If you’ve been dreaming of starting a profitable business that allows you to showcase your artistry, look no further! Print-on-demand (POD) dropshipping is the perfect choice for you! Using the POD business model, we can offer various custom-designed products without investing in production costs upfront.
Let’s begin our journey to turn our creative passion into a lucrative business with our comprehensive step-by-step guide on print-on-demand dropshipping. Plus, we’ll highlight the best POD suppliers to work with and in-demand products to sell. Let’s begin!
Print-on-demand (POD) and dropshipping are two popular models that can be combined to create a lucrative business. So, how does print-on-demand dropshipping work?
Print-on-demand enables us to sell unique and customized items on a per-order basis. This saves us money and reduces inventory management issues. Plus, we create designs ourselves or utilize templates/designers to do so for endless product ideas, such as t-shirts, mugs, socks, and more.
On the other hand, dropshipping involves outsourcing the fulfillment process of orders to a third-party supplier. As a seller, we don’t have to store or handle any physical inventory. Instead, the supplier ships the product directly to the customer when an order is placed.
With POD dropshipping, we can offer a one-of-a-kind product catalog to help us establish a distinctive brand in the market. When we combine the flexibility of POD with the power of dropshipping, we have a recipe for unparalleled success in the eCommerce industry.
After an overview of print-on-demand dropshipping, it’s time to dig deeper into what it offers. Like any business model, POD dropshipping has its benefits and drawbacks.
Print-on-demand dropshipping is easy to start because POD suppliers are interested in working with online sellers. Since POD is all about customization, we can provide customers with valuable and unique products, which can help increase our brand awareness. Another remarkable thing about POD dropshipping is that it doesn’t require us to acquire equipment or maintain inventory.
On the other hand, we don’t have complete control over product quality since we don’t hold the products physically. In addition, POD items take more time to produce since they’re made-to-order, resulting in longer shipping times. With this in mind, it’s crucial that we have open communication with our suppliers and customers.
Way to go! We now understand how print-on-demand dropshipping works, including its necessary features. Next, we’ll discover the best print-on-demand companies and the services they provide.
Let’s get moving, beginning with our first POD dropshipping supplier.
AutoDS is an all-in-one automation solution that saves time and effortlessly discovers, sources, researches, and imports winning products from private and retail dropshipping suppliers. The platform offers a diverse range of customizable products, categorized for easy navigation like accessories, decorations, clothes, and more. Plus, we can easily go back and make changes to our custom products using the simple editor. Also, AutoDS has a big selection of POD products that are always updated to evolving market trends.
Besides Print On Demand, the platform offers a range of tools and features to help dropshippers manage their product inventories, listings, pricing, and order fulfillment processes. Some of its best features include:
AutoDS offers a wide range of pricing options depending on the targeted marketplace and the number of listings. eBay dropshipping plans start from $12.90 monthly, and Shopify plans start from $26.90. You can save 25% if you subscribe annually. Check out all the plans here.
Printful is one of the market’s leading print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers. Now, let’s discover the best features Printful offers our dropshipping business.
As a niche supplier, Printful customizes high-quality items under diverse categories, including top brands. Another factor is its around-the-clock customer service, which addresses concerns most efficiently. In addition, it caters to customers worldwide through its global shipping services.
Next on our list is Printify, a print-on-demand dropshipping supplier that sources tailor-made clothing, accessories, and home items. Printify is a top POD supplier because of the worthwhile benefits it provides dropshippers.
When working with Printify, we can choose from 500+ top-quality POD products to dropship at competitive prices. Plus, Printify takes pride in having the most prominent print network globally, allowing us to serve enormous customer demands.
In addition to these benefits, this POD dropshipping supplier can fulfill bulk demands during peak holiday seasons. This is because Printify has a vast network of partners and automatic routing.
Following our top print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers list is SPOD. With over 50 thousand daily item productions, SPOD is an exceptional choice for dropshippers. To further elaborate, let’s explore SPOD’s best features.
SPOD ensures quick delivery of customers’ demands through its 48-hour production guarantee for most products. Besides that, SPOD is also powered by Spreadshirt – a global eCommerce company that sells personalized creations. Moreover, SPOD takes pride in its commitment to a greener future by utilizing sustainable processes throughout its production.
At the fifth spot, we have JetPrint, an all-in-one print-on-demand dropshipping supplier. JetPrint promises to give your dropshipping business a headstart by providing excellent advantages.
When working with JetPrint, we can pick from over 200 product ideas on their website. The company also helps us design products with more realistic effects with the help of its mockup design generator. On top of that, JetPrint ensures quality business by extending 24/7 customer and technical support.
T-Pop is a print-on-demand dropshipping supplier based in France that offers a range of custom products. Let’s check out the reasons why we should work with this platform.
T-Pop is dedicated to sustainability through its “zero-plastic” packaging and 100% recycled paper packing slips. The company uses eco-friendly inks to ensure that its printing processes don’t leave carbon footprints. It offers white-label services, providing a more professional and distinctive branding.
Another print-on-demand dropshipping supplier to consider is Gelato. It is a cloud-based software company that provides print-on-demand services to businesses of all sizes. As such, Gelato is a top choice for beginners in eCommerce.
With production facilities in over 30 countries, Gelato allows for faster delivery times and lower shipping costs. Another notable aspect of Gelato is its commitment to environmental awareness, which helps offer its carbon footprint through various sustainability initiatives. As a dropshipper-friendly platform, it assists sellers every step of the way, such as in calculating taxes and invoicing.
CustomCat is a popular print-on-demand dropshipping supplier, offering a range of features to help us easily create and sell custom products. Next, we’ll discuss CustomCat’s key features that make it a top choice for dropshippers.
One of the main features of CustomCat is its online design tool that allows us to upload our own designs or use pre-made templates to customize our products. The company also extends white-label solutions that enable us to customize our products and establish unique branding.
CustomCat provides a dropshipping-friendly platform with a wide range of products. Likewise, it offers fast production and shipping times, and integration with eCommerce platforms.
With the latest printing technologies, Print Aura offers a comprehensive range of unique products to dropship. This print-on-demand dropshipping supplier provides excellent benefits for our business with its features.
Besides the no minimum order requirement feature, Print Aura provides complimentary order tracking that helps us monitor the whereabouts of customer orders. The platform’s built-in mockup generator allows us to upload and preview our designs before printing. Additionally, the platform offers branding options, such as relabeling and custom packaging, to help us create a unique brand identity.
The next print-on-demand dropshipping supplier on our list is Gooten. The platform provides a global manufacturing service with an intelligent supply chain to help us alleviate our business practices.
With an extensive range of POD items from global fulfillment networks, we can ensure the fast delivery of top-quality products to customers. Gooten also has the VIM (Very Important Merchant), a loyalty program that lets us access resources to help us scale our business. Finally, the platform offers custom branding solutions, which can help us build brand recognition and confidence.
If you’re looking for a complete POD solution, Tee Launch will suit your business needs. Its versatile product offerings and top-notch services make it a top print-on-demand dropshipping supplier.
Undeniably, Tee Launch has a comprehensive product selection, customizing unique items such as Bluetooth speakers and more. The platform ensures that final products are of high quality and at competitive prices. On top of that, Tee Launch dedicates itself to addressing customer concerns immediately through its responsive customer support team.
After preparing our unique designs, it’s time to apply them to our product catalog. With this in mind, here are the top print-on-demand dropshipping products to sell:
Let’s get the ball rolling.
While most clothes are seasonal, dropshipping POD t-shirts ensures profits, regardless of the time of year. When dropshipping t-shirts, we can provide several color options that fit different texts or graphics. Another feature customers look for is the type of materials, such as cotton, linen, polyester, or rayon.
Beginner’s Tip: Include a sizing chart on the product page or description when selling t-shirts so that customers can pick the correct sizes.
Next on our list of the best print-on-demand dropshipping products are mugs, versatile items people use for morning coffee or afternoon tea. We can sell variations ranging from espresso types to oversized ones or double-walled and footed styles. Lastly, the customization of mugs also includes embossed designs that look fancy.
Beginner’s Tip: Offering mugs that change colors or images when liquid temperature changes will definitely increase our profit potential.
Tote bags are another great POD dropshipping product worth adding to our dropshipping stores. These products are commonly made of canvas material, but we can also provide other options like jute, cotton, linen, and PVC. Additionally, some customers prefer waterproof and foldable bags, so remember to offer these options too.
Beginner’s Tip: You can offer discounted pricing for customers who purchase tote bags in bulk, whether as party favors or gift ideas.
Our fourth in-demand print-on-demand dropshipping item is all-over print hoodies. Generally, we can sell two types of hoodies: pull-over and zipped. Furthermore, add customized designs like pockets to increase the value of all-over print hoodies.
Posters will definitely be on the list when we speak about custom-made products. Remember that customers display posters both in indoor and outdoor areas, so providing water-resistant and creaseless material choices is a must. Moreover, customers have different design preferences, so we must provide minimalist options and colorful designs.
A superb addition to our sought-after print-on-demand dropshipping products list is socks. Socks come in many types, like toe cover, quarter, and knee-high. They also come in cotton, bamboo, polyester, wool, and other comfortable materials that we can include.
Beginner’s Tip: Add value to your products by considering special features like heated socks and odor-absorbing ones.
It’s no surprise that face masks have become a basic necessity with the recent pandemic, as they protect people from dust and even harmful viruses. When selling these items, consider functionalities like anti-microbial features and multiple-layered fabrics to add value to our products. Also include different sizes and shapes that fit different customer ages and genders.
Beginner’s Tip: We can offer face masks in sets with storage bags or matching headbands to attract more customers.
Next, we have stickers, a top print-on-demand dropshipping product where we can showcase works of art. When offering stickers, consider material options suitable for different printing techniques, including vinyl, polyester, polypropylene, and satin. On top of these options, we can also add heat-resistant or waterproof stickers, especially for labeling purposes.
To end off our list of the top print-on-demand dropshipping products are phone cases. Generally, we can print one-of-a-kind designs on plastic, metal, rubber, leather, or silicone phone cases. Besides these options, we can also provide other quirky features, such as a money pocket or 3D water glitters, to provide a unique look.
Beginner’s Tip: Cross-sell print-on-demand phone cases by offering matching accessories like phone straps or pouches.
Fantastic! Now that we have suppliers and products in mind, the next step is to start our print-on-demand dropshipping business. To successfully establish our business, here are the steps that we need to take:
Let’s go further by discussing each step below.
The first and most crucial step towards establishing a print-on-demand dropshipping business is to find our niche. Choosing a distinct niche ensures that our business will stand out among the competition. However, to discover all the potential products we can sell, we must conduct product research.
While conducting product research, we can utilize any of these proven methods:
To begin, we can find trending products on the AutoDS Winning Products Hub. The platform lets us access insights on the item’s profitability, such as its source cost and retail price. Likewise, the hub analyzes Facebook ads and target audiences to assess an item’s sales potential.
Aside from that, we can get numerous product ideas from our suppliers’ websites by searching for top sellers and positive product reviews. Also, we can utilize Google Trends to know what POD products are widely searched by customers worldwide. Furthermore, Google Lens is an image recognition technology that allows us to search and analyze items using their photos visually.
Now that we have excellent items, we can summarize all information in the AutoDS product research spreadsheet. Once we have a substantial list of products, we can assess and select the best-suited ones for our print-on-demand dropshipping business.
After establishing our niche, the next step is finding a print service provider. When choosing our print-on-demand dropshipping companies, we need to look out for the following features:
Dropshipping-friendly suppliers that offer diverse product choices go at the top of our list. It’s also essential that our suppliers can turn our custom designs into high-quality products. Another factor to consider when choosing a reliable POD supplier is the minimum order quantity requirement.
Next up, we need suppliers that offer optimal customer support. Meaning, these suppliers can address concerns or queries timely. Remember that customers value it when their problems are well-taken care of.
Of course, the speed of shipping with tracking updates is crucial when choosing a POD service provider. Then, we can read customer reviews to get the hindsight of a supplier’s business quality. Ultimately, our suppliers’ return policies must be clear and practical enough to eliminate customer misunderstandings.
Once we have our print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers, we can start looking for our selling channels. These selling channels are where we offer our products to our customers.
Generally, we have two types of selling channels: online marketplaces and customizable websites. Below, we’ll discuss the features of these selling channel types and the platforms we can work with.
Online marketplaces are established platforms allowing us to set up storefronts and list products. Due to the vast number of sellers on marketplaces, there is competition on these platforms, so we need to build a distinct business. However, we can enjoy free organic traffic when selling on these channels.
Here are top-caliber online marketplaces we can integrate:
Meanwhile, customizable websites enable us to establish our business from scratch. As a result, we can increase brand awareness and create unique branding. Although these selling platforms don’t have organic traffic, we can adopt marketing strategies to increase our audience.
Let’s check out these popular customizable websites for our print-on-demand dropshipping business:
Overall, picking the right selling channel is crucial to the success of our business. These channels are where we connect with our customers. Hence, they must provide an outstanding shopping experience, which we extend to our buyers.
Now that we have companies and selling platforms, we’re ready to create unique designs for our customers. There are several ways to create print-on-demand dropshipping product designs:
Numerous print-on-demand companies have built-in design generators that we can use. These tools enable us to create unique and visually appealing designs that can be incorporated into our products.
Another option is to outsource the designs by hiring freelancers. There are several websites where we can find top-notch and legitimate designers. For example, we can search on Fiverr for expert POD designers to create unique designs for our dropshipping products.
Lastly, we can buy design templates from reliable websites like Creative Market. Afterward, we can readily make our designs using these pre-made guides.
Hooray! We now have print-on-demand dropshipping products, and all we have to do is market these items. Marketing promotes our business and attracts the public to check our products and services.
Remember that the right marketing strategies can help increase our sales and scale our business. Speaking of effective marketing, here are some methods that we should utilize for each selling channel.
When we promote our business effectively, we can reach more customers. As a result, we can turn potential audiences into customers, leading to enormous sales.
At long last, we can officially launch our print-on-demand dropshipping business. However, before we open our doors to the public, we should test samples from our print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers. Doing this will ensure high-quality products and customer satisfaction.
Remember that in any venture, success doesn’t happen overnight. To constantly improve our business, we need to continuously test what products are selling and remove the poor performers.
Finally, we need to continually optimize our business and stay up-to-date on trending products in the market. With trending items, our print-on-demand dropshipping ventures will be steps ahead of our competitors.
Print-on-demand is the process of customizing products, usually through digital technology, on a per-order basis. Additionally, it enables us to establish our brand through custom-made products. The best part is that we don’t have to worry about the production process, as our POD supplier handles all of the technicalities for us.
To start your print-on-demand dropshipping business, you need to find best-sellers and source them from reliable companies. Then, you should select a selling channel and adopt an effective technique to market your products. From here, you can continue with other aspects of POD dropshipping, such as customer service.
Some of the best print-on-demand dropshipping companies include Printify, Printful, SPOD, and Gelato. These companies offer a wide range of unique items, diverse printing methods, and great customer service.
Well done! We’re now ready to start our print-on-demand dropshipping business. The growing demand for custom-made products will bring more profits to our online venture. To begin your POD adventure, remember to work only with reliable suppliers and continuously optimize your selling channels.
So what are you waiting for? Begin the search for your winning unique products and scale your business. With that said, we’ve curated a list of helpful tips to help you kickstart your print-on-demand dropshipping business:
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