right niche will be what sets your website apart from other marketplaces in the industry. Focus on getting suppliers for your marketplace first and then instill trust into every visitor that lands on your online marketplace after launch day. Have a good online marketplace idea? Get started!

The post How to Start an Online Marketplace appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

What is Dropshipping? Drop Shipping 101 for Beginners (in 2021)

A Better Lemonade Stand — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 16:00:53 +0000

What is dropshipping? Anyone who has ever looked into how online businesses work has probably come across this term.

Yet, few people actually understand how it works.

To someone who is new to the online business world and looking to break into the ecommerce scene, the dropshipping process can seem a little intimidating as it can be difficult to find a reliable source that tells you everything you need to know.

So here it is: The definitive guide to dropshipping. It covers everything from what the term essentially means, how this particular business model works and, if it’s for you, how to find the right product and supplier to actually run a successful, booming ecommerce dropshipping business. So let’s dive right into it!

Understanding Dropshipping
Who Is Dropshipping For?
Who Isn’t Dropshipping For?
Finding the Perfect Dropshipping Products to Sell
Finding the Right Dropshipping Supplier
Running Your Drop Shipping Business
Growing Your Drop Shipping Business
Example of a Successful Drop Shipping Business
Additional Dropshipping Resources
Conclusion

Understanding Dropshipping

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a type of business model that enables a company to operate without maintaining inventory, owning a warehouse to store their products, or even having to ship their products to their customers themselves. How it works is that the retailer partners up with a dropship supplier that manufactures and/or warehouses products, packages the products, and ships them directly to the retailer’s customer, on the retailer’s behalf.

In simpler terms, this is how dropshipping works:

The customer places an order for a product on the retailer’s online store.
The retailer automatically or manually forwards the order and customer details to the dropship supplier.
The dropship supplier packages and ships the order directly to the customer in the retailer’s name.

This kind of business model is extremely attractive as it eliminates the need for the store owner to have a physical business location such as an office space or warehouse — instead, all they need is a laptop and an internet connection.

Note: Many businesses that do own physical spaces (offices or warehouses) of their own also use drop shipping for some of their goods as it helps free up resources and space for other products.

Video Overview of Drop Shipping

Pros of Dropshipping

As a business model, dropshipping has several different aspects that prove to be beneficial, such as:

It’s Easy to Set Up: It doesn’t take an entire village to set up since it essentially involves just 3 steps — find the supplier, set up your website, and start selling the goods! To someone who is new to the ecommerce industry, this business model is relatively easy to understand and implement.
The Cost of Setting Up Your Dropship Business is Next to Nothing: In traditional business models, the majority of the costs are related to setting up and running the retail operations, such as purchasing inventory. Since dropshipping eliminates that step, and thus the cost of it, all you have to pay for is the associated costs of running your website (hosting, theme, apps, etc.).
You Don’t Have to Worry About Exorbitant Overhead Costs: As previously mentioned, the business owner is not required to purchase inventory thus the costs of renting or buying warehouse/office space and the other smaller yet substantial costs pertaining to it (electricity/phone bills, stationery, etc.) aren’t an issue. The fixed costs of managing the website is all that a business owner has to worry about.
The Risk of Dropshipping as a Business Model is Significantly Lower: If the business doesn’t sell products it still doesn’t lose anything, so there is little to no pressure about having to sell your inventory.
The Business Can be Run from Anywhere & is Location Independent: No office, no warehouse, no employees, and no hassles. Little to no commitment to a physical space means that you could be sitting at a beach, sipping on mojitos while still turning profits. All you need is your laptop and the internet.
There is Lots of Variety When it Comes to the Products You Want to Sell: There is a drop ship supplier for almost anything that you would like to sell! You can rely on one great product, sell several products at once or mix it up; it’s all up to you. Find your niche and there is bound to be a supplier that caters to it.
More Time & Resources to Scale Your Business: In traditional retail business models, if you want more profits you have to do more work and invest that much more of your resource pool. With dropshipping all you have to do is send more orders to your dropship supplier and then let them handle everything else while you earn the profit and are left with more time to develop your business plans and scale!
Reduced Losses on Damaged Goods: Since the shipment goes directly from the supplier to the customer, there are fewer shipment steps involved which drastically reduces the risk of damaged items while moving from one physical space to another.

Cons of Dropshipping

Just like everything in life, there are some disadvantages that come along with the many advantages of dropshipping. Here are a few cons to the dropship business model:

Slightly Lower Profit Margins Comparison to Wholesaling or Manufacturing: Depending on your niche, location, or requirements, suppliers and vendors will charge you higher prices for dropshipping products, which does eat into your profit margins.
Complete Liability When Something Goes Wrong: Since the customer is purchasing the product from the retailer’s website, if the supplier messes something up, it’s still the retailer’s fault as the brand is the face of the retail process. This is one of the reasons why it is incredibly important to choose the right supplier.
The Brand has a Significantly Lower Level of Control: Customer satisfaction is often linked to the details — personalized packaging and branding of the shipped products, freebies, and notes accompanying the order — it’s almost always the smaller things that count. Unfortunately, the dropshipping model seldom affords retailers the opportunity to control how their brand is presented during the delivery and fulfillment process as the supplier is the one who ships the products. However, there are some suppliers who may be willing to go that extra mile — be advised, it may cost you though.
Certain Issues May Arise Due to Complexities with Shipping: selling multiple products may seem like a good way to drive up sales and make a substantial profit, but this could actually be counter-intuitive if the retailer has multiple suppliers for these products. Different suppliers will charge different shipping costs depending on factors like location, type of products, etc. If a customer orders multiple products which ship from different suppliers, the retailer will have to work out and pay the shipping costs separately. Transferring these varying shipping costs to the customer may negatively affect conversion rates, thus, in turn, impact the profit margins.
Level of Competition is Relatively High: The attractiveness and popularity of the dropshipping business model means more and more retailers in every segment and niche. Unless a retailer is catering to an extremely specific segment or niche, the competition could possibly be detrimental.
Managing the Inventory Can be Tricky: keeping track of the stock of the supplier is nearly impossible. Miscommunications can cause issues such as cancellations and having to place orders on backorder. This aspect can, of course, be managed with software these days but those too come at a price and may increase your overhead and fixed costs

How Viable & Profitable is Dropshipping?

Typically, the profit margins for dropshipping can range from 15%-45%. However, the profit margins for consumer durables and luxury items (for example, electronics, jewelry, etc.) can yield a profit margin of up to 100%. It’s about finding the right niche and supplier while entering a market that isn’t already overly saturated. A good way to ensure higher margins can be to source directly from a manufacturer instead of a vendor/supplier, thus effectively cutting out the middleman.

Once the business is off the ground and gains a little traction, it can quickly turn into a money-making machine that only requires minimum input. Successful dropshipping businesses such as that of Irwin Dominguez, an accountant turned ecommerce entrepreneur, have made USD $1 million in sales in just 8 months of launching the online business! This won’t be the case for every dropshipping business, but the potential exists.

Bonus: Check out these case studies about starting a dropshipping business from scratch:

Aren’t Drop Ship Manufacturers, Wholesalers & Aggregators the Same?

No.

Even though these terms are often used interchangeably in the ecommerce world, they aren’t the same. Let’s clear up the confusion:

A manufacturer is someone who actually produces the products themselves. They may or may not have a dropshipping program, but the retailer is lucky if they do as it removes the hassle and inflated costs of the middle man, giving the retailer the best possible prices. These reduced costs translate to larger profit margins.
A dropshipping wholesaler/supplier is someone who purchases one type of product from the manufacturer in bulk and helps to package and ship it to buyers online through the retailer’s ecommerce businesses.
A dropshipping aggregator, on the other hand, is someone who buys different products from multiple manufacturers to provide the retailer with a variety of products to sell. Several disadvantages of drop shipping can be solved when an aggregator is used — no multiple wholesaler shipping costs, less time sending out multiple orders to multiple vendors (therefore preventing a mix-up and delay in the orders and shipment) — however, do bear in mind that aggregators take a higher cut which could adversely affect your profit margins.

Who is Dropshipping For?

Dropshipping is a pretty great business model for a first-timer who is just dipping their toes into the online business world. It’s attractive to a novice as it’s a low-risk and low-investment way of starting your own business, thus, doesn’t feel like so much of a gamble.

Since the amount of capital that needs to be invested into this business model is minimum, it is also ideal for someone who is already a store owner with an inventory but is looking to try out particular products in the market to see how well it does before stocking up on it. If you’re interested in learning more about this, check out our How to Test Product Ideas with Dropshipping When You Don’t Dropship post.

For someone who is expecting amazing margins right off the bat, this business model may be disappointing. If profit is your primary interest then you’d be better off going straight to the source — such as the manufacturers — but manufacturers don’t always facilitate dropshipping. Since dropshipping profit margins are also considerably lower in comparison to other business models such as manufacturing and wholesaling, dropshipping would perhaps not bode well with a brand that is a new startup, as the business doesn’t have the ultimate control when it comes to customer satisfaction through branding and brand experience.

There are a few types of entrepreneurs that the drop-shipping model will work well for. Let’s take a look at some of them:

Validating Entrepreneur: Dropshipping can be a great way to test new products, or even a new startup, before investing heavily into inventory that may not sell, making this the perfect business model for the entrepreneur that requires a high level of business and product validation before investment.
Budget Entrepreneur: Drop shipping is definitely the least expensive method of selling online because you don’t have to purchase any inventory upfront. Because of this, the drop shipping method works well for entrepreneurs who have a limited budget or would prefer to keep startup costs as low as possible.
First Time Entrepreneur: The drop shipping model for selling online also is a good business model for someone just starting out selling online. The fact is, selling online isn’t easy. Driving traffic and converting that traffic for the average marketer can take a long time to figure out and optimize. Because of the low costs associated with starting a drop shipping business, it allows new entrepreneurs to start to learn the ropes of setting up a store, driving traffic, and conversion optimization before investing thousands (or more) in inventory that you may get stuck with.
Walmart Entrepreneur: Drop shipping is also for the person that wants to sell a wide variety of products and models. Depending on what the price range is of the products you intend to sell, or if you want to sell hundreds or thousands of different products, it’s nearly impossible without massive funding to acquire all that inventory. In this case, dropshipping would be the appropriate model because, again, you don’t need to purchase inventory upfront.

Who Isn’t Drop Shipping For?

There are also a few types of entrepreneurs that dropshipping isn’t for:

Brand-Centric Entrepreneur: Building a long-term sustainable brand is difficult but the rewards can be incredibly worthwhile. However, building a brand while utilizing the drop shipping business model is exponentially more difficult as there are so many elements of the entire customer experience that you won’t be able to control. For example, many times you may find out that after a customer has purchased something from you it’s sold out with your drop shipper. This leaves you in the uncomfortable and frustrating position of trying to coordinate between your customer and your drop shipper and can become a really poor experience for your customer. Another point to keep in mind is because you’re not shipping the product yourself you don’t have any control over the experience of your customer receiving the package. Almost 100% of the of time it’s going to be the product in a big brown box with packing peanuts. You need to ask yourself if that’s the experience you want your customers to have. Finally, because you don’t ship the products yourself you don’t own the relationship with the shipping companies. When something does go wrong and your customer doesn’t receive the package you can’t simply call UPS and get the situation corrected. You need to coordinate this with a busy account rep which could take days to sort out, again, leaving your customer with a bitter taste in their mouth.
Margin-Focused Entrepreneur: Probably the biggest problem with the dropshipping business model is the razor-thin margins. Generally, for traditional drop shipping products and companies your gross margins (the price you sell it for minus the cost you pay your drop shipper) are around 10-20%. At the end of the day when you pay your credit card transaction fees, shipping cart, email service, and other app fees you will be looking at only a few percent. There is a fair share of online entrepreneurs running 1 million dollar revenue per year drop shipping businesses that at the end of the day are making a 40-50k profit.
Non-Creative Marketers: Most manufacturers (which can also be drop shippers of their own products) have sales goals in which 30% of the sales need to come from direct-to-consumer sales, usually through their own ecommerce site. This means that if you’re selling their products, you will be competing directly with your own supplier, a supplier that is able to have much higher margins than you on the very same products. Any chance of competing head-to-head against them is pointless. They will almost always win because they can afford to. If you’re going to beat your own supplier you need to be creative and find and exploit channels they aren’t using to acquire customers. If your only ideas are to use Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you’re likely out of luck.

Finding the Perfect Dropshipping Products to Sell

Criteria to Choose the Best Dropshipping Products

To have a successful ecommerce business, you have to find the right products to sell. But when it comes to dropshipping, finding the right product is possibly the most important aspect of your business.

There is almost no way to ascertain which products are completely “perfect” for the dropshipping business model, however, having a shortlist of product ideas that you are sure will sell (based on hard facts, figures, and research) is a good way to start determining the products that you will end up selling.

Here are a set of criteria that can help decide whether a product is suitable for dropshipping:

The Retail Price: When it comes to dropshipping, the retail price and the wholesale price are crucial. It’s all about hitting the sweet spot with the way you price your products: Low prices may encourage a larger number of sales but you’ll make a smaller profit margin per product, while higher-priced items might sell less but you’ll be able to make more profit per item. Find the balance that works for you and your customer’s expectations. As we mentioned earlier, profit margins for dropshipping can be between 15%-45% and that’s what you as the retailer should likely aim at. This typically means that pricing items between $50 to $100 is optimal, depending on the product.
Size & Weight: Packaging and shipping costs vary between different products based on how much packaging material is required and the effort (manual effort or machine effort) required to ship the product. In that sense, having smaller and lighter items are the cheapest to drop ship and give you the largest profit margin. Larger products can be drop-shipped with a relatively large profit margin too, but starting out smaller is the best way to go.
Cross-Selling Products: Selling sets of related products is a great way to give more value to your customers and encourage them to purchase more every time they make an order. Consider which products you can sell together that serve a related niche. For example, if you drop ship easels it may make sense for you to drop ship canvases, paintbrushes, and other art supplies, too. If you choose to go this route, consider how you can strategically price your products to make the sale worth just as much value for you as well as your customer. You might choose to sell your main product at a lower profit margin (say, 10-15%) to encourage your customers to buy it, but then make up for lost profit by cross-selling other accessories and components for the main product at a larger markup (such as 100%).
Durability: If the products and goods you sell are either disposable and/or renewable, there is a higher chance that your customers will place repeat orders, thus driving up your sales. Many retailers set up subscription options for their customers which ensures that there are always repeat purchases. You can make this an even more attractive offer for your customers by providing a discount for subscribers to your service.
Turn-Over Rate: Consider the turnover rate of the products that you are selling (the rate at which the product is changed, updated, discounted, etc.). As a retailer with an online store, a lot of your business will come from the product photography and the copy/content that you publish about the products. These are time-consuming and will potentially cost you too. Therefore if you sell products that keep changing in short spans of time, you will have to keep switching up the content which would be a constant re-investment of time and money — with the added stress of actually updating everything physically. Learn more about how to take great product photos, create a beautiful product page, and how to write great product descriptions.

Note: Evaluate your dropshipping product idea in greater detail with our Instant Product Evaluator tool! With this tool, you’ll evaluate your product idea against 18 of the most critical criteria to learn more about your product’s potential strengths and weaknesses.

Dropshipping Mistakes to Avoid

Common mistakes that should be avoided when picking a product for dropshipping:

Do Not Base Your Choice of Product on What Your Likes & Dislikes Are: Always base your product decision on facts, research, due diligence, and evaluating and validating the market’s demand.
Do Not Sell Knock-Offs or “True Copies”: Not only is this a cheap gimmick that won’t necessarily get you anywhere with customers, but it is also illegal in most countries! Stay away from these types of products so you can avoid the hassle or ensure that you dropship products from reliable and official merchandisers only.
Don’t Just Hop Onto the Bandwagon: “If everyone is selling it, I should too,” isn’t always the right reason to pick a product. The market for trending products is typically very saturated so there will be high levels of competition. If trending products are something you want to pursue then make sure to conduct thorough research into the rise and fall of the trend so you know what to expect from consumer interests. Check out a tool like Google Trends to help evaluate trends.

Know Your Target Market & Niche

Ensuring that you do your market research well will set a solid foundation for your business. Here are some tips to help you know your target market and niche better:

Step One: The first and foremost step is to measure the current demand for your product. Use the KWFinder tool to find out how your product’s keyword is ranking on a monthly basis — this will give you an idea of how many people are searching for your product in search engines like Google every month, and it will give you a general idea of what the demand is like for your product. Ideally, you want to find keywords with monthly searches in the thousands if you plan on building a business around it, but if your product serves an emerging market then there may not be any people searching for it yet. To learn more about keyword research and how it can help you build your business successfully, check our Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research and if you want to learn more about the KWFinder tool, check out our KWFinder Review.
Step Two: The second step is to understand how seasonality may impact your customer’s purchasing patterns. Certain products are only seasonal commodities while others will do well year-round, but how do you figure out the difference between the two? Guesswork may be futile and unnecessary when you can just use Google Trends. This tool gives the user a graphical analysis of the peak search seasons for any given product (or keyword) over a vast amount of time. Forecasting trends can help you prepare for dips or spikes in sales throughout the year and ensure that you aren’t caught off guard.
Step Three: The third step is to scope out your competition and observe how they engage with the market. Search out your competitor’s websites, social media platforms, or their presence on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay and pay close attention to the number of ratings, reviews, comments, and overall engagement that they receive and what their customers are saying. See if you can find any opportunities where your competitors aren’t meeting the market’s expectations so you can go ahead and close that gap.

Facts to Consider About Your Target Market

Factors that you should look at when analyzing your target market, include:

Demographics: The demographics such as the physical/geographic location, income bracket, etc. of your audience is important to understand in order to know how big your audience is, where the majority of them are and how you can cater your dropshipping products to them.
Gender: Statistically, men and women shop differently and have different spending and purchasing patterns when it comes to dropshipped goods or just products in general. While the gender of your potential target market may not be the most important aspect to know, it still may be worth looking into. The kind of device they use to shop, the kind of content that works for them (testimonials, product descriptions, etc.), the kind of language that would prompt customer conversion — all these are factors that may be influenced by gender, too.
Age Range: Being able to understand the spending patterns and purchasing patterns of different age groups can be incredibly useful. Millennials (individuals born between 1980-2000) are proven to fall in a lower income bracket and statistically spend less, thus drop shipping expensive products that specifically target the age range of young adults may not be completely advisable. The same goes for the 60+ bracket as they typically aren’t comfortable with purchasing products, dropshipped or not, over the internet.
Type of Institution: Are you selling your products directly to customers, other businesses, or government organizations? Whether you’re selling your drop shipped goods Business-to-Consumers (B2C), Business-to-Business (B2B), or Business-to-Government (B2G) will impact many aspects of your business such as who exactly your customers are, what quantity of products they purchase from you, their main goal for purchasing your products, how you market your products to them and more. Typically when you’re dropshipping the most common market you’ll be selling to is direct-to-consumer (DTC), so consider how that will impact your business overall.

Knowing Your Competition

In order to beat the competition, you need to know the competition. If the product you want to sell has established sellers already, it’s actually a good sign. However, if there are too many sellers in that space, it could pose a problem for your business to stand out amongst all the other businesses.

In order to scope out the competition, you could use these tactics:

Use Online Tools to Scope Out Your Competition’s Website: Online site explorers such as SEMrush allow you to check the ranking and domain authority of any website of your choice using only a URL. This helps you paint a good picture of how much of their traffic is directed from keywords and other links, and where exactly it’s coming from. This, along with scoping out their website personally, should give you a well-rounded insight into the workings of their website which you can base on facts and figures. Learn more about SEMrush here in our SEMrush Review.
Order Products from the Competition to Get an Idea of How their Process Works: The way something appears online can pretty obviously be different in real life. Ordering from the competition can give you an idea of the quirks that set them apart, negative aspects about their brand experience, and perhaps even ideas and tips for your own business. That being said, don’t necessarily copy some or the whole of their shopping and shipping process, simply observe any of their flaws so that you can work to improve them for your own customer experience.
Analyze their Social Media Channels: Your competitor’s social media channels are an amazing way to get direct customer feedback about their business and also gives you a good base to analyze their marketing strategy from. Check the kind of engagement their brand has and the flaws that you could possibly work on for your brand. Pitting your own content against theirs can also become easier when you know what kind of content and at which scale they produce it at.

Finding the Right Products to Dropship

Once you know what product you’re interested in dropshipping, you have to find out where to actually source that product from.

Start this process by creating a list, preferably a spreadsheet (use Google Sheets or Airtable) with names and sources so that you aren’t losing track of where you found a product. This spreadsheet/list can also serve as a database for reference in the future.

Do not underestimate the power of a simple Google search. Search for your potential product in Google and watch autocomplete do its magic. Most autocomplete suggestions are popular keywords that are based on what other search engine users (such as your potential customers or suppliers) are looking for. You can even hone into these autocomplete results to give direction to your brand strategy as you can find correlating terms, etc. Furthermore, the Google search results will also yield a list of “related searches,” which are essentially similar keywords that are high-volume search phrases.

Another unique way of basing your product choice on consumer demand is to check out product forums and review sites. Look for comments that are looking for certain types of products or are raving about it — then supply them. The review sites can also act as a ranking parameter as the more popular products will rank higher which means a better chance at making more sales on that particular good. Check out these product-related Reddit threads to get a better understanding of consumer thoughts and demand, and check out popular product review blogs such as Uncrate, AcquireMag and Bless This Stuff or trend publications such as PSFK, Cool Hunting, and The Cool Hunter. Find a more complete list of these resources in our definitive guide to selling trending products online.

Here are a few products that have been extremely popular in the past and have been specifically trending this year:

Notebook, Planner & Journals
Customized Phone Cases
Customized T-Shirts
Jewelry
Pet Products
Swimwear
Stickers
Watches
Tea/Coffee
Phone Accessories
Camping Gear
Healthy/Super Foods
Gym and Fitness Equipment
Baby Products
Skincare Products
Customized Mugs

A lot of these products can be related to pop culture and trends in the media which influence buyers, so this is not a definitive list of what works and what doesn’t — just the most popular selling items over the past year. Once you can understand trends in the media, it may benefit you as a business owner to forecast product trends, too.

Finding the Right Dropshipping Supplier

The entire drop shipping model is based on the supplier doing their job well and fulfilling orders punctually and efficiently. Therefore it goes without saying that choosing the right supplier is one of, if not the most important step towards setting up a successful brand. If your supplier/vendor messes up an order, you and your business are responsible, so the key is to find someone who sticks to the plan and is open to communicating any issues.

Here are a few factors to keep in mind when choosing a dropship supplier:

Find an Experienced Dropshipper with Helpful Sales Representatives: Nothing beats experience. A drop shipper who knows the pitfalls of drop shipping and how to handle them efficiently, coupled with a sales rep who can answer any queries to put your mind at ease, will make a good team and definitely reflect positively on your business.
Find a Dropshipper who Provides Top-Notch, High-Quality Products: High-quality products yield a higher level of customer satisfaction which means a lower rate of returned items and dissatisfied customers. Product reviews and testimonials can go a long way to boost business, therefore having a good quality product is imperative.
Find a Dropshipper who has Technological Abilities: When choosing your drop shipper, make sure that they have the technological capabilities to keep up with the times. If you need to scale your business, it would be a shame if you had to break a great business partnership with your drop shipper just because they wouldn’t be able to keep up with your growth.
Find a Dropshipper who is Punctual & Efficient with the Shipping Process: Drop shippers who ship products within a 24-48 hour period are a great way to ensure happy customers. Due to the competitiveness of the market, long shipping times can be unattractive to your customers. It would be advisable to place test orders with your supplier to see how the process works and get a better idea before you make an informed decision.

As simple as it may sound, Google is your best bet when looking for dropship suppliers. Several startup incubators and websites dedicated to ecommerce, that pop up as search results, will have complete directories of drop shippers and their contact information. Once you’ve obtained contact details for dropshipping suppliers who provide the products you’re interested in selling, send them a short but polite email asking some relevant questions. This way you’ll be able to gauge how quickly they respond and how helpful their sales reps are.

Bonus: Check out our Drop Shipping Suppliers Directory for a curated list of vetted drop shippers, including contact information, website URL, and what products they specialize in dropshipping. Also, check out our article of the 10 Best Shopify Dropshipping Apps to Help You Acquire Inventory for Your Business to find reputable drop shippers that integrate directly with your Shopify store.

It’s not always possible to know whether you and your suppliers will be a great fit right off the bat, however, it is possible to ask specific questions that will make the vetting process more efficient.

A few of the questions you ask in your first email could include some, but not all, of the following (try to stick to 3 questions in the first email so it’s not too overwhelming for the supplier):

Do you manufacture customized items if required?
What are your pricing terms and are they negotiable?
Are there any other additional costs besides the direct costs? (Always make sure there are no other hidden costs)
Do you have a return policy?
Are you also a retailer/direct seller?
What kind of profit margin can I expect?
Will the prices ever fluctuate?
Do the products come with a warranty or guarantee?
Do you have a dedicated rep that will answer any of my questions that may arise?
Do you have and use a data feed?

The point is to make sure that the supplier doesn’t take advantage of you because these questions prove that you have done your homework. The last thing you want is to not be taken seriously because you are considered a newbie. The retailer-supplier relation is a long-term one, thus needs a certain amount of commitment to it.

That being said, there are many dropshipping scams out there, too. In order to safeguard yourself and your business from them, you need to keep an eye out for any red flags. For instance, if a dropshipper does not accept checks or credit and asks for only bank transfers, it may be a warning sign.

Scammers will also avoid using an address on their business correspondence, website, etc. Any supplier that is working legally is required to display an address. Furthermore, many scams also involve the age-old “membership fees” and while this may not always be a scam, it’s advisable to conduct thorough research and do your own due diligence!

You can obviously take some measures to avoid being the victim of such scams and frauds:

Use online tools to check the age of a domain: This will help you cross-check the facts with what the supplier claims. A newer domain could indicate a scam, especially if it doesn’t match their answers. Besides, as discussed before, checking the domain age can also help establish how experienced the supplier is online.
Check reviews about the particular supplier online: Chances are if someone has been scammed by the supplier before the victim might have put out a warning message/negative review.
The supplier’s business should be registered and the address of their warehouse/office should ideally be listed as a place of business or commercial space. Getting “residential” space results online may be a bad indicator.
If you are still unsure, you could always contact the manufacturer directly to cross-check any facts. Just be wary about the fact that if it’s a big scam, the supposed “manufacturer” might be in on it too.

Asking the right questions, taking the required precautions, and doing your research should help you find the right supplier that fits your business! Once such major aspects are dealt with, you can focus on setting up a system for running your day-to-day operations as smoothly as possible.

Bonus: There are lots of great tips to help you safeguard yourself from scam suppliers in our Ultimate Guide to Safely Sourcing Your Product From Alibaba article, as well as additional information on how to successfully contact a potential supplier.

Running Your Drop Shipping Business

So you’ve done your research, you’ve managed to settle on the perfect products to dropship and have roped in the best supplier possible. You’re all set to start dropshipping goods and making that mullah! However, setting up the business is usually one thing, but running it on a day-to-day basis is a completely different ball game. There are various different aspects of running a business, even if it’s a dropshipping business, that you as the retailer have to consider: Marketing, refunds, returns, replacements, inventory, fulfillment, customer support, and more. So dive into these various aspects of running a dropshipping business.

Marketing Your Drop Shipping Business

How will you sell your products if no one knows about them or your brand? Why should anyone online trust you — a stranger? That’s the magic of marketing; it can make even strangers trust you enough to hand over their hard-earned money to you, willingly.

Marketing is a subjective field and there are a billion tactics that can be used to effectively position your brand while driving your brand’s awareness and sales up. If your strategy is well planned, it can help you weed out the rest of the competition too.

Social Media for Your Drop Shipping Business

One of the most effective ways to promote, advertise, acquire customers and distribute content is through social media, so it comes as no surprise when social platforms are also used for digital marketing. Facebook, for example, has over 1.7 billion active users from different walks of life and it is this variety that makes it so attractive to digital marketers.

One thing to remember is that content is key. No matter how big a platform is or how amazing the product that you are selling is, it means nothing without great content backing it up.

Customer Ratings and Reviews of Your Dropshipping Business

In the dropshipping business model, a few bad customer reviews can literally ruin a business. Think about it: When you shop online from websites such as Amazon and eBay, one of the deciding purchasing factors can be the product rating and what other customers have to say about it — it’s the same case with drop shipping too. A few great reviews can also give you that edge over the competition and that’s what’s going to help you successfully convert visitors to your website.

A surefire way to get great customer reviews is by following through on amazing customer experience: Short shipping times, high-quality products, excellent customer service, and asking for feedback to improve in the future. You can also use customer feedback as testimonials for your website and social media, which can also help you successfully convert more customers.

Email Marketing for Your Dropshipping Business

This is one of the most underrated tools in a digital marketer’s kit. Email marketing can be used to keep your customers in the loop about any major changes in the company: Price changes, sales, discounts, product-related content, and industry-specific content are just some ways that email marketing can be used.

These days, software such as Klaviyo and CM Commerce take the hassle out of sending out emails to your audience by automating some of the processes, creating and saving templates, and producing reports and analytics.

PPC Advertising (Pay Per Click Ads) for Your Dropshipping Business

As mentioned earlier, several social media channels allow pay-per-click advertising, for example, Facebook Ads. This is a typical digital marketing move that trades money for traffic to the ad buyer’s website. Google Ads is another very popular platform for digital advertising and is attractive due to the Google Analytics tool that can help marketers create reports with facts and figures with ease.

Growth Hacking for Your Dropshipping Business

Growth hacking is an inexpensive, yet highly effective way of getting creative marketing campaigns online. A few examples of growth hacking include retargeting old campaigns and appearing as a guest blogger for a popular website in your particular niche. Essentially most of this involves content marketing.

Refunds, Returns & Replacements for Dropshipped Products

As an online business owner, dealing with refunds, returns and replacements is inevitable. Initially, this may seem discouraging however it’s just part and parcel of running an online store. 100% customer satisfaction is a myth no matter how hard you try.

The process for refunding dropshipped products is as follows:

The customer will place an order for the refund with your business, either through email or over the phone.
You are then required to ask the supplier for a return merchandise authorization number.
Once the customer mails the product back to the supplier the supplier will refund the wholesale amount to your account, after which you can initiate the refund of the retail price for the product to the customer.

Even though this process may seem tedious, if the customer is returning a product within the time period stated in the supplier’s return policy, there should not be a problem. The only minor inconvenience that you may face is if the supplier charges a restocking fee, which you as the retailer will have to bear the cost of. In actuality, this should not be a major loss but rather just a minor inconvenience that comes as a side effect of owning an online business.

Important: While this might be a general returns & refunds procedure that many dropshipping suppliers operate by, it does not mean that all dropshipping suppliers operate by this system. It’s important that you ask your dropshipping supplier how they handle returns & refunds so you know how to handle them and can communicate the process clearly to your customers.

Defective Dropshipping Products

Defective items can be slightly trickier: Even if the customer is returning a defective product, someone will still have to incur the cost of returning the product. However, if the cost does land upon you, it would be unwise to transfer the cost onto the customer at the risk of losing or alienating them. It’s not your customer’s fault if you sold them a defective product, so it seems unfair to expect them to incur the cost of returning the product.

What Do You Do When it’s the Supplier’s Fault?

If the supplier messes up the order, they are usually willing to either reimburse the customer or replace the product for free. Most of the time it comes down to communicating what you expect from the supplier if they do mess up an order. In most cases, it is best to communicate over email as it also serves as a written record of conversations.

In cases where a mix-up has caused your company a large loss and the supplier refuses to pay you back taking legal action is always a viable option — this should only be kept as the last resort in extreme cases.

Handling Dropshipping Inventory

With the dropshipping business model, even though you don’t personally maintain any inventory, as a retailer you may still be required to manage inventory orders if your orders are not forwarded automatically to your dropshipping supplier. This process can be time-consuming and tedious, but there is now inventory management software available online and many drop shippers will have an app you can connect directly to your Shopify store so you can automatically forward your orders.

What to Do When Dropshipping Products are Out of Stock

If a customer has placed an order and the product is out of stock simply put the product on backorder in the supplier’s inventory and communicate to the customer that you will not be able to fulfill the order right away. Give them the option of waiting until the product is in stock again or for a full refund. The key is to communicate with your customers clearly on whether the product will be available anytime soon. If you aren’t absolutely sure, take a calculated guess and let them know the same. Honesty and communication with your customer is the best policy in this situation.

Drop Shipping & Fulfillment

The dropship fulfillment process is heavily dependent on your level of involvement: Do you want to automate it or not? Certain aspects will be automated such as the receipt of purchase, shipping information, etc.

If you have multiple suppliers, the fulfillment process will include sending all your orders to the appropriate supplier via email. The best supplier for each product and customer will rely on the location, cost of shipping, and availability. These processes can be automated at varying degrees.

Dropshipping Problems to Avoid

Even though we discussed scams on the dropshipping supplier’s end, fraudulent activities are not just limited to them. While running an online store, it may be common to come across fraudulent dropship orders from fraudulent customers.

One way of telling these fraudulent orders apart from the genuine ones is when the shipping address and billing address are different. Sometimes even the name on either address will differ. These could be clear indicators of credit card fraud.

Customer Support for Your Dropshipping Business

Providing good customer support can determine how well your dropshipping business does. Due to how competitive the drop shipping industry is, if a brand has a good customer support system it can do wonders for the company.

Here are the most widely used and popular types of customer support in the ecommerce industry:

Phone Support: Having a phone customer support system is one of the quickest and most efficient ways of connecting directly with the customer. Not only is it easier to defuse tricky situations, but it is also the fastest way to get feedback from the customer. Google offers tools like Google Voice which lets you set up a free number that routes calls to any number specified by you. A similar alternative is OpenPhone, which is specifically made for ecommerce businesses.
Email Support: While the telephone is a popular method of customer support, email is more likely to be your primary method of providing support. It is advisable to set up domain emails for your website (example: hello@yourdomain.com). Not only is this professional but this also establishes your brand as a legitimate entity in the mind of your customers. Help Scout is an excellent email support software as is Gorgias if you’re using the Shopify ecommerce platform.
Social Media Support: Customers turn to social media pages of brands sometimes even before contacting the brand itself. This is because social media is a public forum and more often than not customers will already find the answers to their questions there. A good customer support representative on social media will be sure to engage with the audience even if the feedback is negative. This can help establish good faith between a customer and the brand.
Live Chat Support: Several brands are incorporating live chats on their websites as part of their customer service and support systems. This method is gaining popularity because it is as quick as a phone call, yet less intimidating than posting queries on a public forum. If you don’t want to invest in this yet, you can just use social media such as Facebook Messenger, or the direct message services on platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. Live chat customer support may not be the best way to go if your business is still limited to one person and can be worth exploring when your business scales. Check out Gorgias as well to launch live chat on your Shopify store.

Growing Your Dropshipping Business

Once you have running a business down to a science it’s only a matter of time until your company really starts to take off. Scaling your online store can be exciting, but there are a few things that you should keep in mind. The key point to remember is that scaling does not mean double the hours of work for more profits, but on the contrary, it implies being able to drive the sales number up even more with lesser time invested — through efficiency and allocating resources smartly.

While scaling the business does not necessarily mean bringing on more employees or contractors, it does seem like the most natural progression. It can be a challenging experience to trust others with your brand but once you do find the right people who match your own wavelength, it can be a rewarding step too.

Firstly, draw up a list of tasks that you can probably outsource and another that needs a more specific approach to them. This list will help you identify the tasks that are monotonous and do not necessarily require your direct input. You can redirect your resources to working out better business strategies, creating and strengthen your relationship with your suppliers and work towards making better marketing decisions.

Hire an Assistant

There are two ways you could go about this, depending on how location-dependent you want or need to be. You could either hire someone you know and work together with every day at a small office/coworking space or maybe even from home. The alternative to that is to hire a VA, commonly known as a Virtual Assistant.

The most attractive quality of hiring a VA is that the person does not even need to be on the same continent to be able to successfully do the job — as long as they have access to a laptop, phone, and the internet, while speaking at least one of the languages that you conduct business in, you are good to go.

This means if you find that assistants/VAs in your vicinity are charging extortionist rates, you could outsource the work to someone else who is location independent, perhaps somewhere in Asia or Eastern Europe, who will do the same job at a much more reasonable price. A few responsibilities that can be given to the assistant, are:

Social Media Marketing and Management
Customer Support and Services
Graphic Design and Content Writing/Copywriting
SEO/SEM
Maintaining the Website
Managing the Inventory Orders

Create a process flow and outline of each job to ensure that anyone you hire can understand how your particular system works for your dropshipping business.

You can list potential openings for VAs on several different remote job sites and on groups for digital nomads. There is almost always someone who knows someone who might be perfect for the job. Most remote working/digital nomad communities are very helpful and often collaborate with each other. Just make sure that the job description is well written so that the person applying can have a comprehensive understanding of what the job entails — use the process flow you created for this part.

Check out these resources to hire virtual assistants:

There are several templates for job descriptions online but here is one that can be altered per your requirements:

“Hey there,

We’re looking for a proactive virtual assistant to help run and manage [insert what you need help with here] at [insert your dropshipping business name here].

Your weekly tasks will include:

– [Task one]
– [Task two]
– [Task three]

You should have in-depth knowledge of [enter skills here], be comfortable using software/s such as [insert tools here] and be fluent in English (verbal and written) [+ any other languages if required].

In the first line of your application, please tell us what your favorite hobby is. If you don’t respond to this request, we’ll assume that you haven’t read the job description and won’t consider you.

Looking forward to hearing from you!”

Such templates can be used for job listing websites, forums, social media, and even for print.

In order to pick the right person as your VA, conduct a thorough interview over Skype and in person, if possible. Make sure that you have gone through their application and ensure that they have all the attributes required. Based on how much time you would have to train them, you can tell how well they would fit with your business. Shortlist at least 2-5 people so that you have some reliable backups if your original candidate doesn’t cut it.

Training your chosen VA can be a two-way knowledge highway. Not only are you teaching them, but can also stand to learn from their previous experiences, inside and outside the industry.

Supply tools to them (such as this guide) and other video material that is easily available, and then discuss how they can implement what they’ve learned. This material can also double as a refresher course in case they forget certain aspects of the job. Give constructive feedback on their work and praise them when they do a good job! It’s about creating lasting work relationships.

Scaling Through Multi-Channels

As your business grows, it would make sense that you would want to sell through multiple channels, namely Amazon, eBay, Shopify, etc. so that you can access a larger market. The problem with this is that you may list the same product from the same supplier on two different sites and get two different customer orders. It’s well and fine if the product is in stock, however, it may be problematic if that isn’t the case. Once backorders start piling up and shipments start getting delayed, customers often become unhappy.

This is in no way supposed to discourage anyone who wants to scale their online business through multiple channels, but rather serve as a reminder that it is important to strategically plan these things beforehand. A good way to handle this issue could be to get a virtual assistant as mentioned before and have inventory management software at hand.

Building Your Own Online Dropshipping Store

While using other online marketplaces can only get you so far, the key to truly growing and scaling your business is to have your own online store. Having your own store ensures but you have the most control over your customer experience and brand positioning. This also means that you will incur lower fees but gain higher profits.

There are several online store builders, such as Shopify, that can help create your web store — it comes with various different templates to choose from and all you have to do is add your products. To learn more about Shopify and the features and services they offer ecommerce entrepreneurs, check out our Shopify Review.

Utilizing Your Email List to the Maximum

Building a good email list is all about having recipients who are highly targeted and constantly engaged. When you do have a strong email list it can end up being one of the single most important marketing assets that you own. Strong email lists are closely related to owning your own store (Shopify) instead of using a marketplace (Amazon, eBay, or Etsy). With an email list, you have direct access to your customers — you don’t have to hope that they’re online and scrolling down their newsfeeds to see your posts, you don’t have to pay to get your emails into their inboxes, and you don’t have to compete with other sellers in your emails. Emails are one of the most direct ways to engage with your audience.

Building an email list isn’t too complicated. All you have to do is get your site visitors to give their email to you (try tools like Sumo or Privy that offer many different email capture strategies) and then send out email newsletters through a service such as Klaviyo or CM Commerce.

Marketing and Advertising

Merely increasing your marketing spend is not the best way to scale your dropshipping business. It’s not how much money you spend but how you spend your money that matters.

Allocating resources to pay-per-click advertising is a smarter move for the dropshipping business model. You can buy PPC ads on almost every social media platform possible from Facebook to Instagram to Twitter and Pinterest.

While PPC ads might seem straightforward, it can be tricky to know where to invest your money. You don’t want to be investing in the wrong kind of ads only to realize that they aren’t bringing in the traffic that you need or want. Like with everything else: Do your research, especially when it comes to marketing and advertising online.

Example of a Successful Drop Shipping Business

As mentioned earlier in this guide, Irwin Dominguez, an accountant turned ecommerce entrepreneur, has been one of the greatest success stories for dropshipping in recent times. Within just 8 months of establishing his drop shipping business, Irwin was already earning over 1 million US dollars in sales. Reaching a sales record of up to $30,000, he says, was his goal, and he wasn’t aiming to live luxuriously, just to be able to provide for his family.

Here is an excerpt from his interview with Oberlo:

When asked about how he got started and what his top recommendations are for anybody who is interested in drop shipping, he said:

“I literally just opened a Shopify account, created my store, added a few drop shipped products with Oberlo, and that’s it. I didn’t do a lot of reading or researching because I always try to learn by doing. Dropshipping ecommerce success requires very little capital and allows you to experiment a lot. This is what I love about it the most.

I do have to admit, though, that I Google a lot of questions that come up as I’m learning by doing….
…If I started ecommerce all over again, I would start sooner. I waited a full month-and-a-half after my good friend told me about his ecommerce success. It costs no money to launch a store and it’s so “simple” to get started with all the technology available right now — just get started, you literally have nothing to lose.

Opportunity, yes — I wish I started this sooner because if I were doing this even just one year earlier, there would’ve been a lot less competition; I would’ve made a lot more money; and I could have established myself in other niches. But overall, there are still plenty of opportunities — you just have to be a little more creative with marketing.”

Additional Drop Shipping Resources

How To Start A Drop Ship Business Video

Bonus: Check out our article on Finding Drop Shipping Companies or purchase our Premium Drop Shipping Suppliers Directory that includes a curated list of vetted dropshipping suppliers. Also, don’t forget to check out these blog posts: How To Start A Drop Ship T-Shirt Business In 24 Hours and 72 Hour Drop Shipping Business for more dropshipping inspiration.

Conclusion

So this concludes our definitive guide to dropshipping. If you have made it here, you now know how to set up and kick start your own dropshipping business. Just like with any other endeavor in life, setting up your own business also requires a certain degree of commitment, effort, and passion to make it work. It’s not just about creating the business but also following through and learning how to run it on a day-to-day basis.

The best part about dropshipping is that you can learn through testing your products and ideas, in real-time and if something doesn’t work all you have to do is remove it from your store. This business model is also a great way of testing out product ideas for traditional business models. Dropshipping provides a safe space to experiment and see what works without incurring any major losses which can definitely give business owners the confidence to say that they have a working knowledge of how the industry functions. No upfront cost and very little risk make the dropshipping business model an exciting business model to venture into.

So experiment with dropshipping your way and let us know how it works out! Share this guide with someone who would find it useful. Do you have any tips and tricks or general advice that could help the ecommerce community? Let us know in the comments down below!

The post What is Dropshipping? Drop Shipping 101 for Beginners (in 2021) appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

MOQ Meaning: What Is MOQ & What You Need to Know

Richard Lazazzera — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 17:00:24 +0000

The MOQ meaning may be an unfamiliar term for some people, so in this short article we’ll be defining what a MOQ is, why MOQ’s are important, why suppliers set MOQ’s, the advantages and disadvantages, how to meet and exceed the minimums, as well as how to negotiate them.

Stay tuned to the end of this article for a word of warning about MOQs so you can safeguard yourself from potential consequences.

Let’s jump into it.

Video Overview of MOQ

MOQ Meaning (Minimum Order Quantity)

MOQ stands for “Minimum Order Quantity” and refers to the least amount of products or units that a supplier is willing to produce at one time. MOQs are set by suppliers to cover their cost of production and ensure that they make a profit off of each production run.

MOQs are sometimes negotiable, within reason, but it’s up to a business to be able to meet a supplier’s MOQs or negotiate a reasonable MOQ in order to do business with them.

MOQs differ from supplier to supplier. Some suppliers will have large MOQs such as 100,000 units, other suppliers may have low MOQs such as 100 units. Occasionally, suppliers that produce custom orders or bespoke products may even have MOQs as low as 1 unit.

What is MOQ

MOQ is a supplier’s Minimum Order Quantity which is defined by the minimum amount of units they’re willing to produce (or sell) at one time. MOQs are most often defined by the amount of units produced in a production run, such as 100 units or 10,000 units, for example, but sometimes MOQs can be defined by currencies as well, such as $1000 or $10,000 of product.

MOQ is calculated by each supplier independently and depends on what it costs them to produce each unit. MOQs cover the cost, effort and energy it takes to produce a production run and ensures that the supplier will be able to earn a profit as well.

Why MOQs are Important

MOQs are extremely important for suppliers because it determines which businesses they’re willing and able to do business with. By setting MOQs, suppliers can easily communicate with businesses how many units it takes for them to be able to work together.

Some businesses operate on a small level and need a very low amount of units produced. These businesses need to find a supplier that can comfortably match their low MOQ requirements. Other businesses operate on a large scale and need hundreds of thousands of units produced. These businesses need to make sure they find a supplier that can meet their demand and have the materials, machinery and personnel available to product the amount of units they need.

Why Suppliers Operate with MOQs

Suppliers set Minimum Order Quantities because it costs them a certain about of money to produce a production run, and the MOQ they set ensures that they’re able to cover all the costs of production, plus make profit. If suppliers were to produce fewer units than their MOQ they may not be able to cover the cost of their production, or make a profit.

Another reason why suppliers set MOQs is because the amount that they set may actually be the fewest amount of units they can produce in one single production run. Since manufacturers produce items in bulk, they purchase their materials in bulk as well. It may not be time or cost effective for them to set up their materials and run their machinery unless they’re guaranteed to be compensated for a certain amount of units their production run produces. Because of this, they set their MOQ to match what it’s worth for them to set up a production run both time and cost wise.

Note: We touch on this and other important aspects of working with manufacturers in our How to Source Products from Chinese Manufacturers article and The Untold Secrets to Cutting Manufacturing Costs and Lead Times article.

Advantages & Disadvantages of MOQs

The biggest advantage of MOQs is that they give you the best possible price per unit available. Oftentimes, the more in bulk you buy from a supplier, the more it drives down the cost of each unit. This means you’ll be paying less per unit that gets produced so you can maximize the profit you earn when you actually sell that product.

The biggest disadvantage of MOQs is the upfront cost required to be able to get your units produced. For example, 1000 units at $10 per unit means that the production run will cost $10,000 upfront, which, if you’re a new business may be intimidating or impossible to meet. This cost also doesn’t cover other costs related to doing business with your supplier such as the cost of shipping the products to you once the production run is over, or the necessary paperwork required to get the products through customs, etc. It’s just the cost of actually producing the items.

Note: To learn more about other costs to consider when it comes to production runs or to get an overview of what a production run looks like from start to finish, check out our Ultimate Guide to Safely Sourcing from Alibaba, which has many helpful tips and insights.

How to Meet MOQs

If you’re just starting out as a new business, meeting MOQs can be frustrating. Oftentimes as a new business you only need a small amount of units produced and can’t meet the MOQ requirements of many manufacturers. If this is the situation you’re in, your best option is to communicate very directly with manufacturers about the amount of units you need and what you can afford. If you can’t meet a supplier’s MOQ requirements and they’re not able to negotiate down to the amount of units you need, then your best option is to move on and find a different supplier with MOQs that fit your requirements.

There are plenty of suppliers who offer low, or no, MOQs, it’s just a matter of finding those suppliers. Do lots of research and investigate into the depths of Google and supplier directories to find suppliers who can meet your MOQ requirements. Depending on what products you’re looking for, another option may be to source wholesale products that you can purchase unit-by-unit so you don’t actually have any MOQs to meet. AliExpress is a great resource for this.

This may be a less cost-friendly option in the long run but it means that you can purchase products as and when you need them instead of buying lots of products upfront that you then have to then figure out how to sell.

Check out our supplier directories to find suppliers with MOQs you can meet:

Manufacturers Directory: The manufacturers listed in this directory have a diverse range of MOQ requirements ranging from one unit to thousands of units.
Wholesale Directory: The wholesalers listed in this directory also have a diverse range of MOQ requirements, ranging from one unit to thousands of units.
Dropshippers Directory: The dropshippers in this directory are a great option for business’ who are having trouble meeting MOQs as they often don’t have MOQs at all. If you’re new to dropshipping, check out our Guide to Dropshipping to learn more about dropshipping as a business model and why it’s so advantageous for new businesses.
Clothing Manufacturers Directory: This directory is tailored specifically to help businesses looking to start a clothing line find the right suppliers, and it features clothing manufacturers with MOQs as low as one unit and as high as the hundreds of thousands of units.

Exceeding MOQs

MOQs are set by suppliers to define the minimum amount of units they’re able to produce at one time, but that’s just their minimum. If you want to produce more units than a supplier’s set MOQs, usually it will be no problem for the supplier to accommodate your requirements.

Communicate exactly how many units you’re interested in producing with each supplier you’re considering working with to make sure they have the materials, equipment and personnel to make your production run happen. Depending on the supplier, they may have a maximum amount of units they can produce at one time if they’re not a large factory, so make sure they have the resources to complete your production run if you want to produce more than their MOQ.

How to Negotiate MOQs

If you’re having difficulties meeting supplier MOQs, these tips may help you out:

Pay the MOQ price but ask for the specific number of items you need. This option won’t save you money, you’ll still have to pay the full price of the supplier’s MOQ upfront, but you’ll get your preferred amount of units which can save you from managing inventory you don’t want or having more products than you’re able to sell. With the leftover inventory that the supplier produces you can tell them to do what they want with it (they can sell it, offload it to a wholesaler, keep it, or throw it away). This option may not make sense for every business, but it may be worth keeping in mind.
If you’re having trouble meeting a supplier’s MOQ because you can’t store that amount of inventory at one time, you can’t pay for it all upfront, or you just don’t need that amount of inventory all at once, see if the manufacturer will produce the entire production run and give you half of the products first and then the rest in a few months. Not all manufacturers may be open to this idea, some may not have the storage space for it, but others may be willing to help you if they know you’re serious and you’ll become a regular customer of theirs.
See if there’s a lower quality material that can be substituted for the materials they would originally use so you can drive the price of production down, and thus, the amount of the MOQ.
This is less of a negotiation tactic and more of a strategy on how to meet MOQs if you don’t have the budget available to meet a MOQ upfront. Crowdfunding and selling pre-orders is one of the best ways to acquire funding for your products upfront so you can meet the MOQ of your supplier without having to fork over the cash straight from your own pocket, and it means that you’ll order the appropriate amount of product that you have demand for. Orchestrating successful crowdfunding campaigns like those on Kickstarter or Indiegogo takes a lot of effort and isn’t for the non-serious or unprepared business person, so make sure you have the know-how and resources to be able to pull this off for it to be a successful means to meet MOQ requirements.

A Word of Warning

It may be tempting to drive supplier’s down to the lowest MOQ they’re willing to go, and some suppliers may want your business so much that they’re willing to drive down their MOQs just to keep you as a customer, but this may come at a cost to you. While low MOQs may seem like a great situation for you, it’s very important to consider the potential consequences:

By driving down supplier MOQs too low, you may force suppliers to compromise on the quality of the products they produce. In an effort to meet the low MOQs while covering the cost of production, they may use the lowest quality materials so they can still afford to complete the production run and make a profit. This can make your products seem low-quality or make them less durable.
If you drive down the MOQs too far and it cuts into the supplier’s profit, they may resent doing business with you which may make them less likely to work with you in the future, or else they may just not prioritize your business over other clients. Remember that suppliers also need to make a profit and MOQs are put in place to cover their own costs, so try to be understanding of that, even if it’s less favourable for you in some ways. Relationships in business are paramount, so compromising your relationship with your supplier because of MOQs may come with more consequences in the long run, so take that into consideration.

Conclusion

MOQs are put in place for a reason, so it’s important that you abide by them and negotiate reasonably with suppliers if you do feel that you need to negotiate. While it may be frustrating for you to meet MOQs, or flat out impossible if you’re just starting your business, remember that MOQs are put in place by suppliers to cover their own costs of doing business, so if you can’t meet a supplier’s MOQs then you need to find a different supplier or make other adjustments. In any case, find a supplier’s MOQ which you are able to meet, and if there’s none, try sourcing your products through wholesale or dropshipping so you can purchase products one-by-one, as you need them.

The post MOQ Meaning: What Is MOQ & What You Need to Know appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

How to Make Merch for Your YouTube Channel, Podcast, or TikTok & Sell it Online

A Better Lemonade Stand — Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:00:57 +0000

Are you a creator with a following? Making merch is one of the best avenues you can pursue to monetize your audience. But how can you make merch? This article walks through the entire process of how to make merch so you can start making and selling merch now.

How to Make Merch: Types of Merch Products You Can Make

First, let’s start with your merch options.

There are so many merch products available to creators now, and you can get them printed with quotes and images your audience wants to wear.

Here are some popular merch products:

Sweatpants: Sweatpants have long been the leisurewear of choice for all generations
Shirts & Sweatshirts: They’re easy to source, comfy to wear day and night, and consumers can always be tempted by unique designs
Socks: This lightweight item is cheap to ship, they can make fun gifts, and they’re a subtle way for consumers to rep their merch
Hats: Functional and simple, yet a go-to merch product
Mugs: They’re easy to customize and market
Phone Cases: Since the general population is pretty much stapled to their phones, why not offer customized phone cases?
Jewelry: Earrings, necklaces, and bracelets can be special, more premium merch options. Selling jewelry as merch can be easier than you think
Laptop Cases: Customize laptop cases and/or opt for various waterproof and hard-wearing materials—all branded with your logo, of course!
Backpacks: A necessary and very functional accessory, you can personalize backpacks with your logo or with embroidered illustrations
Beach Towels: Depending on your brand and audience, beach products might be an ideal merch product. Print your logo, designs, or slogans onto a beach towel!
Blankets: Create cozy blankets with your logo, designs, illustrations, or slogans. Provide a choice of fabrics and colors to suit your customers’ tastes!
Canvases: Are you an artist, designer, illustrator, or photographer? Print your work onto canvases so your customers can purchase your creations
Tote Bags: Tote bags are an original merch product and for good reason—they’re functional, easy to source, practical, and consumers love to have multiple on-hand!
Facemasks: Let’s face it—facemasks are here to stay for the indefinite future, so lean into it and create facemasks for your merch line! Whether you design your own masks or work with a fellow creator to develop something unique, it doesn’t matter; it’s a cheap and easy way to use up material and sell easy-to-ship products
Pet Bandanas: Does your pet have a popular social media account? Make some merch for your follower’s pets! Pet bandanas are an easy-to-make and sell item that plenty of pet owners can appreciate
Babygrows: A parent’s go-to staple, make babygrows with cute slogans, illustrations, or anything else associated with your brand
Aprons: Appeal to foodies, cooks, bakers, and home chefs with customized aprons!

This list is by no means exhaustive, as there are tons of options out there. But when you start selling merch, what kind of products you sell is up to you! You can mix and match your merch to suit your brand and get as creative as you want.

Where to Get Your Merch Made

Now that you have an idea of what kind of merch you can make—where do you get that merch made?

The good news is, you don’t have to make your merch yourself.

Long gone are the days of purchasing wholesale t-shirts in bulk and screenprinting your own designs onto them. You can work with dropshipping suppliers to make your merch for you.

We recommend outsourcing the merch-making process to a dropshipping company because it’s easier and likely cheaper for you! They handle the printing, packaging, inventory management, and shipping so all you have to do is make designs and handle your online store and customer service.

Below are 3 of the best dropshipping services we recommend.

Note: Looking for more dropshipping suppliers you could source merch from? Our Dropshipping Suppliers Directory lists dropshippers of all kinds. Find the products you’re looking for there.

Printful

Printful (Printful Review) is one of the best companies you can make merch with. Not only are they simple to use, but they also integrate directly with Shopify (Shopify Review) stores so you can automate order fulfillment and get your merch dropshipped directly to your customers’ doors.

Printful also offers a massive selection of print-on-demand products that you can customize with your own designs, illustrations, artwork, and slogans so you can make each merch item your own.

There are also no minimum order quantities or monthly subscription fees, and items generally go out to customers within three working days. They also offer custom packaging options, so your customer’s orders can be branded with stickers, labels, and customized packing slips.

Check Out Printful’s Shopify App Here

Gooten

Gooten is another reliable dropshipping supplier with a wide range of products to choose from. Their products are also print-on-demand so you can print your own designs, illustrations, slogans, etc. on each item, and they also integrate with Shopify stores.

We like to recommend Gooten because they offer print-on-demand products that other merch suppliers may not offer, like:

Journals and notebooks
Bathmats
Beer steins
Huggable body pillows
Compact mirrors
More ideas

Which can give you more choices that you may not see elsewhere.

If you’re looking to sell unique merch products, check out Gooten’s product selection to see what you can find.

Check Out Gooten’s Shopify App Here

Printify

Another great print-on-demand merch supplier is Printify. While their product offering is a little bit more curated, they provide high-quality items and promise quick turnaround times with their 90+ print provider locations.

Some of the items Printify offers include:

Insulated bottles
Enamel camping mugs
Desk calendars
Personalized lamps
Indoor wall tapestries

Check Out Printify’s Shopify App Here

Note: Like different products from all three of these merch suppliers? You don’t have to source your merch from just one supplier—you can source from all of them! To do this, it’s especially helpful if your store is on an ecommerce platform like Shopify so orders can be automatically fulfilled. Otherwise, you’ll have to manually track orders across all suppliers which can be confusing and lead to errors.

Getting Ideas for Your Merch Designs

If your talents lie in online marketing, sales, and lead generation, but you’re short on creative ideas for your merch, listen up!

You want to create designs that are distinct and tailored to the tastes of your specific audience. The important thing here is to avoid the generic. So, say you host a true-crime podcast. You’re going to want to make merch that’s tailored towards your audience and branded with your show’s title. Take True Crime All The Time as an example. They run a top-rated podcast and have successfully monetized their show by selling a wide array of branded merch.

Alternatively, if your YouTube, TikTok, or podcast shows have inside jokes, catchphrases, or different seasons, you can capitalize on creating products that your audience recognizes, loves, and identifies with. This is a simple yet effective way of uniting your online community.

If you’re still unsure what to print on your merch designs, reach out to your audience for ideas! Ask your followers to DM suggestions or leave comments on one of your posts. Run a competition for design/slogan suggestions where the winner(s) receive free merch and a shout-out on your social platforms. Or, run an Instagram or Facebook poll with multiple-choice suggestions where followers can vote for their favorite idea.

Designing Illustrations & Slogans for Your Merch

To actually create your merch designs, you have a few options. You can either:

Make Your Designs Yourself: If you’re up to the challenge, there’s plenty of software you can use to bring your design ideas to life, such as Canva and Adobe Photoshop. Check out YouTube or Skillshare tutorials to learn how to use the software if you don’t already know
Customize Design Templates: Find design templates on places like Creative Market and make them your own! This means you can still make bespoke designs without having to create them from scratch
Hire a Designer: If you don’t have the time nor the inclination, check out online marketplaces such as Upwork, Fiverr, and FreeUp to outsource your design work. A designer or illustrator will be able to turn your concepts into fully fleshed-out designs that look professional and high-quality

Setting Up Your Merch Store

Now it’s time to set up your online merch store and generate some income and brand awareness!

If you’ve committed to a dropshipping supplier, it’s pretty simple to set up your store because you have no inventory to buy upfront, and you don’t have to wait until your merch has been made before you can start selling because your supplier can print on demand.

So, all you need to do is set up your online store using your chosen ecommerce platform, then integrate it with Printful, Gooten, Printify, or whatever other dropshipping partners you’re using. From there, you can import your products onto your online storefront and start selling.

If you’re starting from scratch, we’re going to briefly walk you through what you need to do to set up a Shopify merch store.

Let’s walk through it step-by-step.

Step 1: Pick a Name

Decide on the name of your merch store. This could be the same title as your podcast or YouTube channel, or TikTok profile, or it could be something associated with it (like a catchphrase) that your audience will recognize and remember.

For name ideas, check out Shopify’s Domain Name Generator!

Step 2: Register for a Shopify Account

It’s easy to sign up for Shopify and there are several payment plans to choose from—including Shopify Lite which is an excellent option if you’re just dipping a toe in the water. From there, you can upgrade your plan as you scale your business over time.

If you’re unsure whether Shopify is the right platform for you, they offer a 14-day free trial that you can start with before you commit.

Step 3: Set up your Shopify Store

Follow Shopify’s prompts to get your store set up—they’ll lead you through the most important parts. They also have a helpful guide that goes into detail and this checklist for starting a new Shopify store.

But, to give you a sense of what’s involved, these are the general steps:

Log into your Shopify account
Name your store
Choose your legal business name and address
Add your billing information
Choose your payment gateway and default currency. Shopify integrates with all the major payment providers and you can accept payments in multiple currencies
Set up your shipping options. If your customers are local, you could set up your store to offer local pick-up and delivery options
Set your taxes
Set up your domain name

Step 4: Choose Your Merch Supplier

After reviewing all your options, select a merch supplier that suits your needs best.

When you work with suppliers like Printful, Gooten, and Printify you have lots of flexibility; you can sell just one of their products and expand later, you can list a few products and change them around whenever you want, and you can even source from multiple suppliers.

Ideally, sourcing your products from a supplier who integrates with Shopify will make your life a lot easier, so we recommend making that a priority when you choose your merch supplier.

Step 5: Make Your Merch Designs

Make your merch designs or hire someone to make your designs for you!

Make sure your designs look exactly how you want them, ensure that they’re unique and don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright (this applies to slogans/quotes as well), and if you purchase templates, ensure that you purchase the correct licensing option (such as a commercial license) so that you have the right to print the designs on items that are being sold.

Step 6: Order Samples

This is a super important step—don’t skip it! Order samples to make sure the quality of the product meets your standards and the design is printed properly on your product.

Most dropshipping suppliers will offer discounts on samples so merchants can check their merch before they sell it.

Step 7: Take Product Photos

Take product photos of your merch to upload onto your store. Remember, these are what will attract customers, so make sure that they’re of good quality!

Step 8: Choose a Website Theme

Choose a website theme that best reflects your brand. Website themes can be customized in small ways to your liking, but the overall layout will generally stay the same so pick a theme layout that you like. You can customize the colors, images, menus, and sections later.

Step 9: Test Your Store

Test your online store to guarantee that everything actually works before going live. The last thing you need is glitches from the get-go!

The easiest way to do this is to run trial transactions, refunds, and order cancellations to evaluate whether everything is operating as it should be. It’s also worth appraising Shopify’s fraud analysis settings so you’re better positioned to identify any rare cases of fraudulent orders.

Step 10: Launch & Start Selling!

Launch your site and make it public so your audience can buy your merch! Remove your store’s password so your site is accessible to the outside world and orders can start coming in.

Step 11: Market Your Merch Store

Start marketing via your YouTube channel, TikTok profile, podcast, and social feeds! Let your audience know that your merch store is up and running so they can support you and grab the merch they want to buy.

You can also encourage your audience to share photos of themselves wearing or using your merch so you can share their posts on your profile. This kind of user-generated content not only cements the relationship you have with your audience but also doubles as social proof which goes a long way to add to your brand’s credibility and establish trust.

Note: For marketing ideas to get more customers and sales, check out our 52 Week Marketing Plan!

Conclusion

So now you know how to make merch that represents your brand and your audience will love! Go get your merch brand started—what are you waiting for?

The post How to Make Merch for Your YouTube Channel, Podcast, or TikTok & Sell it Online appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

How to Start an Online Store Without Inventory

Valeria Santalla — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 01:27:24 +0000

Traditionally, launching an online store meant buying inventory upfront, investing in warehouse space, and handling shipping, service, and logistics. That level of investment is risky, particularly for new sellers who don’t have the capital to get up and running.

These days, new platforms and business models allow prospective sellers to launch and grow an ecommerce store without ever dealing with inventory, which greatly reduces the amount of risks and upfront costs involved in the process.

In fact, more and more stores are using low-risk business models such as dropshipping, 3PL, and print-on-demand.

In this article, we’re going to show you how to create an online store without inventory, one step at a time.

Let’s dive right in.

Step #1: Select a Business Model

If you’re wanting to start your first ecommerce business, you’ve probably looked into various business models. Here are some options for starting an online store without inventory, along with some pros and cons that come with each.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is popular with ecommerce brands as it removes many of the risks and startup costs associated with launching a retail store. The idea is, store owners purchase products from a third-party seller, who then ships the product directly to the customer. Ecommerce sellers don’t handle products directly, eliminating the need for warehouse space and allowing them to save time otherwise spent on fulfillment and inventory management.

Pros:

Low barrier-to-entry
No inventory management
Change up your inventory with minimal risk
Potential source of passive income
More time for marketing/other tasks

Cons:

Super competitive
Lower profit margins (mainly fees from dropshipping companies)
No control over your supply chain
Little control over the customer experience/product quality

Print-on-Demand

Print-on-demand is an ecommerce business model that works in a way that means you don’t hold any inventory.

All you do is create designs to put onto white-label products (like t-shirts, mugs, books, etc.) and work with a print-on-demand supplier who will fulfill orders for your products on a per-item basis.

You don’t pay anything until a product is bought, after which the print-on-demand company will handle everything; from printing, packaging, and shipping the product out to the customer.

Print on Demand companies such as Printful (Printful Review) and Printify have printing warehouses in various locations worldwide so you can have your products printed and shipped locally to the customer.

So if you’re an artist, writer, designer, or entrepreneur looking to sell physical products then print-on-demand could be a great option for you.

Pros:

Unlike other no-inventory models (such as dropshipping) the shipping times with POD are much less as you can work with global printing companies
You can create products very quickly and have them online ready to sell in no time at all
Your product suppliers handle all the shipping and fulfillment so don’t have to worry about any of that
As the risks and investment are so low you can easily test out various designs and niches to see what works best. You only ever pay if someone buys one of your products
It can become a great source of passive income (after you put the initial work into it)

Cons:

You need to create (or get) designs to sell on your Print on Demand products. Which can be hard for less creative people
The profit margins are lower than other business models as you’ll be sharing the revenue with the Print on Demand companies that you work with
You also can only customize the products so much. Different POD companies offer different products but you essentially have to use the products they have in their range

All in all, it’s fairly risk-free, efficient, and fun, with tons of niche markets that you can capitalize on. For this reason, we think it’s a great model to create your first online store. Still, many of the tips that we’ll tackle below are still good practice for most online stores.

3PL

If you do have room in your budget to invest in inventory, another option is 3PL (third-party logistics). The 3PL model is a bit different from dropshipping or print-on-demand in that it does require store owners to purchase inventory before they can sell it.

But, unlike the traditional ecommerce model, store owners outsource warehousing and fulfillment to a third-party provider.

Pros:

Someone else handles time-consuming admin tasks
You don’t need to invest in warehouse space
Shipping and fulfillment are handled by experienced pros

Cons:

You do need to spend money upfront to get started
You lose some control over your inventory and service experience
Introduces risks — labor strikes, turnover, natural disasters — that can increase transportation lead times
You’ll need to manage inventory from afar

Step #2: Getting Started with Your Online Store

Researching & Choosing Your Niche

Before setting up your online store, you need to specify which niche you’ll be positioning your products in.

Your niche refers to the specific market that you’ll be selling to. You can specify your niche based on a combination of aesthetics (e.g. cutesy or minimalist), type of product (e.g. t-shirts, home decor), or theme (e.g. wellness, witty one-liners).

Although you can always expand or narrow down your niche later, this will form the foundation of your branding.

When it comes to choosing your niche, it’s best to have a balanced approach — consider what you’re naturally drawn to as well as what will be profitable. Which products and industries are you already passionate about? This will make you more motivated to keep researching and creating new designs.

It also gives you plenty of instant insider knowledge since you’ll already have an idea of online resources for that niche, from top social media accounts to exciting updates. You can try listing down five of your favorite niches based on this.

Next, you’ll boil it down to one specific niche by examining the existing demand for each niche that you listed. There are multiple ways to do this:

Analyze what potential competitors are doing so you’ll know how you can stand out from the crowd
Use keyword research tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to check whether a lot of people are searching for products in your niche
Visit print-on-demand marketplaces like Etsy, Merch by Amazon, or Redbubble and look at which designs draw in a lot of customers
Check out Google Trends or read up on news related to the niche to get a big picture of what people are interested in

By thoroughly doing this for each niche that you listed, you’ll be able to pinpoint which niche has the most potential opportunities for you.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Once you’ve settled on a niche, you can go one step further by understanding your target audience.

Before building your store, it’s ideal to have a good understanding of who you’re selling to, from their needs and desires to their pain points. You must know enough to be able to build a thorough customer profile. This includes basic information such as their gender, age, and income level along with psychological characteristics such as their hobbies and values.

Of course, you won’t be imagining this from scratch.

Doing research online gives you more than enough material to work with. A few ideas for starting your search:

Check out your competitors’ social media pages. Who follows them? Who engages most frequently with their posts?
Read reviews of similar products. Look for common themes — what do people like? What did they feel was missing from a particular product? What pain points did they mention in their review?
Visit forums and online communities where your target audience is likely to hang out. Examples include subreddits, LinkedIn or Facebook Groups, or Twitter threads — places where people speak freely about topics related to your product/niche
Conduct surveys and interviews. Ask people within your target market about related products that they’ve purchased, how they find products and research different options, what channels they use, and what’s missing from the current market. The list doesn’t end there but this should help you figure out what to sell and how to reach the right audience
Do market research to spot big-picture trends. Finally, you’ll also want to zoom out and get a better sense of what’s trending within your niche. Collecting real-world data will help you build a much more realistic customer profile, and you’ll also get surprising insights along the way

Choosing Products to Sell

If you’re using the dropship model, you might try using some of the following methods to identify which products to add to your store:

Browse other online stores in your niche. If you’re selling home decor products, look at what kinds of items other shops are offering — are any brands or items especially hot right now?
Head over to Google Trends or Wish.com. Both sites can help you find out what products people are searching for, allowing you to capitalize on emerging trends before everyone else gets in on the action
Check out crowdfunding sites, too. Another idea is looking at sites like Kickstarter for inspiration. Look at which campaigns/products are getting the most traction to get an idea of what might do well in your store
Join dropshipping communities. Look for online groups within your niche — whether that’s fashion, beauty, home & garden, whatever. You can join these groups on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, etc. to learn more about in-demand products

If you’re going the print-on-demand route, you might sell items like:

T-shirts
Mugs
Phone cases
Tote bags
Pet products
Posters/photographs

Print-on-demand is an effective business model for creators (think bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, etc.) with a built-in fanbase. Here, choosing what to sell has more to do with understanding your audience. For example, if you’re offering shirts and tote bags, you’ll want to consider the fabrics, fit, and style your audience prefers. Look at the other brands they follow,

Print-on-demand also allows more “traditional” ecommerce brands to customize products with their name or an original design. In this case, you’ll want to research what types of items are trending in general, similar to how you might approach selecting dropshipping products.

Step #3: Choosing Your Platform

You don’t actually have to create your own store to start selling with print-on-demand. You can often just list your products on platforms like RedBubble and Zazzle, and utilize their existing audience to try and generate sales for your items.

That’s all well and good, but if you want to increase your profits and create your own brand, the best option is to create your own online store.

With all of the ecommerce platforms and print-on-demand marketplaces out there, it can be tricky to choose which one to build your store on. Below is a roundup of the top platforms for online stores.

Shopify

Who Shopify is for: People who want to get up and running ASAP and/or have limited website design experience.

Shopify (Shopify Review) is the top choice for many ecommerce entrepreneurs. This full-fledged platform comes with everything you need to build and run an online store, from thousands of theme templates to multiple payment channels. Shopify is so easy to use that you can get your online store up and running in as fast as a few hours — no coding needed.

They also have more than 4,000 apps in their app store, including a multi-language store translator, integration with Google and Facebook ads, and SEO image optimizers. If you’re selling your products on other channels such as Amazon and Etsy, there’s likely to be an app that can coordinate your inventory.

The main benefit of Shopify is that it makes your workflow much smoother because of how much it automates many key business processes. On the other hand, it’s the most expensive out of the platforms listed here. Aside from your monthly subscription, you can rack up costs fast as you keep on adding more apps and specialized features.

WooCommerce

Who WooCommerce is for: People planning on running their online store through WordPress. It’s a bit more technical than something like Shopify or BigCommerce and you’ll need to vet third-party apps yourself.

Although Shopify is among the most well-known ecommerce platforms, more online stores actually use WooCommerce. Out of the top 1 million ecommerce sites, 28% use WooCommerce, while only 19% use Shopify.

The difference between the two is that WooCommerce isn’t a standalone platform. Instead, it’s a plug-in that runs on WordPress websites.

Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce is also free and open-source. You’ll still have to pay for your WordPress website’s hosting and security, but you can turn it into an online store with no extra charges using WooCommerce. For added features such as integrations with Google Analytics and HubSpot, you can check out the WooCommerce extensions store, which offers both free and paid apps.

Using WooCommerce may help you save money while still having access to top-notch features. The downside is that there’s much more legwork involved. You’ll have to set it up yourself on your WordPress site’s back-end, and it’ll take you longer to get your store up and running.

Etsy

Who Etsy is for: People who want to sell online but don’t want to build and manage their own website. Etsy is a marketplace, not an ecommerce platform, so you’ll need to follow platform guidelines for product listings and will be subject to additional fees.

While Shopify and Woocommerce both enable you to build your own website, Etsy is an online marketplace where you simply create a page for your store then start selling from there.

From there, potential customers can find your store under Etsy’s categories or through Etsy’s search engine. Since Etsy can direct customers to your store based on what they’re searching for, there’s less pressure for you to go all-out with marketing.

Assuming that you’re only using Etsy’s basic features, you won’t have to pay a monthly subscription either. Fees are charged per listing and for sale transactions instead.

The tradeoff is that you won’t have as much control over your store and you’ll have to play by Etsy’s rules. You also have limited design options since your store will only appear as a page on Etsy. However, Etsy also has a website builder called Etsy Pattern, where you can build a website with its own domain.

Step #4: Creating a Branding & Marketing Strategy

Just because you build it, doesn’t mean people will come on their own. You need to develop a branding and marking strategy to increase the traffic to your online store, generate sales, and build a community of loyal customers.

Branding

Since you already have your niche, target audience, and main platform in mind, you can move on to establishing your branding.

Here are some questions that you’ll have to tackle:

What is your unique value proposition?
Which problem is your business trying to solve, and why does that matter for your target audience?
What is the “why” behind your online business? Beyond earning money, why does this business exist?
How would you describe your business? Try to nail down five adjectives that best sum up who you are and what you do
What personality do you want to convey, and what kind of tone will you use for your messaging? Are you going for a professional, authoritative tone? Or more of a cool vibe?
What’s your company story?

You can formulate a paragraph answering all of these in around five sentences. This will serve as your guide when you’re creating your business name, logo, website, and other branding materials. Regardless of the platform that you’re using, your online store must have a cohesive identity.

Marketing

Marketing is the lifeblood of your online store.

No matter how great your products are, marketing has a massive impact on your sales and long-term success.

Since marketing is always evolving, it can be hard to know where to start. Rather than haphazardly applying different strategies, it’s better to come up with a systematic approach.

Obviously, marketing an online store is a multi-faceted strategy involving many different channels and types of content — but here’s a general outline for how you might approach this:

Decide on a realistic, measurable goal. For example, you might want to sell 300 t-shirts within your first three months
List down the marketing channels that you’ll focus on. Because you’re still starting out, it’s advisable to focus on only two at a time. The right combination of marketing channels also depends on your specific brand, so you’ll have to do some testing to figure out which channels yield the best results
Brainstorm which campaigns you can implement for each marketing channel and how you’ll determine success. What are your goals for each channel? How will you track your results?

You can then implement your marketing plan while constantly keeping your eye on the data and making adjustments as needed.

Marketing Channels

Your initial marketing plan might involve the following:

Content & SEO

If your online store is running on its own website, then ramping up your content and SEO efforts is crucial.

At the very least, your website should look good, with visually appealing product photos and comprehensive FAQ sections that explain the ordering process clearly and provide detailed product descriptions so people know exactly what they’ll get.

Your entire website should also be optimized for SEO, with every product page and description containing relevant keywords.

Beyond getting your product pages in order, it might be worthwhile to start a blog. It’s essential to create a content marketing strategy, and also to have plenty of content ideas to get your blog going.

Social Media

For print-on-demand businesses, visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are ideal for showcasing new designs in front of existing fans and attracting new ones.

More traditional ecommerce stores using dropshipping also benefit from these channels though you might follow a slightly different approach. In this case, you might include shoppable tags and collections, collaborate with the brands featured in your store, and use remarketing ads to bring back past customers when you have new items in stock.

Additionally, make sure you consider what users expect from different social media platforms. Instagram users often have online shopping on the brain when they scroll through their feed, so they may be ready to order directly from the platform when they discover something they love.

Pinterest is more about discovery or gathering ideas, while TikTok is more about capturing audiences’ attention with entertaining content. YouTube, on the other hand, is ideal for showing people how a product is used — either through tutorials or reviews.

There are plenty of online tools such as t-shirt and book mockup generators that make creating designs for social media campaigns a breeze. Sites like Canva and Placeit are also great options.

Paid Ads

While both content and social media campaigns are technically free (though both involve a significant time investment), you can boost traffic to your online store with paid ads. Your choices here include paid social (Instagram, Facebook Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube) as well as Google Shopping (search) and Display Ads (remarketing on other websites).

If you’re planning to be active on Instagram, you can start with Instagram ads. Since these ads target users based on their demographics, lifestyle, and the accounts they follow, you can quickly get your designs in front of hundreds of people right away.

Beyond these marketing channels, there are many more that you can try out, from email newsletters to partnering with influencers.

However, when you’re still in the initial phase of your online business, the channels above are likely to give you the greatest benefits right away while keeping your costs down. As your business grows, you’ll be able to execute more complex marketing strategies across multiple platforms.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s important to understand that even these “no-inventory” business models require a lot of time and effort to grow into a reliable source of income.

Dropshipping, print-on-demand, and working with 3PL suppliers are all viable options to launch an online store with minimal risk and reduced startup costs. However, you’ll want to carefully weigh the pros, cons, and fine print of each option before you commit.

With a thorough marketing plan, strong branding, and a data-driven product strategy, building a thriving online store — with little upfront investment — is well within reach.

The post How to Start an Online Store Without Inventory appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

Printful Review: Sell High Quality Dropshipping Products

A Better Lemonade Stand — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 16:00:10 +0000

If you’ve ever heard of dropshipping, read articles on how to start a t-shirt business, or even ones about starting your own clothing line, or print-on-demand products, then you’ve probably heard of Printful. With over 1 million items shipped every month, 33 million products million items delivered since 2013, and 272 high-quality products to choose from, they’re a leading supplier of dropshipping goods and services. Since Printful provides great products at a great price with great service, they’re often an entrepreneur’s first choice when it comes to partnering with a dropshipper. But is Printful worth the hype?

In this Printful review we’re going to discuss what Printful does, the products and services they offer, what makes them so good at what they do, and whether they’re worth all the hype that they get.

Let’s jump into it.

Note: If you want to learn more about what dropshipping is, check out our Dropshipping 101: What is Dropshipping? post. But if you already have an idea of what dropshipping is and want to learn more about Printful’s dropshipping capabilities, keep reading.

What Printful Does
Who Printful Is For
Printful’s Features & Services
Pros & Cons of Printful
Printful’s Pricing
Printful FAQs

What Printful Does

Printful is a dropshipping service provider of apparel, accessories, and homeware goods such as t-shirts, hats, posters, throw pillows, mugs, jewelry, tote bags, stickers, phone cases, and much more. Their service is ideal for several reasons:

They don’t require any minimum purchases (MOQs), meaning you can order as little as one item at a time
You don’t have to purchase any inventory upfront or manage any inventory (no printing machines, no products, etc.)—Printful handles it all for you
Printful ships products straight to your customers so you don’t have to manage the shipping process
There are no monthly fees (unless you opt into Printful Pro)
Items ship, on average, within 3 days
Printful ships items again in the event that they are lost or damaged in transit
They offer personalized branding options such as adding logo stickers to packaging or custom packing slips

Printful provides the products, prints on the products, packages, and fulfills the order, and sends it directly to your customers—all you have to do is send orders to them with the order’s details and they’ll handle the rest.

To learn more about how their process works, check out the Printful Print Order Lifecycle.

They’re in the business of helping you create products for your business, and they provide all the necessary tools and resources to help you easily integrate the dropshipping process into your ecommerce website so you can provide a seamless experience to your customers.

Printful also offers plenty of ecommerce platform integrations so you can connect your Printful account directly to whatever website you use to sell your products on, whether it’s Shopify, BigCommerce, Etsy, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Amazon, and more.

Printful is also transparent about their product and shipping prices so you can easily understand their costs and decide on your product markups. They also provide design, photography, and branding services so your products have the best chance of looking their best and what’s more—Printful has warehouses around the world so products ship quickly to your customers and even bypass shipping and duty fees on locally available items.

And, if you’re a business that has its own inventory separate from Printful, you can use Printful’s warehousing and fulfillment services to stock your products in their worldwide warehouses so your products can be shipped, stored, and fulfilled more easily and inexpensively than if you were to do it all yourself.

We’ll cover all of these points in more detail down below, so keep reading!

Who Printful is For

Printful is for ecommerce entrepreneurs who want the ease of selling dropshipping products without losing quality or their branding in the process.

Whether you’re looking for a way to sell your own designs to your customers be it on custom t-shirts, canvases, phone cases, pillows, and more, or if you’re interested in starting any kind of product-based business without the hassle of owning inventory or production materials, then Printful is for you.

Printful is for Businesses that Don’t Want to Compromise

Printful wants to make their merchants happy, so they continually add new products to their catalog so merchants can add new products to their stores often. As a merchant, this is great because it means you can keep your store fun and exciting by bringing out new products without having to source them from anywhere else.

For businesses that don’t want to compromise on their product quality, shipping speed, profit margins, and product selection, Printful is one of the best choices on the market. Why?

Printful doesn’t compromise on quality just because they offer dropshipping products—they keep things high quality
Printful has warehouses located all around the world so products get to customers fast
Printful is transparent about their prices and suggests RRPs so merchants know what their profit margins are before they sell a product
Printful adds new products all the time, so their product selection keeps growing

Printful’s efficiency, transparency, high-quality product offering, and varied selection are part of the reason why they’re so successful, and their ability to work with businesses to help them provide the best services for their customers is what keeps them growing.

Printful is for Business Owners with No Experience

Best of all, you don’t have to have any prior business experience if you want to source from Printful.

The services they offer are accessible to both seasoned entrepreneurs and new business owners alike, so if you’ve never started your own business or haven’t sourced products from a dropshipping supplier before then you can still give Printful a try! There’s no minimum order requirement, no monthly fees (unless you choose to opt for Printful Pro), and you only pay for orders as your customers make them so it’s a low-risk way to start your own business.

You don’t have to have any prior business experience if you want to source from Printful. The services they offer are accessible to both seasoned entrepreneurs and new business owners alike

Let’s learn more about Printful’s features and services.

Printful’s Features & Services

What Printful provides sellers extends far beyond just their product offering and standard dropshipping services. Those things are a huge part of what makes Printful so valuable—but they also offer so much more.

Printful offers a wide range of features and services like tools that enable sellers to get their stores set up easily, resources that help sellers create more beautiful products, and additional services that enable merchants to use Printful’s services to their fullest extent.

Let’s get into everything that Printful offers.

Print-on-Demand Products

Printful offers one of the biggest catalogs of print-on-demand dropshipping products on the market, and they’re constantly growing their product offerings.

Their products fall mainly within the apparel, homeware, and accessories categories and every product they offer can be printed, and/or embroidered, and/or engraved.

Their product offering currently includes:

T-Shirts/Tops
Hoodies
Sweatpants
Jackets
Leggings
Shorts
Underwear
Skirts
Dresses
Swimsuits
Sports Bras
Kids Clothing
Baby Bodysuits
Baby Bibs
Posters
Canvases
Coffee Mugs
Hats
Beanies
Throw Pillows
Tote Bags
Phone Cases
Socks
Aprons
Blankets
Duffle Bags
Jewelry
Laptop Cases
Facemasks
Keychains
Backpacks
Notebooks
Stickers
Fanny Packs
Flip Flops
Water Bottles
Postcards
Towels
Bean Bags
Pet Tags

And more. For information about their products and product pricing, check out Printful’s Custom Products page. They also listen to their sellers and they add new products regularly, so if there’s a product you want to see just let them know via their New Feature Requests page (note that you must sign in to your account with Printful to access their Feature Requests page).

Printing, Embroidery & Engraving Options

There are several different printing methods out there, but the one that Printful primarily sticks to is Direct-to-Garment (DTG) printing. This is Printful’s printing method of choice because it’s a cost- and labor-effective way to print single-order items and the reason why they don’t require minimum orders. They also offer all-over sublimation printing for some clothing items, screen printing in some cases (for large orders only), embroidery for hats and apparel, giclée printing for art, and engraving for jewelry and metal items.

When it comes to printing, Printful makes it easy for you. You don’t have to worry about picking the best printing method for the item you’re printing on—every product offered on their website is printed in the way that best suits the product. Check out Printful’s Printing FAQ page for more information and answers to commonly asked questions.

Dropshipping: Picking, Packing & Shipping

Since Printful provides a dropshipping service, there’s no need for you to ever handle or manage any of your products or inventory, and you don’t handle the packaging, shipping, or fulfillment aspects either. Printful stores, prints, picks, packs, ships, and fulfills every product—so you never have to.

This is why dropshipping is such an attractive business model for entrepreneurs who are starting their first store or don’t have a large budget to invest in product inventory or manufacturing tools. It provides a low-risk way for sellers to provide great products to their customers, and it allows sellers to focus on other aspects of their stores such as the designs, branding, customer service, or marketing without having to worry about the technical side of things like printing products and shipping them.

Currently, Printful dropships from their warehouses in:

Charlotte, North Carolina
Los Angeles, California
Dallas, TX
Toronto, Ontario
Tijuana, Mexico
Riga, Latvia
Barcelona, Spain
Birmingham, UK
São Paulo, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Amakusa, Japan
Melbourne, Australia
Brisbane, Australia

This does, of course, mean that you’re paying for Printful’s services and for them to warehouse, ship, and fulfill your products for you. While you don’t pay for their service in monthly fees or minimum orders, your profit margins will be affected and will be smaller than if you were manufacturing products yourself. This disadvantage is not exclusive to Printful, it applies to the dropshipping business model as a whole. It is, however, an important aspect of dropshipping to keep in mind so you can prepare your margins accordingly.

Warehousing & Fulfillment for Ecommerce Stores

Printful also offers a warehousing and fulfillment service where they store, pick, pack, and ship products on behalf of merchants—even if they aren’t Printful products!

Printful has a sophisticated network of shipping, fulfillment, and logistics solutions that they hire out to merchants who need access to these resources. With this service, you can store your products in their warehouses and they’ll fulfill your orders and ship your products as your orders come in. Your products will ship directly to your customers (they won’t be shipped to you first) and they’ll also be shipped with your own brand packaging so you won’t lose out on your brand experience.

Currently, Printful’s warehousing and fulfillment services operate out of a selection of their globally-dispersed warehouse network, including:

Charlotte, North Carolina
Los Angeles, California
Toronto, Ontario
Riga, Latvia
Barcelona, Spain

This is an ideal option for ecommerce merchants who don’t want to handle shipping and fulfillment themselves or don’t have the resources to operate a shipping warehouse, or even don’t have the expertise to create an efficient and cost-effective global shipping strategy.

If this sounds like a service you need, learn more about Printful’s warehousing and fulfillment services for ecommerce stores here.

Branding Services

Beyond offering great dropshipping products and a fulfillment service, Printful also offers design and branding services to help take businesses to the next level.

Usually, one of the biggest problems when dropshipping is that your branding becomes compromised. Since dropshippers send orders to many different customers on behalf of many different brands, they can’t create a unique branding experience for every package so they typically ship everything in plain packaging. This means that small but important touches like branded packing inserts and branded receipts aren’t used, which causes brands to lose out on important touchpoints.

Printful recognized this hardship and offers a few branding options to make it more personable between brands and customers.

Opt to use one of Printful’s branded pack-in options, like:

Flyers and coupons
Business cards
Branded stickers
Postcards
Handwritten thank-you cards

And, you can even make use of Printful’s white-label services to make each product more on brand. Printful’s white label services include:

Branded inner labels
Branded outer labels
Branded embroidered labels
Branded packing slips
A customizable return address

These options help to maintain brand consistency between your website and the products your customers receive so you can continue to build on the experience. To learn more about the branding services Printful offers, check out this page.

Design Services

Printful’s experienced team can also help you with the design requirements you might need to get your ecommerce store off the ground.

Not only can they help you prepare print files for Printful products, but they can also help you with any other design needs like redesigning logos, creating sublimation print files, color-matching print files, making minor adjustments to print files, creating new graphics, creating custom artwork and more.

Plus, you can even get Printful to provide product photography services and video production services for your business as well.

This is an ideal service for the ecommerce merchant who has an idea of what designs they want to print on their products but aren’t sure how to bring it to life, or the store owner who wants to outsource the artwork creation process so they can free up some time to handle other aspects of building their business.

With Printful’s dedicated design team, you’re in good hands. They can take the reins on your designs so you can focus on doing the things you do best. If this is a service you might require, check out Printful’s Design Services page here for more information.

Note: If you want to create great designs for your dropshipping products without working with Printful’s design team, check out Printful’s integration with stock photo magnate, Getty Images. You can choose from 80 million of Getty’s images to print on your products which makes designing cool products so much easier. Learn more about Printful’s Getty integration here.

Ecommerce Store Setup Services

Want to start an ecommerce store and sell Printful products but don’t have the time or tech skills to get it up and running. Yep, Printful can do that for you too.

They’ve got plenty of experience starting and running ecommerce stores, so they can get one set up for you while you sit back and relax. They’ll build your store from scratch, connect it to Printful, and add all the finishing touches you want.

Printful sets up Shopify and WooCommerce stores for merchants so if you’re interested in their services, learn more here.

Ecommerce Platform Integrations

Printful integrates with the most commonly used ecommerce platforms, and installation for most of these platforms is easy and fast.

Integrating Printful with your ecommerce store means that you don’t have to manually handle each customer’s order and submit them to Printful yourself. When you integrate Printful with your ecommerce platform, every time your customers place an order it automatically gets sent to Printful so you don’t have to handle it at all. This means that orders get sent to Printful immediately and there’s no chance of losing the order or making a mistake on the order details throughout the transition.

This is great news if you want to run an automated dropshipping store that you don’t need to be hands-on with at all times.

Printful integrations are available with these ecommerce platforms:

Or, you can connect your store to Printful via an API integration.

For more information about the platforms Printful integrates with and for comparisons of each one, check out Printful’s Ecommerce Drop Shipping Integrations page.

Helpful Tools & Resources

As we’ve mentioned before, what makes Printful such a valuable service to use is that they’re committed to not only providing great service through their product offering and fulfillment capabilities, but they also go the extra mile to help sellers use Printful to its fullest extent.

The tools and resources Printful provides to help their merchants sell better include:

Printing Tips: They provide plenty of articles that are easily accessible through their homepage to help sellers understand the different printing advantages and disadvantages such as DTG print file transparency, fabric facts, sublimation printing facts, garment printing facts, and information on how to create embroidery files so merchants can get the best possible print on their products.
Mockup Generator: Use their mockup generator to apply your designs digitally to their products to get a sense of what the finished product will look like or to create product images for your ecommerce store.
Printful App: Keep an eye on your store while you’re on the go with Printful’s app.
Printful Pro: Get even more out of Printful with a Printful Pro subscription. Access their background removal tool, 400+ exclusive clipart images, the keyword scout for Etsy, additional premium images at no extra cost, and get embroidery files digitized for free.
Getty Images Integration: Pick from 80 million Getty images to add to your Printful designs. Learn more here.
Profit Calculator: As we’ve mentioned, the dropshipping business model inherently means you’ll be working with slimmer profit margins, so use their profit calculator to determine exactly what your margins will be for each product so you can budget your markup accordingly.
Samples: In order to sample items for yourself or to test out Printful’s products, they provide discounted sample products and shipping prices to sellers.
Checklist: Check out their checklist to help you set up your store with Printful in the quickest and most prepared way possible.
Printful Lessons: Kick your ecommerce store up a notch with the help of Printful Lessons. They have videos covering all types of content including business-building advice, marketing techniques, design and style trend reports, and guides to getting started on Printful.
Blog: Printful’s blog is a valuable resource to go to if you’re interested in learning more about their products, services, integrations, or how to actually build your store the way you want it. They’re experts on their products and services, so if you need any more information about what they do, check out their blog posts.
YouTube Channel: For video walkthroughs and demonstrations, check out their active YouTube channel to learn more about their products, how their products are created, new product or service offerings, and more.
Sustainability & Responsibility: Printful understands the role it plays in the larger conversations of sustainability and responsibility. Check out their sustainability and responsibility efforts here.

Pros & Cons of Printful

While Printful offers many different services, resources, and tools that are valuable to their sellers, there are still some aspects of their services that they are working to improve. Let’s dive into the advantages and disadvantages of using Printful as a dropshipping service provider.

Pros:

USA-based & European-based warehouses, therefore products are easily accessible to major consumer markets
Low-risk business model sincere no upfront purchase of inventory is necessary
High-quality products
High-quality printing capabilities
A large variety of products to choose from
No minimum orders requirements
No monthly fees to use their service (unless opting into Printful Pro)
No import fees on locally available products
Transparent shipping prices
Products ship out products to customers, on average, within 3 days
Customizable branding options
Re-shipments for lost or damaged products
Plenty of online resources for guidance on their products and services
Automate your business with their ecommerce platform integrations

Cons:

At this time, their product selection is composed primarily of apparel, accessories, and homeware goods only
Typically there are slim profit margins for dropshipped goods (this is true for dropshipping as a whole—it’s not exclusive to Printful)
Their branding options are limited (you can’t use your own boxes, poly-mailers, tissue paper, or anything beyond what customizations they offer)
Some products, such as the framed posters or canvases, may not ship everywhere

So, is Printful worth the hype?

Ultimately, Printful offers the best dropshipping service when it comes to apparel, accessories, and homeware printing and distributing. They have a large offering of high-quality products, and they strive to get it right every time. They also work with their sellers to continuously improve the products and services they offer whether that’s getting new types of products in, or adding more selection to what they currently offer.

Their drive to offer high-quality products and services and to constantly improve their products, tools, and resources is why so many sellers choose to work with them and continue to sell with them.

Printful is essentially a full-service ecommerce dropshipping solution, and that’s hard to find anywhere else at the same scale that Printful offers.

Printful’s Pricing

Printful’s pricing varies for each product they offer, so for all the information regarding their product’s pricing, refer to their Products & Pricing page. Printful also does not require any minimum orders or monthly fees (unless you opt into Printful Pro), so you only pay for their products when your customers order them from you.

Printful FAQs

What is Printful?

Printful is a dropshipping supplier that offers a large range of high-quality products in the apparel, accessories, and homeware niches. They integrate directly with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce so merchants can source and sell dropshipping products directly to their customers without having to purchase inventory upfront or handle any part of the shipping process. They print merchant’s designs on all of their products so every business owner can sell unique items, and Printful ships all over the world from their globally-dispersed fulfillment warehouses.

Is Printful Worth the Hype?

Ultimately, yes. Printful is worth the hype. They do dropshipping so well that it’s hard to find any other dropshipper offering the same services that Printful does as well as Printful does. If you want to create custom designs and print them on dropshipping products, Printful should rank high on your considerations list.

Is Printful Easy to Use?

Overall, yes, Printful is easy to use. There may be a bit of a learning curve to figure out if you’ve never created design files before, but Printful is used to working with brand new entrepreneurs so their customer support team is always ready to help. Plus, if you’re really lost you can check out Printful’s Help Center to find your answers, or reach out directly to the Printful team to get clarification.

Why is Printful Better than Other Dropshippers?

Printful is one of the best dropshippers on the market because they make dropshipping easy for merchants. They offer a wide range of high-quality products, there are no minimum order requirements, they ship worldwide, they have fulfillment centers in many different countries, and they really listen to merchants and keep expanding their services to make them even better.

How Much Does Printful Cost?

Printful is free to use—you just have to purchase from Printful once one of your customers purchases a product from you. There are no monthly fees (unless you opt into Printful Pro, but you don’t have to) and there are no minimum order requirements.

Where Does Printful Ship From?

Printful ships from their warehouses located in Charlotte, North Carolina, Los Angeles, California, Dallas, Texas, Toronto, Ontario, Tijuana, Mexico, Riga, Latvia, Barcelona, Spain, Birmingham, United Kingdom, São Paulo, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Amakusa, Japan, Melbourne, Australia, Brisbane, Australia.

How Much Does Printful Charge for Shipping?

How much Printful charges for shipping depends on where they’re shipping from, where they’re shipping to, and which product(s) is being shipped. You can find Printful’s shipping information here and their very helpful article The Beginner’s Guide to Ecommerce Shipping Pricing here.

How Much is Printful Per Month?

Printful is free to use and they don’t charge a monthly fee for their regular services. Printful only charges you if you order a product from them. Printful Pro is an option for merchants who want to access more features, and it costs $49/month or $539/year.

With Printful Pro you can:

Customize 250+ products
Integrate with 15+ ecommerce platforms
Create product templates
Create designs in the Design Maker
Download mockups and print files
Use 700 clipart images
Use the background removal tool
400+ exclusive clipart images
Promo Maker
Keyword Scout for Etsy
Use Premium Images at no extra cost
Get embroidery files digitized for free

Is Printful Legit?

Yes, Printful is legitimate. Printful has been around since 2013 and they’ve grown massively since then, and they’ve continued to expand their services and product offerings. We’ve personally used Printful to start businesses like the t-shirt business we mentioned in our How to Start a T-Shirt Business post and it’s one of the main dropshipping suppliers we always suggest to new entrepreneurs because it’s so easy to use and they offer so many products.

Is Printful Worth It?

If you want to start a dropshipping business, Printful is definitely worth checking out. They offer a lot of great products and their product range is constantly expanding, plus they offer great printing and fulfillment services so they’re a great dropshipping supplier to work with.

Does Printful Ship Worldwide?

Yes, Printful ships worldwide, however, there are a few countries that Printful doesn’t ship to, including Cuba, Iran, Crimea, Syria, and North Korea.

Some products may not be available in all regions and some products may not ship to all regions, but for the most part, everything is accessible worldwide. If a product is not available or doesn’t ship worldwide for any reason, Printful will make it clear on their website.

How Does Printful Work?

Printful works like a dropshipping supplier. The full explanation of how Printful works can be found here.

Does Printful Ship for You?

Yes, Printful ships for you. They’re a dropshipping supplier, so once they have your customer’s order they pick, pack, and ship the order straight to your customer but they make it look like you sent it.

Is Printful Good Quality?

One of the best things about Printful is that their products are high-quality. Many dropshipping suppliers get a bad reputation for having low-quality products, but not Printful. Their products and printing are high-quality so they’re worth what merchants and customers pay for.

Does Printful Automatically Ship Orders?

When Printful is integrated into your ecommerce platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce—see Printful’s full list of ecommerce integration partners here) your customer’s orders will automatically be transferred to Printful and they’ll automatically print, package, and ship the order directly to your customer. You don’t have to do anything on your end—it’s completely automated!

Conclusion

Printful provides one of the best apparel, homewares, and accessories dropshipping services in the world. Their high-quality products coupled with their valuable printing, shipping, and fulfillment services make them an easy choice for sellers who want to start their own business without the risk associated with purchasing large quantities of products or expensive equipment upfront.

Printful goes above and beyond simply offering a dropshipping service as they aim to improve sellers’ experiences with their services by offering useful tools and resources to help them provide a better experience for their own customers. If you’re interested in starting your own ecommerce store via the dropship business model, we highly recommend checking out Printful.

The post Printful Review: Sell High Quality Dropshipping Products appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

How to Start a Clothing Line: Your Complete Guide to Design, Sampling, Production & Packaging

A Better Lemonade Stand — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:00:24 +0000

Starting a clothing line can be a very rewarding experience for a creative entrepreneur with a vision. Whether you’re looking to create a simple line of printed apparel or you want to create an entire cut and sew collection featuring various pieces and seasonal additions, this post will show you how to start a clothing line.

Depending on what kind of clothing line you want to create, there are likely going to be many different steps involved in the process. The more involved you want to be in the sourcing and production of your line, the more time, effort, and money you’ll have to invest. If you’re just interested in starting something quick and easy, there are options for that too. In this post, we’re going to show you step-by-step how you can start your own clothing line whether you have a budget of $100, or if you have more than $10,000 to invest.

If you’ve ever been thinking about starting a clothing brand, look no further. This post has been in the works for nearly a year and along the way, we’ve included the knowledge and experience of dozens of entrepreneurs and companies from the clothing industry.

This industry knowledge ranges from:

A small brand that managed to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised $300,000 which they put towards manufacturing their high-end merino wool clothing line
A private label wholesaler of blank apparel who targets the B2B market
A pattern maker and tech pack designer who works with aspiring clothing line creators to help bring their visions to life
And finally, we’ve gone right to the source to get insight from a factory that dyes yarn and weaves textiles

There’s a lot involved when it comes to starting your own clothing line, so let’s jump into it.

How to Start a Clothing Line: Table of Contents

Deciding on Clothing Products You Want To Sell
Choosing a Clothing Line Business Model
The Elements of A Successful Clothing Brand
Differentiating Your Clothing Line
Developing a Business Plan for Your Clothing Line
Crafting a Brand for Your Clothing Line
The Product Development Process for Your Clothing Line
Conclusion

Deciding on Clothing Products You Want to Sell

You have a lot of choices when it comes to creating apparel and fashion products.

If you’ve always wanted to start a clothing line, you likely already have a good idea of the particular products you want to create and sell. For others, creating a clothing brand may represent a unique and interesting opportunity to design a product that represents your personal style—but you may be unsure of which products to sell.

Regardless of which category you fall into, it’s important to carefully consider all clothing and apparel options before deciding to move forward on one of them.

Some clothing and apparel products you may want to consider for your brand are:

Short-Sleeve Shirts
Long Sleeve Shirts
Hoodies
Pants/Leggings
Dresses
Lingerie/Underwear/Socks

Each of these clothing products presents their own opportunities and challenges when it comes to building a clothing brand around them, so it’s important to consider them carefully. Keep this in mind as you continue through this article.

Below, we will look into some of the most common clothing line business models to get a better sense of the work, time, and monetary investment required for each.

Choosing a Clothing Line Business Model

If you’re ready to start your clothing brand, you’ll have some important choices to make at this point.

There are several directions you can take to create your own brand which are all pretty different from one another. And most importantly, the difficultly, costs, and time input vary dramatically between each option.

Let’s take a look at the most common options:

Print-on-Demand
Private Label Clothing Line
Custom Cut & Sew Clothing Line

Let’s dig into the advantages and disadvantages of each one below.

Type	Difficulty	Cost	Time Input
1. Print-on-Demand	Very Low	$	Very Low
2. Wholesale/Private Label	Low	$$	Medium
3. Custom Cut & Sew Clothing Line	High	$$$$	Very High

Option #1: Print-on-Demand Clothing Line

The first and easiest option for starting your own clothing line involves printing your designs or logo on standard blank apparel.

This is an attractive option for people with a low budget (less than $1,000) and those wanting to benefit from being able to set up a nearly fully-automated business. The biggest drawback of this type of business model is the lower profit margins and the lack of ability to differentiate your product on things like material, stitching, and fit since you’re using standard wholesale clothing.

The print-on-demand or direct-to-garment printing process uses a special digital ink-jet printer to print ink directly onto clothing and apparel. These digital printers are able to produce full-color images on clothing items with extreme accuracy.

Print-on-demand printing produces high-quality printed apparel quickly and efficiently. Because of this, there are no setup costs, unlike screen printing. This means that it’s easy and cost-effective to print small orders (including just 1 unit).

Pros

No set-up costs
High-quality prints
Unlimited color options
Perfect for low order quantities or one-offs
Many clothing options (shirts, leggings, socks, dresses, etc.)

Cons

Not cost-effective for large production runs
Generally no volume discounts
Limited print product selection
Limited finishing options (tags, labels, etc)

Timeline: Days

Costs: $0-$500

Time & Energy Input: Very Low

Other Notes: To start a print-on-demand clothing brand, we recommend using Printful and Shopify. When utilizing a clothing and apparel printing company like Printful (which seamlessly integrates with Shopify stores), you can be up and running in a matter of hours for under $50. Once you receive an order for your online store, Printful will also receive the order automatically and begin the printing process and ship it to your customer on your behalf. Read more about this process and learn how to set up a business like this step-by-step in our how to start a t-shirt business in under 24 hours article.

Option #2: Wholesale/Private Label Clothing Line

When sourcing clothing products through wholesale or private label suppliers, you are essentially purchasing clothing products from other brands and then selling them to customers from your own store. When you source clothing products this way, you’ll purchase pieces in bulk from a supplier at a discounted price, and then sell the items to your customers at a markup.

With this option, you won’t be manufacturing your own clothing items from scratch, but you’ll be curating a selection of pieces that suit your customers’ tastes. You won’t be able to customize each clothing piece like you would if you were manufacturing clothing items, but you also don’t have to go through the lengthy and expensive process of having your own clothing items manufactured. The main disadvantage with this option, however, is that you have to purchase many stock-keeping units (SKUs) of clothing items in bulk and upfront, which means you’ll need cash flow.

Pros

Don’t need to manufacture your own items
Can keep up with changing trends more easily
Get to curate your own range of products
Volume discounts
Potential for good profit margins
You can brand items with your own hangtags, packaging, etc.
When working with a private label supplier, you will be able to customize the clothing tags with your own brand name

Cons

When working with a wholesaler, you won’t be able to customize the clothing tags with your brand name
Usually, minimum order quantities start at (at least) 10 units per color/size, if not 100 or 1,000 units
You’ll have to manage inventory and shipping yourself
You’ll need cash flow to purchase many products upfront

Timeline: Weeks

Costs: $2,500+

Time & Energy Input: Medium

Option #3: Custom Cut & Sew Clothing Line

Custom cut and sew clothing means you’re doing everything. We’re talking about designing sketches, turning them into patterns, sourcing fabrics and manufacturers, and paying for a full production run (which could be thousands of units).

Making your own clothing isn’t for the faint of heart. It can be an intensive process that can take months (at minimum) to get up and running. You’ll need to find a manufacturer, you’ll need to work with a pattern maker, you’ll have to create tach packs, you’ll have to source and test fabric, and you’ll also likely have to create and test many samples before you even come close to a finished product.

Depending on the exact clothing items you’re looking to produce, just to get a few samples as finished products can cost thousands.

Once you have a finished product, you’ll also need to produce a full run with your manufacturer, you’ll need to stock your inventory, and even develop a shipping strategy to get your clothes to your customers.

Pros

You’ll get a 100% custom product
Potential for increased perceived value from customers
Potential for increased margins
You’ll be 100% in control of branding

Cons

Very high startup costs
It’s a complex process involving several moving parts
It can take months or more to launch

Timeline: 3 months – 1+ years

Costs: $10,000+

Time & Energy Input: Very High

Other Notes: The second part of this post will focus on all the steps and resources involved in developing your own cut and sew clothing line so read on!

The Elements of a Successful Clothing Brand

Great clothing brands are great for a reason. Usually, they do one thing very well, and sometimes they do multiple things really well. Before starting your own clothing line, there are four important factors to a successful clothing line that you’ll want to consider:

Niche
Design
Quality
Brand

Let’s dive into each one of these elements a little more below:

Selecting a Clothing Brand Niche

Selecting a specific niche is important—and many times, vital—for success in the clothing and apparel industry. Blindly trying to target large groups of people will leave you with a brand that speaks to no one.

Focusing on a specific group of people has several major benefits:

It’s easier to market (since you can hone in on your target market more specifically)
It can be more affordable (since you aren’t targeting the wrong audiences)
There’s potential for less competition (the more you niche down, the smaller your competitive pool gets)
You can attract greater customer loyalty (because your audience knows that you’re focused on them)

For example: “Clothing with funny slogans” or “hoodies for men” are both too broad to attack since the markets are very developed. Niching down will help you better target your market, allow you to reach them more easily, and be able to create more value for them. So instead of “clothing with funny slogans” you might cater to a specific and passionate market like “clothing with slogans for nurses or firefighters.” Or, instead of “hoodies for men” you could focus on manufacturing ultra-thick/warm hoodies for people in cold climates.

Clothing Designs

Your designs—whether they’re printed, embroidered, or the design of the actual garment itself—are critical. Not only do your clothing pieces need to look great, but they also need to look great specifically in the eyes of your target market.

Ultimately, you’ll be the one who loses if your clothing designs aren’t aesthetically pleasing and appealing to your buyers. Your designs don’t necessarily need to be complex—in fact, many of the best-selling clothing designs are very simple—however, they do need to connect with your specific audience/niche.

Clothing Quality

You can fool someone once, but you can’t fool them twice. A pattern that fades and cracks over time or a piece that comes apart at the seams after one wash won’t create raving fans that’ll come back and repurchase.

Not all clothing is the same, there can be huge variances in the quality of clothing items. The quality and composition of the materials you choose will affect how the clothing wears, how it washes, how it fades, shrinks, and ultimately how long it lasts. As we mentioned above, quality is paramount to your brand and its success, so it’s important to educate yourself and choose your materials carefully.

It will always be tempting to sacrifice quality for higher profit margins but you need to consider how the quality will affect customer’s decisions to share your brand with others and repurchase in the long run.

Clothing Brand

Many clothing companies are built on a strong brand. Beyond the clothes themselves, a strong brand encourages and reinforces your target market to purchase, represent, share, and repurchase your clothing pieces. Your brand extends way beyond the product itself and encompasses what the brand stands for and the lifestyle associated with it.

Differentiating Your Clothing Line

The clothing design and apparel industries are some of the most saturated industries to be in. In order to effectively compete, you’ll need to have a point of differentiation that sets you apart in the market from all the rest.

Working out of a factory has also given me an upfront view of how many people get into this industry with absolutely no clue what it’s going to take to build a brand that is even remotely successful. Blaming ignorance isn’t entirely fair… We had absolutely no clue how hard it would be either. However, we started Stock with a clear reason of what differentiated us, why people would be interested in buying our stuff, and how we would go about selling. This is a step that I see a lot of aspiring makers skip. –Jim Snediker | Stock Mfg. Co.

The good news is that there are multiple ways to set yourself apart from the crowd…

Design

If you plan to have graphics or images on your clothing pieces, the designs (the style of designs and quality of designs) can help set you apart from others.

Example: Blackmilk Clothing made their name known and became one of Shopify’s largest merchants by creating uniquely designed leggings, while also partnering with major brands, in the case below, Dr. Who:

Fit/Style

If you plan to create your own clothing from the ground up, the actual fit and style of the clothes can be an important point of differentiation.

Example: Sharp Casualwear provides upscale clothing to men 5’8” and under who are seeking stylish staples that fit well. Perhaps the original online brand that became famous and known for a better fit is Bonobos. Bonobos decided that they wanted to create a better-fitting men’s pant. Their better fit helped establish them early on and turned their brand into a 100 million dollar company.

Brand

With all else being the same, people are more likely to buy from a brand whose story they can relate to most. Furthermore, a strong brand alone that connects with consumers can allow you to demand a higher price point, even if the quality is relatively the same as other common or less expensive brands.

Example: Billionaire Boys Club throughout the early 2000s sold t-shirts for nearly $100 that simply said “Billionaire Boys Club.” Although arguably, their t-shirts were the same quality as hundreds of others on the market, consumers bought into the young, urban brand and its story.

Niche

The niche you choose to operate in and your target market (if defined well enough and if it’s under-served) can be in itself a point of differentiation.

Example: Unbound Merino targets digital nomads that work remotely and travel the world. Even with thousands of clothing brands on the market, there are very few, if any, targeting this particular group of people.

80s Tees sells exclusive designs from 80s movies and TV shows. Not only are the designs appealing and nostalgic, but many of the designs are licensed making them exclusive and nearly impossible to find elsewhere.

Finally, Canada Threads focuses on clothing and accessories that uniquely resonate with Canadians, including designs related to the beloved Canadian House Hippo.

Performance/Material/Quality

The type of material plays a part in differentiating your clothing pieces from the rest out there. How they perform for the wearer (are they comfortable, itchy, restricting, warm, light, airy, do they wrinkly easily, etc.) and their overall quality (including any seams, buttons, the weight of the fabric, etc.) will all play a role in your customer’s satisfaction.

Example: Unbound Merino ran a successful crowdfunding campaign raising $300,000 and are building their brand based on the performance of their clothing: Casual wear made from 100% super-soft merino wool which has superior breathability and odor-blocking abilities, allowing this line of travel clothes to be worn many times without washing.

Developing a Business Plan for Your Clothing Line

With some of the basics out of the way, the next step is for you to develop a basic (but critical) business plan to map out your decisions and the direction for your clothing company.

Some of the major elements you’ll want to consider when putting together your ecommerce business plan are:

Your Business Model
Customer Personas
Competitor Strengths & Weaknesses
Costs & Margins

Crafting a Brand for Your Clothing Line

The next step is to develop a brand for your new clothing company.

Crafting a brand for your new clothing company is paramount. With so many clothing companies and brands out there, you’ll need to differentiate yourself. Your brand will be a big part of that.

Ultimately, every business has a brand and every new business will have a brand. Crafting your brand upfront gives you the chance to better define and communicate your message and story.

If you’re planning on creating a custom cut and sew clothing line, you may want to consider hiring a dedicated branding agency to help you craft your brand. If you’re planning on a print-on-demand or a private label brand where your investment and budget are much smaller, developing your own brand can be a worthwhile and low-cost option.

At this stage you need to identify:

Who your market is
What brand would speak best to this market

Below, we will quickly introduce you to several key elements of developing your clothing company brand, however, for a complete breakdown of all brand elements, as well as the guide and worksheets to define all your brand elements, check out our branding guide, A Better Brand.

Defining Your Market

Defining your market is important for any brand, but especially for brands in the clothing and apparel market because it’s extremely saturated. By broadly targeting large groups of people, you’re setting yourself up for failure right from the beginning. What you want to do is niche down and create segments.

Some critical questions to ask yourself at this stage is:

What type of clothing and apparel products do I want to make?
Who is going to purchase my products?
What specific value will my product or brand bring these people?
What will be unique about my product?
Who is my competition?

Creating Your Brand Pillars

Brand pillars are a few key words or attributes (usually 3-4) that embody what your brand is about, and they serve as a starting point for developing your brand persona. Later, these words are used as a checkpoint against most activities of the brand. For example, when creating your website, an advertisement, or even a conversation with your customer, you should check it against your brand pillars. Ask yourself: Does my design/website/ad/conversation represent the essence behind my brand pillar words?

Your brand pillars act as a simple tool for keeping your brand consistent throughout all of your activities and they serve as the foundation for your brand.

Develop Your Brand Visuals

Your brand visuals are the common brand elements that many people immediately think about when they think about a particular brand. This includes your company’s logo, brand colors, and fonts, as well as your overall design and photography aesthetics.

Create a Moodboard: A mood board is a perfect way to start pulling together the visual style you’re going for. Essentially a mood board is a collection of images, photos, designs, colors, and any other snippets of multimedia you find from around the web that serves as an inspiration for your brand. While there are many tools available online to help you collect these elements, the easiest way tends to be using Pinterest or Instagram.
Select a Color Palette: Your next step in the branding process is to narrow down a color palette to use. Selecting a color palette up front will help keep your brand looking consistent through all channels. You’ll want to start by paying particular attention to the dominant colors used in your mood board since these are likely colors that immediately caught your eye. From there we also suggest you use a tool like Adobe Color to review other community-inspired and voted color palettes to get some additional ideas. Finally, Adobe also offers a tool for helping choose and refine your color palette, check it out here.
Craft a Logo: When it comes to crafting a logo for your business, you’ll want a logo that not only represents your brand well but one that speaks to your target demographic, too. While we always recommend working with a respected logo designer to craft the perfect logo for your brand, those with a smaller budget can get started for almost nothing with a tool like Looka.

Note: At this point, we will continue on the path of talking about creating your own custom cut and sew clothing line. If you’re planning on creating a print-on-demand clothing line, you can skip several sections and go to Creating Your Online Store. If you’re planning to create a private label/wholesale clothing line, you can skip to Branding Your Clothing & Packaging.

The Product Development Process for Your Clothing Line

For anyone who is completely new to the fashion business, it’s important to know that this is a hugely important step in the process of starting and running a cut-and-sew clothing line. At this point, we strongly suggest that you consider partnering with a professional who knows what they’re doing and how to do it properly.

Professionals such as pattern makers, tech pack creators, design partners, materials partners, and production partners are highly experienced in their respective fields and it’s their job to make your clothing line a reality in the most efficient way possible. Without the help of professionals, things like pattern making and tech packs can be a nightmare for not only you but for the future manufacturer you plan to work with.

This is where researching your manufacturer in advance pays off for you, though. Some manufacturers offer professional product development services, some will only manufacture for you if they have done your product development themselves, and others don’t provide these services but they have partners who they prefer working with. All of this information will be outlined on the manufacturer’s website or by contacting them directly.

When it comes to the product development of your clothing line, there is generally going to be a common path to follow with some common terminology no matter what types of clothing products you’re developing. First, we will look at what the general process of clothing product development looks like, then we will discuss the process in more detail.

Designs: This generally refers to the initial design concept and is usually represented as sketches either on paper or digitally. While your patterns might start out as concept sketches, eventually you’ll likely turn them into digital sketches using a program like Illustrator.
Tech Pack: A tech pack is essentially a blueprint for your apparel product, providing a manufacturer with all the details and technical specifications for production. This includes the designs, measurements, materials, and any accessories (zipper, buttons, etc.).
Pattern Making & Grading: Pattern making is the process of turning your technical drawings into patterns that can be used for production. Grading is the process of taking a single pattern and grading the pattern up or down to create the additional patterns for all the other sizes in your apparel line.
Sourcing: Sourcing involves finding, communicating, vetting, and working with multiple manufacturers to determine which one is best suited for the full production of your particular products.
Samples: This involves manufacturers producing a one-off or small batch of samples to provide you with a proof of concept, as well as for you to identify potential issues or improvements prior to a full production run.
Production: A full product run is the mass production of your apparel products. Depending on the products and the manufacturer, this can be hundreds of units, thousands of units, or even hundreds of thousands of units.

Below, we will go into greater detail about each of these steps in the process and provide you with more content and resources to get you started. However, it’s important to note that there are other resources available that will guide you through the full process, helping you at each step of the way.

Some of the most popular ones are:

Step 1: Design Your Clothing Line Concepts

Your clothing line will begin as sketches—most likely simple sketches in a notebook. This is usually the best route to get the ideas out of your head. As you begin sketching your clothing pieces, also think about adding any specific notes or unique ideas you have, as well as any special features or functionality. These notes will likely be part of tech packs later.

The initial goal is just to start developing your ideas and bring them to life.

Furthermore, the benefit of sketching out your ideas is that they can be shared. This is important because unless you’re a professional clothing designer, you’re going to likely need to enlist the help of a fashion designer or illustrator to help you pull together and refine your sketches into something more realistic and thought out.

Step 2: Create Patterns & Develop Tech Packs

You will need to enlist the help of a qualified pattern maker to take your idea and turn it into an actual pattern that can then be turned into an actual piece of clothing. A pattern can then be used to help create a tech pack.

A tech pack is essentially a blueprint for each garment. Your tech pack tells your manufacturer all the information required to transform your design into a final product. A proper and complete tech pack will reduce errors in production, save you money, prevent miscommunication, and ultimately, bring your product to life exactly how you envisioned it.

Your tech pack should include all possible details about your product, including (but not limited to) the:

Design
Fabrics
Measurements
Trim
Stitching
Artwork
Label & Tag Information
Packaging Instructions

Here’s an example of a tech pack for a better understanding:

(Source: Michael Smith Design)

Here are some pattern makers and technical designers who have been vetted and provided by Maker’s Row, to get you started:

Additional places to hire freelancers to help produce your tech packs:

Step 3: Research Clothing Manufacturers

The next step in this process is to research potential clothing manufacturers.

Find out things like their location, capabilities, heritage, reputation, and what other brands they’ve worked with to get an idea of what they can offer you. It’s important at this stage to really be thorough as small things such as location can have a massive impact on communication, turnaround time, and shipping when it actually comes to working with a manufacturer.

Not every manufacturer provides the same services so it’s important to know the pros and cons of as many manufacturers as possible so you can find the services you’re looking for without compromising on your brand values.

Maker’s Row: Maker’s Row has nearly 10,000 factories to explore, including over 3,000 in apparel, all based in the USA.
Sourcify: Sourcify has relationships with hundreds of Chinese manufacturers and will work with you to find and vet the right one for you.
Sqetch: Sqetch is similar to Maker’s Row but focuses on connecting you with European manufacturers.

Bonus: Check out our exclusive Clothing Manufacturers Directory to help get your search started. The Clothing Manufacturer’s List can be the first and best step you take to creating your own clothing line so have a look and get started creating with industry experts.

Step 4: Determine Your Budget

Budgeting out product development and production costs is something you need to determine prior to selecting a factory to work with. You need to understand your budget availability and limits so you can map out all aspects of production, such as what fabric you’ll be able to use and whether producing overseas or in your home country is your best option.

Costs to consider in your budget include:

The price of professional product development services such as pattern making, tech packs, design development, etc.
The cost of making samples (bearing in mind that more than one sample is usually made)
The cost of materials such as fabric, buttons, zippers, hardware, and any other pieces used in the construction of your garments
The cost of transportation between you and the factory for meetings/visiting the factory
The cost of labor (determine the difference in labor cost between your home country and overseas labor cost requirements)
The cost of shipping between you and the factory and the cost of shipping the necessary materials to the factory
The cost of production and actually creating the clothing items themselves

After considering these factors, you’ll be able to communicate your budget to your future manufacturer and find one that fits your requirements.

Pricing out all of these costs is also helpful in determining whether or not producing in an overseas factory is more realistic for your business—bearing in mind that while the cost of labor may be cheaper, the cost of shipping between you and the factory will increase; as will turn around time. Nonetheless, understanding the cost of product development and production helps you and your future manufacturer make the best choices for your business.

Step 5: Select Clothing Manufacturers

Once you’ve researched a bunch of different manufacturers and have an idea of what’s out there, make a shortlist of manufacturers who seem like they’ll be a good fit for your clothing brand.

Maybe there are some manufacturers who specialize in the kinds of clothing products you want to produce, maybe some operate out of your local area, maybe some have raving reviews from past or current clients, or maybe some fit into your budget range better than others. Whatever is important to you in a manufacturer, narrow down your shortlist to ones who seem like they check off some of your most important boxes.

Step 6: Contact Clothing Manufacturers

By now you should have been able to narrow down a long list of potential clothing manufacturers into a shorter list of manufacturers who meet your needs when it comes down to what you require in terms of professional services, which manufacturers are actually able to create your future garments, manufactures in an accessible location, or ones who meet your budget requirements.

Now is the time to contact your potential manufacturers, but that may be easier said than done. Response rates for manufacturers differ, but producing a well-thought-out initial email can increase your chances of actually receiving a response back from potential manufactures.

Here are some general DOs and DON’Ts when it comes to contacting a manufacturer:

DON’T come across as a “tire-kicker.” If your interest in manufacturing doesn’t seem to be serious or genuine you may not get a response. Manufacturers don’t want to waste their own time working with people who aren’t serious when they could be working with people who actually want to build and grow their business.
DO be polite. You and your manufacturer will be working together in this process—they don’t solely work for you—so treat them with respect and be mindful of their requirements, services, and processes.
DO be clear. In the best interest of yourself and your future manufacturer, it’s best practice to be clear about what you’re looking for, the services you require, your timeline, etc. Be upfront about what you need and don’t leave any room for ambiguities in the event that it will create more confusion down the road.
DO follow up. It’s okay to follow up after your initial email to ensure the factory received and read the message, so be prepared to send up to three follow-up emails spaced apart by a week or so to prompt a response from a factory. This will make you seem eager and serious to the factory which, if you’re new to this process, is what you want.
DON’T give them too much information. Introduce your company, the products that you’re looking to create with them, what services you’re looking for, and ask what further information they need from you. Give them enough information to know your intentions and that you’re serious about the inquiry, but don’t overload them with your brand goals, material choices, and timelines yet.

Click here to learn more about how to construct the perfect initial contact email.

Step 7: Screen Potential Factories

If you’re lucky, by this step you’ll have received responses from some of the factories you’ve contacted and now it’s time to narrow down your search.

Even if you only received a response from one factory, it is still important to make sure it’s the right fit for you. At this step, you should communicate further with the factories and learn more about how they conduct business and the quality of their products. You should be looking to evaluate whether or not you will get along with them personally and professionally in order to gauge your potential for success as colleagues.

These are things to look out for:

How they prefer to communicate with their clients (by email, phone, or personal visits)
Ask for references from other clients (to get a first-hand evaluation of what they are like to work with)
Ask for samples of products they’ve made (to judge if the quality of their products is at the level you’re looking for)
Understand how they charge for samples, services, and what constitutes extra charges
Get a feel for their timeline and availability

Now is the time to learn more about the factory, see their workspace in action, and communicate further with the manufacturer. This stage will give you an initial glimpse of what it will be like to work with this factory in the long run so it’s important to identify your respective strengths and weaknesses now so you can reduce the possibility of headaches and potential miscommunications in the future.

This is also now the right time to let the manufacturer in on your brand goals, where you see your brand starting off, what you see your brand scaling to, and let them know how you want them involved in that process. All the time you spent defining your brand in the first step should be communicated to the manufacturer to see if they understand where your brand is going and if they can get excited for your brand, too.

Step 8: Get Samples Made

Now that you can see yourself manufacturing your clothing line with a factory or two, it’s time to get some samples made so you can truly experience what your potential product will be like.

No matter how well-designed your patterns and tech packs have been, there are always opportunities for adjustments and corrections so it’s strongly encouraged that the sampling step is never skipped. It can be easy to want to jump straight into production—especially when time and money are on the line—but in the end, a whole line of garments that don’t fit properly will cost you more than just having a few samples done right from the start.

At this stage, it is appropriate to have more than one factory make samples of your garments. Feel free to shop around so you’re absolutely sure the factory you pick will be producing the garments you want at the quality level you want!

Step 9: Start Full-Scale Production

The final step of the manufacturing process is really just the first step of building your own clothing brand.

This is the time to work with your manufacturer and get your garments produced! At this stage, it’s important to stay five steps ahead of everything:

Make sure deadlines are adhered to
Be available to answer any questions your manufacturer may have for you
Be diligent with quality control

Once production for one season of garments starts, the planning for the next season begins—this is only just the beginning! But now that you have the right manufacturer for your business, let their skills and services help you build your clothing brand to where you want it to be.

Step 10: Brand Your Clothing & Packaging

The branding of your clothing line has everything to do with how you’ll be perceived by your customers. Branding tells the story of your company and your packaging is one of the few parts of your brand—besides your clothing items themselves—that your customers will actually be able to touch, feel, and see. It engages your customers, it can make them feel valued, and it can even increase the perceived level of quality your customers associate with your brand and your clothing items.

This is why it’s important to seriously consider how you package and present your clothing items, no matter what items you’re selling.

There are plenty of different ways to enhance your brand’s packaging and presentation and to make it unique and true to your brand.

Let’s learn more…

Step 11: Branded Packaging Options

There are two different types of options when it comes to branding your packaging: The actual elements that you use for the packaging itself, and the additional extras you can include with the package to elevate the unboxing experience.

The package elements are the more functional items that are required to actually ship your clothing pieces, whereas the added extras enhance the experience and help to make your customers feel valued.

Elements of a Branded Package

These are the functional parts of a shipping package that you’ll need in order to ship your items from you to your customers. You won’t need every single one of these items, but they’re all options that you can use depending on what you want your packaging to achieve.

Shipping Boxes

Depending on the clothing items you sell, you may have to ship them to your customers in a shipping box. Shipping boxes are sturdy and are a good option for shipping heavy or bulky items (such as coats) or delicate items that need to be protected throughout the shipping process (such as beaded clothing pieces, or items with 3D appliqué).

Shipping boxes, however, can add weight and size to your package making it more expensive to ship, but if it will protect your clothing items while they’re on their way to your customers, it’s a small price to pay upfront that should decrease the potential of damaged items and returned products in the future.

Keep in mind that your shipping boxes don’t have to be boring cardboard boxes. There are plenty of services available to entrepreneurs and small businesses that can create custom boxes for your products at competitive prices, whether you’re looking for something sleek, simple, and plain or something colorful, bold, patterned, and vibrant.

You can also use these services to get your brand name printed onto the box itself for a more professional unboxing experience.

Where to Source Shipping Boxes:

Poly Mailers

Another great alternative for shipping clothing items is shipping bags—otherwise referred to in the industry as poly mailers.

These are an ideal option because unlike shipping boxes, they don’t add much weight or bulk to your package, so you won’t be adding extra shipping costs to your package. They are less sturdy than a box though, so they’re a good option if you’re shipping clothing pieces that aren’t easily damaged and can be bent and folded throughout the shipping process. They do come in plenty of sizes too, so whether you’re shipping one item or a few at a time, you should be able to source a selection of different sized poly mailers to meet your customer’s needs. Plenty of brands ship clothing items to their customers in poly mailers, so it is an appropriate method for the industry.

There are plenty of places online where you can get custom poly mailers made for your business so you’re able to add your logo, brand colors, or fun patterns to make it more exciting for your customers.

Where to Source Poly Mailers:

Bubble Mailers

If your clothing items need a bit more protection but you don’t want to completely upgrade from a poly mailer to a full-on shipping box, you have another option: Bubble mailers. As the name would suggest, they’re like poly mailers but they have a layer of bubble wrap included on the inside of the mailer which helps protect whatever’s inside.

They don’t offer the same sturdiness that shipping boxes do, but they help to cushion the contents of the mailer throughout the process and are less bulky than shipping boxes.

Where to Source Bubble Mailers:

Tissue Paper

If using packing peanuts and crinkle paper isn’t your style, or if your products don’t need additional protection, or even if you’re using a poly mailer, tissue paper may be an ideal option to enhance the unboxing experience for your customers.

Tissue paper makes the unboxing experience feel more like a gift, which can make your package seem thoughtful and your customers feel valued.

Tissue paper is also an easy way to add to your packaging without adding any extra bulk or weight, and you can have it printed with your logo or choose colored or patterned paper to add some extra flair to the package. Use an everchanging assortment of patterns, colors, and styles to keep repeat customers interested.

Where to Source Tissue Paper:

Packing Tape

Depending on your brand’s style, using packing tape that’s colorful, patterned, or printed with your logo may be an interesting way to decorate your shipping box or package. Not only is it decorative, but packing tape is functional and adds another layer of security to keep box openings sealed throughout the shipping process.

Where to Source Packing Tape:

Stickers

If you don’t need something as heavy-duty as packing tape to seal your boxes or mailers shut, stickers can be an alternative option that can also add to the branded packaging experience. Get your logo printed on them, your brand’s tagline, mission statement, fun facts about your brand, or any other piece of info you want to share with your customers for an added layer of personalization. Alternatively, use stickers to brand plain shipping boxes or mailers, or include them inside your package for customers to use or share as they please.

Stickers are super versatile, so think about how you can use stickers to enhance your unboxing experience!

Where to Source Stickers:

Note: Find more suppliers for packaging and unboxing materials in our Shipping & Packaging Suppliers Directory.

Include Extra Branded Material

These aren’t necessary to include, but if you’re interested in elevating your unboxing experience, making it memorable for your customers, and making them feel valued, then including one or two of the following options can help you to start out in a positive way.

Promotions, Discounts & Deals

Including packing inserts that notify your customer of an upcoming promotion, or share a discount code or deal they can use for themselves or share with a friend is a pleasant surprise your customers will likely appreciate when opening their package. It shows thought and care from your end, and it’s also likely to encourage them to purchase from you again, which is advantageous for you.

Business Cards

If you want your customers to remember you, refer you to a friend, or send you feedback about their experience with your business or your products, consider including your business card so they can hold onto it or pass it on to others. It’s a small token, but it shows that you value their input and experience.

Custom Notes/Personalized Messages

This is the ultimate way to make your customers feel valued and shows an immense amount of consideration and thoughtfulness.

Custom, handwritten notes with personalized messages are a great way to connect with your customers and make them feel appreciated. While it likely won’t be possible to include a handwritten note for all of your customers, consider including them for your very first customers, your most frequent purchasers, for customers who leave glowing reviews on your website, or ones who have taken the time to send you valuable feedback. Your customers will likely feel very touched by your effort and will likely also share their experience with their peers or on their social platforms, which is positive exposure for your brand.

Gifts or Samples

Who doesn’t love to receive a gift?! Using gifts as a way to thank your customers for their purchase is a surefire way to capture their attention and make them feel valued. It doesn’t have to be anything big (some companies include candy bars to treat their customers) as you just want it to be an addition to the package, but something small can be just as appreciated by your customers.

If you don’t want to gift an item from another company, consider including a sample of one of your own products. Again, it doesn’t have to be anything big, but something that complements their purchase could be appreciated.

Step 12: Brand Your Clothing Items

Beyond the packaging of your clothing items, you can also add additional touches of branding to your clothing items themselves to ensure they’re as seemingly high-quality as possible and are presented in the most thought out way possible. The best way to do this is by adding custom labels and tags.

Clothing Labels & Tags

Clothing labels are a piece of fabric that’s attached to the inside of clothing items that typically include the brand’s logo. While it’s required in most countries for clothing items to have care and size labels, brand labels aren’t necessary but they add a thoughtful touch to the clothing piece. They also often help customers to remember where the clothing item is from once they’ve integrated it into their wardrobe, and they can add to the overall feel of the clothing piece.

Some labels can be scratchy and uncomfortable for the wearer, which can make the garment seem cheap, while others can be well sewn into the garment and made of a cloth material that’s much more high quality. Think about how you want your brand to be perceived and choose a type of label that fits accordingly.

Clothing Label Material Options:

Damask Woven Labels
Satin Woven Labels
Taffeta Woven Labels
Woven Patches
Cotten Twill Labels
Canvas Printed Labels
Nylon Printed Labels
Satin Printed Labels
Silicon Clothing Labels
Leather Labels
And much more

It’s also important to consider which label types exist and where they can be located on the garment.

If you want to increase your brand’s awareness, you may want to consider placing brand labels on the outside of your clothing items such as on hems or cuffs, but if you want to maintain relatively inconspicuous brand placement, you may just want to include the labels on the inside of your garments.

The types of clothing labels you can include on your garments include:

Manhattan Fold Labels: These are quite similar to Center Fold Labels in their appearance, except that the top of the label is folded over to give a more finished and high-quality look. This type of label is typically sewn into the collar of a garment.
The End Fold Labels: These have more of a finished and high-quality look to them because the edges are tucked in at the sides. These types of labels are typically printed with brand logos and they’re quite small.
Straight Cut Labels: These have no folds at all, which means they’re typically sewn on flat—straight onto the garment. They’re commonly also placed on the outside of a garment as a decorative patch, usually with a brand logo printed on them.
Center Fold Labels: These are the most common type of apparel labels. They’re usually made of woven materials and commonly attached to the inside of garment collars.
The Mitre Fold Label: These are similar to the End Fold Label as they’re quite small, shaped like a thin rectangle, and are typically printed just with a brand logo. This type of label, however, hangs down a bit farther than the End Fold Label instead of going straight across.
Loop Fold Labels: These labels are commonly sewn on the inside of garments, typically close to the hemline in shirts or the waistband in some trousers. This type of label is usually reserved for care and size information, not brand logos.

Clothing Tags

Clothing tags, otherwise referred to as hangtags, are usually added to the garment at the very end of production and are typically secured to the collar label of some garments, or otherwise gently pinned or secured to the garment by piercing a small hole through the fabric.

Hang tags are meant to be removed, and typically include additional information about the garment or the brand such as detailed information about the care requirements that can’t fit on the inner label, or the brand’s ethos, mission statement, or purpose behind making the garment.

Hang tags aren’t necessary but can add an extra brand element to your clothing pieces that can make them feel more high-quality to your customers. You can use hang tags made of thick card stock, manila ones for a vintage look, or even silicone ones for an ultra tech/high-performance type of look.

Where to Source Clothing Labels and Tags:

Step 13: Create Your Online Clothing Store

If you’re serious about building a brand or learning more about digital marketing, search engine optimization, and conversion rate strategies, you need to build your clothing store on a customizable ecommerce platform. We can’t recommend Shopify enough. Not only is Shopify one of the easiest platforms to get started with, but its app store is the most robust and has a host of print-on-demand clothing printers and dropshippers if you choose to go that route (read our Shopify Review to learn more about why we recommend it so highly).

Shopify enables you to build your own online clothing store wherever you are, with the ability to sell to customers all over the world. Setting up your store with Shopify is easy, and you don’t have to worry about your website’s security so you can be sure that you and your customers’ sensitive information is protected when shopping on your site.

Overall, Shopify is the most recommended ecommerce platform out there, and it’s your best option when it comes to starting your own clothing store online.

When setting up your clothing store on Shopify you’ll want to take your brand into consideration and make use of all your brand visuals. Implement your color palette, use your logo, take effective product and lifestyle photos of your garments, and create a glowing “About Page” so your customers can learn more about who your brand is and what you stand for.

These are the types of things that will make your clothing store stand out to your customers, so they’ll be more trusting when it comes time for them to make a purchase. You want your website to install confidence in your customers, so take that into consideration when setting up your online clothing store.

Bonus: Still not sure about which ecommerce platform to choose? Check out our exclusive Ecommerce Platform Recommendation Tool. This tool will ask you a series of questions to help you narrow down and choose the best ecommerce platform for your specific needs.

Your Store’s Theme

Another aspect of your online clothing/apparel store to take into serious consideration is your store’s theme. Themes are the general outward look and feel of your website, and depending on the products you sell, some themes may display your products better than others.

Since you’ll be starting a clothing/apparel store, you’ll want a theme that shows off your garments to their full potential so choose a theme that enables you to post lots of images.

Shopify offers plenty of free and premium themes to choose from (see them all in action on the Shopify Theme Store) but if you’re looking for more theme options, Out Of The Sandbox creates premium Shopify themes and they are one of the best, if not the best, place to get them.

Note: Shopify has some themes that specifically cater to clothing, fashion, and apparel brands, so check out their collection of Clothing & Fashion Themes on Shopify here. For more ideas, check out our roundup of the Best Shopify Themes here. And to see some Shopify themes in action, check out these 50 Successful Shopify Stores and see what you can learn from them.

Step 14: Create a Shipping Strategy for Your Clothing Company

Figuring out how to ship your products to your customers can be a confusing and daunting process if you’ve never done it before as there’s a lot to take into consideration.

What should you charge for shipping? How much does shipping cost? What about returns? What shipping carrier should you use? Should you start off with a shipping and fulfillment warehouse? Will your customers get charged duty and customs fees? What about shipping labels? What about tracking and insuring your packages?

All these questions, and more, are valid questions to be asking yourself—and we’ll dive into them now:

How to Charge Your Customer for Shipping

These are your options:

Charge Your Customers the Exact Shipping Fee: This means that your customers will be made aware of the shipping costs while they’re checking out and they’ll have to pay the exact amount it costs to get their order shipped to them.
Charge Your Customers a Flat Shipping Fee: This means that you can instate a flat shipping fee such as $6 for domestic orders and $12 for international orders, no matter how many items each customer orders and no matter where they’re located domestically or internationally. Some orders will cost you more to ship and some will cost you less, but if you budget it correctly it should even out.
Offer Your Customers Free Shipping Over a Certain Threshold: For example, you could offer all customers free shipping if they spend over $100. This encourages customers to purchase enough products to meet that amount so they don’t have to pay for shipping. By making sure they spend a certain monetary amount, it makes it more worthwhile for you to ship their package for “free” because the cost of shipping is absorbed into your profit margin on the order. Check out our article on How to Offer Free Shipping & Calculating Your Free Shipping Threshold for more information.
Offer Your Customers Free Shipping Based on their Location: In this case, you could offer free shipping for all domestic destinations and any international locations will have to pay a calculated rate or a flat fee. This encourages your local customers to purchase from you without having to pay any shipping fees and depending on your domestic shipping rates you should be able to absorb the cost in your profit margin, assuming you price your items accordingly. For international customers, however, you’ll be able to fund the shipping cost fully or in part by their calculated or flat rate fee.
Offer Your Customers Free Shipping on Any Order: Some businesses choose to offer free shipping to all customers because it’s easier for them to calculate, more attractive to customers, and results in fewer cart abandonments. The cost of shipping will be absorbed by your profit margin, so take that into consideration when pricing your items.

Shipping is never free. No matter what it says on any website, “free shipping” is not free for the business—the cost is just being absorbed in some other way. It’s also no secret that shipping costs are one of the most likely reasons for shopping cart abandonments, so in order to combat that, many ecommerce stores offer free shipping to decrease shipping cart abandonments.

Take both of these things into consideration when pricing your products so you can gauge whether you’ll need to charge higher prices for your items so you can afford to offer free shipping, or at least a subsidized shipping rate.

Calculating Shipping Costs

The cost of shipping depends on your carrier, where you’re shipping to, and where you’re shipping from. There are also other variables involved like the weight and size of the package as well, so your best bet is to use a shipping calculator to determine how much it would cost you to ship your packages. Many carriers have shipping calculators available on their websites so you can price out the cost of your packages on there.

How to Handle Returns

You basically have two options when it comes to handling returns for your customers: You can provide your customers with pre-paid postage in case they need to return an item, or you don’t provide your customers with pre-paid postage and they will have to assume the responsibility to pay for postage in the event that they need to return an item to you.

Providing pre-paid postage for customers offers them a seamless shopping experience with your company, however not offering free returns can actually affect customer’s decision to purchase from you at all.

Check out this blogpost from Shopify that discusses shipping returns in more detail to learn more about it and how it affects your business.

Which Shipping Carrier to Use

Most popular shipping carriers offer a business account program so businesses can get perks such as better order management, discounts on shipping, and/or free shipping supplies. Basically, it makes it a little bit easier and less expensive for you than just shipping packages without a business account.

Check out these popular shipping carrier’s business accounts:

Using a Shipping & Fulfillment Warehouse

Shipping and fulfillment warehouses can be a tricky service to use for clothing stores as there are usually many different SKUs (stock-keeping units) such as different sizes and colors for each item of clothing. Although shipping and fulfillment warehouses may be convenient services to use since they handle the entire picking, packing, and shipping service for you, there can be some drawbacks, including:

Inability to Use Your Own Branded Packaging: Some warehouses require that you use their own shipping packaging, so you won’t be able to use any boxes, poly mailers, tissue paper, stickers, etc. that have your own branding on them. It can also be difficult to add other extras such as promotional inserts, custom notes, samples, etc.
Cost: Shipping and fulfillment warehouses can take the shipping process off your hands but at what cost? It costs you to store your SKUs on your warehouse’s shelf space so depending on how quickly your product ships out to customers and how much product you’re selling, it may or may not be a worthwhile cost for you.
Handling Returns: Since your business is just one of many at a shipping and fulfillment warehouse, returned items may be handled in an inefficient manner, depending on the warehouse. Make sure you look into each warehouse’s return policy before you work with them.

However, there are also advantages to using shipping and fulfillment warehouses:

Shipping Costs: Shipping and fulfillment warehouses generally have to pay less to ship packages, so you’ll likely pay less too.
Simplified Process: No need to wait in line at the post office or deal with couriers to get your packages shipped.
Saves You Time: All the time that it takes you to pick, package, and send packages can be put to other uses such as managing customer inquires, advertising, or just growing your business in general.

Generally speaking, if you’re just starting your online clothing store: Handle the shipping and fulfillment process yourself, initially.

This gives you the chance to learn the best practices for shipping your own products, you can put your own personal touch on each package and you can use your own branded packaging materials. If you’re just sending out a few parcels a day, it won’t take up too much of your time to send them through post offices or couriers.

If you anticipate having a large customer base to start off with and predict that you may not be able to keep up with packing and shipping orders yourself, have a look into shipping and fulfillment warehouses to see what your options are.

Shipping & Fulfillment Warehouses:

These are some shipping and fulfillment options to consider, however, we encourage you to do your own research and due diligence:

To learn more about why third-party logistics providers are advantageous for your business, check out our Ultimate Guide to Utilizing a 3PL Provider for Ecommerce Fulfillment article.

Duty & Customs Fees

It’s important to be aware that you as a business are not in control of the duties and customs fees your international customers may be charged on their orders. Customs and duties fees are managed and imposed on your customers by their country itself, you don’t have the power to prevent them or influence their cost.

You do, however, have the ability to warn your customers about potential customs and duties fees they may face so that they’re not unpleasantly surprised when their order arrives.

On your shipping information page, include a section about customs and duties fees and let your customers know that they may be charged these fees by their county and that your business has no control over that.

For more information about customs and duties declaration, required forms, and policies, check out these pages:

Shipping Tracking & Insurance

Many customers now expect to have their packages tracked and expect to receive email updates on the whereabouts of the packages. If you’re interested in giving your customers a streamlined and professional shopping experience, look into what tracking options your shipping carrier has available. It almost always costs extra or will mean that you’ll have to upgrade to a more expensive service, but it could be very worthwhile for both you and your customers.

Most shipping carriers offer some kind of insurance, but it may not cover the entire cost of your orders—depending on the price of your items. If you sell high-priced items or just want the peace of mind that you’re insured for any lost parcels, it may be worth looking into a third-party shipping insurance provider such as Shipsurance or InsureShip.

It’s important to be aware that the shipping process can be complex, and it can take a while to set up and get used to all the different steps, systems, and processes. It’ll probably be a learning curve at the start, especially if you’ve never shipped a large number of orders before or if you’re launching to an eager audience, so give yourself time to set up your shipping systems properly so it doesn’t affect your business too much. Once you get a system going though you’ll likely get the hang of it and be able to make small improvements or scale your processes as needed.

Note: Read more about shipping your products here. For more shipping resources such as packaging suppliers, shipping apps, and other useful logistics resources, check out our Shipping & Packaging Suppliers Directory.

Conclusion

We hope this post has provided you with very clear insight into the steps, systems, and processes it takes to start a clothing line. It may seem overwhelming at first if this is all new to you, however, just focus on one step at a time and grow from there. No matter what kind of clothing line you want to create—whether it’s just your own line of t-shirts or an entire collection of cut and sew garments—the information, tools, resources, and experiences provided in this guide should help you get where you want to go.

Before you launch your clothing brand, don’t forget to run through our Launch Checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything important, and once you’ve launched, use our 52 Week Marketing Plan to drive traffic to your store.

The post How to Start a Clothing Line: Your Complete Guide to Design, Sampling, Production & Packaging appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.