How To Start Selling your designs online with Print On Demand in 2022
If you are a skilled designer or if you are just interested in making money online, Print On Demand can be the one for you. Print On Demand also known as POD refers to selling designs on t-shirts, hoodies, and phone cases online. There is often a misconception around POD that you need to be a skilled designer to make money. Well, that is not entirely true. Me, you, or anyone can start selling online. Here are three steps that can help when starting your POD journey.
- Understanding Trademark and Copyright
Trademark and Copyright are two terms you may encounter frequently in POD. Most of the POD platforms have strict rules regarding trademark and copyright. Copyright refers to an intellectual property that gives the owner the to copy, distribute and display original ideas or creative work. For example, you can’t sell a t-shirt with a Disney character in it because Disney owns the copyright to that character. Trademark on the other hand refers to any word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination of these that identifies goods. Trademarks can be registered to particular items. For example, the word “Gift” can be trademarked on household containers only. This will allow you to create a design with it on clothes but not on cups or any household containers. Trademarks are specific to countries whereas copyright is global. You can find more information on this topic in YouTube.
- Decide how you will create designs
With the blooming technologies, you have got great options to select from. In the beginning, you can simply sign up to Canva or PlaceIt. They already have thousands of designs you can choose from. You have the option of a free or paid account. You might be able to use those designs directly or may have to tweak them a little before selling them. Please refer to their licensing terms to find out how you can sell the designs. They also provide you a platform to create your own design so you can make changes or create a new one. These platforms are simple and easy to use.
Another option would be to sign up for a platform like creative fabrica. They have a free trial before the paid subscription begins. They have a huge library of designs you can select for. Remember to select the ones with a Print On Demand license. At the time I wrote this blog the designs from creative fabrica needed to be tweaked a little before selling even with the license.
The option would be to learn one of the editing software like Photoshop. You will find plenty of free resources on YouTube for that matter. You don’t need to be an expert, you can start with simple text-based designs and learn on a need basis as you move forward.
With these three options, you can choose and combine. You can download designs from creative fabrica and make tweaks on photoshop. You can take the designs from creative fabrica into Canva and make tweaks there. You can design with what suits you.
- Decide where you want to sell
You have a bunch of platforms to choose from. The cool thing is you can sell one design on all of these platforms. You get a certain margin for each item sold with your design. So, you just need to upload a design, you don’t need to worry about customer service, fulfilling orders, or shipping. You can immediately sign up for all the platforms except for Merch By Amazon which is an invitation-only program. I highly recommend applying for Merch By Amazon at the beginning as Amazon is a large platform with a huge customer base. Redbubble, Teepublic, and Zazzle are some other options you want to consider. No matter which platform you sign up for, remember to understand their terms and conditions. If you are selling on someone else platform, the platform has the right to terminate your account at any time if you violate the rules.
I hope these steps are helpful to get started. If you are interested in making money online you might like Best Side Hustles From Home With $0 Investment and Passive Income Ideas 2022 If you have any questions or comments please leave them down below.
