I came across an article today (I have a Google Alert set up for any news stories about print-on-demand) called “I’m a side hustle queen, earning $36K this year — don’t waste your time on these ‘scammy’ gigs“.
Apart from the fact that the word “scammy” is clickbait, the section about print-on-demand is either badly written or inaccurate. To quote the article:
“She said creators have to buy the products before they can sell them so it isn’t the best idea if someone doesn’t have a safety net.
‘When you make a sale you need to pay for the product in advance before you actually get the cash in from customers,’ she explained.”
While it is true that with every POD company I’ve worked with, you usually pay your supplier for the product before you get the money from your customer, the previous paragraph gives the impression that you somehow have to buy the products before you can offer them for sale.
This is 100% wrong (in my experience). One of the major benefits of POD is that you do not need to purchase inventory, which makes the start-up costs very low.
Maybe it’s semantics, but the POD model works like this:
- You create a design and put it on a product (using your POD supplier’s website or app).
- You list that product on a site or marketplace (e.g., your own Shopify ecommerce store, or Etsy).
- Somebody buys that product. You might get the money immediately (if you’re selling face-to-face at a fair, say), or soon (if it’s your own online store) or maybe in a week or two (if you’re using a marketplace such as Amazon or Etsy).
- Your customer’s order is processed by your POD supplier. This might be automatic, or you might have to copy the order from the source (e.g,, Etsy) to your POD company’s site or app. This will depend on where you are selling your products and the integrations your supplier makes available to you.
- Either way, it is at this stage that you pay your POD supplier for the product and any shipping costs, if applicable. (Pillow Profits offer free shipping on most of their products.)
At no point do you need to purchase a product that a customer has not already ordered and paid somebody for – either you, in person, on your own ecommerce store, or via a marketplace where you might only get the money transferred to your bank account every week or fortnight.
It is possible, of course, to put your design on a product and sell that product yourself, by ordering the printed products in bulk (so you’re the one investing in and carrying inventory) before you list the for sale, but that is not what print-on-demand is all about.
If you’re not sure whether POD is right for you, check out my short guide, Print-On-Demand 101, which will let you get a better idea of what’s involved before you decide whether to try this method of making money online.
