• Table of Contents

  • So You Want to Start a Print on Demand Drop Shipping Business? Let’s Talk.
  • What Exactly is Print on Demand Drop Shipping?
  • Why Print on Demand Drop Shipping is So Damn Appealing
  • The Nuts and Bolts of a Print on Demand Drop Shipping Business
  • Step 1: The Idea and The Niche
  • Step 2: Choosing Your Print on Demand Partner
  • Step 3: Designing Your Products
  • Step 4: Setting Up Your Store

So You Want to Start a Print on Demand Drop Shipping Business? Let’s Talk.

Print on demand drop shipping is that weird, modern magic trick where you sell a t-shirt online without ever touching it. I mean, think about it. You design something cool. A customer buys it. A company you’ve never visited prints it and mails it out with your name on the box. You just collect the profit. Sounds too good to be true, right? Sometimes it is. But sometimes, it absolutely works.

I tried it a few years back. Made a stupid design about loving coffee too much. Sold three shirts. To my mom and two aunts. It was a humbling start. But I learned a ton. And I’ve seen friends build real, actual businesses from their kitchen tables.

This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a get-rich-slow-if-you’re-smart-about-it scheme. Let’s break it down.

What Exactly is Print on Demand Drop Shipping?

Let me break it down for you. It’s two business models smashed together.

• Print on Demand (POD): A company only creates a product (like a t-shirt, mug, or poster) after someone orders it. No bulk orders. No boxes of unsold merch gathering dust in your garage.
• Drop Shipping: You sell a product, but another company holds the inventory and ships it directly to your customer. You’re the middleman, but a helpful one.

Put them together and you get print on demand drop shipping. You focus on the fun part: designing, marketing, and building a brand. The POD company handles the messy, expensive stuff: printing, packing, and shipping.

You know that feeling of stretching a shirt over a printing press? Yeah, me neither. And that’s the point.

Why Print on Demand Drop Shipping is So Damn Appealing

It boils down to risk. Or, more precisely, the lack of it.

• Low Startup Cost: You don’t need thousands of dollars to buy inventory. fifty bucks for a domain name and a basic Shopify plan? That’s more like it.
• No Inventory Hassle: Your “warehouse” is a digital file on your computer. You can offer 100 different designs on 50 different products without needing a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar.
• It’s Scalable: If you sell one shirt or ten thousand shirts, the process is the same for you. The POD company scales up behind the scenes.

It’s like having a factory on retainer that only works when you get paid first.

The Nuts and Bolts of a Print on Demand Drop Shipping Business

How does it actually work from start to finish? Let’s walk through the steps.

Step 1: The Idea and The Niche

This is where most people fail. They try to sell to everyone. “Funny t-shirts for men and women!” That’s not a niche; that’s a category on Amazon.

A good niche is specific. It’s “sarcastic t-shirts for cat-loving accountants.” Or “vintage-style national park posters for hikers.” It’s a group of people who share a strong, specific interest. The tighter your niche, the easier it is to find your customers and create designs they’ll actually care about.

Step 2: Choosing Your Print on Demand Partner

This is a big one. Your POD partner is the engine of your business. You need to pick a good one. Some of the big names are Printful, Printify, and Redbubble (which is also a marketplace).

What should you look for?

• Product Quality: Order samples. Seriously. Don’t skip this. Feel the shirt fabric. See if the print cracks. Your brand’s reputation depends on it.
• Integration: Can it connect easily to your online store, like Shopify or Etsy? A smooth integration saves you hours of manual work.
• Shipping Times and Costs: Where are their facilities? Shipping from the US is faster for US customers, but often more expensive. Shipping from other places can be cheaper but slower. It’s a trade-off.

Step 3: Designing Your Products

You don’t need to be Picasso. But you do need an eye for what looks good. Use tools like Canva or Adobe Illustrator. Hire a designer on Fiverr if you have to. The goal is a clean, professional-looking design that speaks to your niche.

My coffee shirt failed because the design was, well, bad. I used a free clipart and Comic Sans. Don’t be like past me.

Step 4: Setting Up Your Store

You have two main paths here:

• Your Own Website: Using Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce. You have more control and build your own brand. But you have to drive all your own traffic.
• A Marketplace: Like Etsy or Amazon. There’s built-in traffic, which is great. But competition is fierce, and you have less control over the buying experience.

Many successful sellers do both. They use Etsy for initial sales and then try to move customers to their own website over time.

Related