Why use Print On Demand?

I am a big fan of “Buy Local” and “Handmade”.  I enjoy seeing new ideas and products, and folks who can turn their crafty skills into money.  I regret that our mass-produced marketplace makes it nearly impossible for those folks to be paid what their goods are worth, in terms of the time and skill it takes to craft them.  I prefer to keep my money in the hands of the folks who live in my city than in the hands of faceless rich folks.

Yet, I still use Print On Demand services to sell my designs, for one big reason.

I’m lazy.

Ok, two reasons … I’m lazy and I don’t already have wads of money to drop on it.

When I started out designing tshirts it was just a hobby, and all I wanted was a funny tshirt (or one for a friend).  Just so you know, your local printshop doesn’t do one-offs.  They have setup fees and minimum orders.  The number varies, but you aren’t gonna do two-offs or five-offs, either.  This is exactly the kind of thing that print-on-demand was invented to handle.

That said … I still sell through POD sites, and now I have to admit flat out that it’s because I’m lazy.  Like all good lazy folks, I have my list of justifications.

1. Inventory sucks.

Ask anyone who deals with inventory – it sucks.  You have to make your best guess at what people will want, in advance, and you have to pay for it upfront.  Especially when your scale is small, the odds that you’ll end up with too much of X and not enough of Y are pretty high.  And those X that you can’t sell?  You already paid for them.

The general business solution is to have a markup high enough to cover the cost of not selling some. This works best when you have a known market – when you know you’re going to sell most of them.

For a small scale seller like myself, I can’t guarantee that I can sell any of them.  Selling apparel is compounded in this because of the variety of sizes to buy/sell.

2. Money and fulfillment suck.

Taking people’s money often costs money, especially to do so online.  Taking money online is also somewhat complicated to do properly.  Taking credit cards, even with services like Paypal, incurs merchant fees which vary with volume and service but usually run a few percent of each transaction.  If your profit margin on each item is small, those fees can eat up much of your profit.

Shipping things out to people in a timely fashion requires dedication, keeping inventory and boxes and packing materials and stuff on hand, and regular trips to the Post Office.

Note: I have three half-packed boxes of Winter Holiday gifts for my family members sitting in my house.  For last Winter Holiday.  Some folks might say that my inability to actually get those boxes shipped is a sign I shouldn’t be in business; I say that it’s an issue that I’m working around by using POD services.

3. Marketing sucks.

Breaking into a local market isn’t easy.  Ask anyone who sells handmade jewelery or knitting.  Crafts are often a saturated market – so many people doing them – but there are organizations and structures set up to showcase them.  All I got are some tshirts and some buttons, and they’re not exactly hand-made.

I’m not making designs for a cause or associated with a specific culture or event, which eliminates those as easy marketing opportunities.  Even then, it can be difficult to break into selling merchandise.

A Solution Exists

If this is where you’re at with your designs – got ideas, but are lazy – print on demand sites may be the answer.  And oh, man are there a bunch of options out there.

The hundred dollar question, of course, is which one is the right one for you, because each one is just a little different.  That’s a whole ‘nother post or five, though so … stay tuned.

Follow

Share on Tumblr