How To Start an Online Print Shop
Perfect guide to setting up and starting running an online print shop on your own in just a few incredible steps. Offer custom T-shirts, caps, mugs, mobile cases, bags, signages, banners, business cards, flyers, greetings, photobooks, packaging and more.
Did you know, you can set up your online business empire in just a few steps unlike the offline one for which you are required to pay a heavy price – physically, financially, and emotionally?
With the rising demand for online stores due to the customers growing love for the convenience, online shopping provides, launching an online store is becoming the need of the hour, by the time an offline store takes to finish set-up, your web-to-print storefront will be already in halfway to success.
Steps to Start an Online Web-to-Print Shop
Step 1
Decide your selling method
Step 2
Choose your POD products
Step 3
Decide what to sell, & where
Step 4
Set up your print store
Step 5
Work on pricing & payment
Step 6
Check, test, & launch
Step 7
Promote your products & store
The On/Off Battle
The debate regarding which is better – online or offline business continues since both are necessary and have their own set of advantages and disadvantages but, with our lifestyle at present and everything going digital around us, online business appears to be more beneficial, safer, and affordable than offline ones.
Why Start an Online Print Business?
First of all, such a stupendous boom in online business happened because of the Covid-19 pandemic which caused havoc and forced us all to stay indoors, and during that helpless period, online businesses were the only shining knights in armor. Thus, even post-pandemic, newbie entrepreneurs and start-ups are preferring to sell online than offline, hence the boom.
Secondly, with online stores come limitless possibilities such as broad customer reach, global connection, loyal and growing digital buyers, the ease of starting a business without a place and running it from anywhere, great savings in terms of cost, time, and resources, and the list goes on.
Therefore, by starting an Online Web-to-Print Shop, you don’t have to worry about taking care of the inventory or shipping your orders, the only thing you have to do is create a design, put it on a product, and then begin selling. The rest will be handled by your print-on-demand service.
Looking for a complete solution to offer personalized products?
The Complete Online Print Business Guide
No matter if you have a bit of experience in it or are a new player, follow these simple steps to start a online print store business.
1. Decide your selling method
There are multiple ways to start selling products online. If you are new then better join an online marketplace like Amazon, Etsy, Flipkart, etc., and start selling by creating a seller account and listing your products and stores. Once you’re a small business and have a unique set of products, you can pick any of the e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce, etc., that come with built-in tools to help you list and sell products, accept payments, manage inventory, etc. Whereas, if you already are an established business then you can simply start a webstore by adding a shopping cart feature to your website. So, choose wisely and whatever fits your budget and sales.
2. Choose your
print-on-demand products and find a niche
Since your products will decide the future of your business, e steer clear of what print-on-demand products will you be offering keeping in mind that they should be eligible for delivering it to your customers. Also, find your niche (a specialized market segment a product appeals to) which can be anything, from a profession, a specific animal, a movie, a fictional character, or just something fun and trending because defining a profitable niche will help you with higher profits, reduced competition, and less money spent on advertising. Wondering how to pick your niche? Start with market research, study your competitors, examine best-selling products of the past year, use Google Trends, and seek help from analyzing tools to figure out the right one.
3. Decide what to sell, and where
Since there is an endless array of products that you can customize and sell with print-on-demand like t-shirts, mobile covers, mugs, uniforms, hoodies, shoes, tote bags, yoga products, sportswear, and so on, keep your customers in mind and decide upon a few that you would like to put up in your store. Also, the space where you would e selling matters because in marketplaces you will get a lot of free buyer traffic; less control over your store’s appearance, branding, and content, and are highly competitive and have their own set of rules. While with an eCommerce platform, you can personalize your store, add additional content, various promotions, etc. but is a bit time-consuming and require extra investment to drive traffic via marketing. So, better evaluate your business needs and the time and money you can afford to spend and pick the right sales channel.
4. Set up your store
No matter what channel you choose, you need to prepare it for selling. Although ii marketplaces all you have to do is product listing for your online print store, you must get it done right everything from choosing the suitable eCommerce platform, getting the website design ready, deciding the number of pages, offering features, enabling security, making the navigation smooth and easy, enhancing its appearance, to setting up necessary features like shipping, payment, etc., because it will be your store that will attract the customers for sales. On the contrary, if you are just adding the shopping cart feature to your existing website then also, you must partner with the right web-to-print solution providers to help you integrate the apt and necessary web-to-print software onto your print website.
If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out this guide Create Business Concept like 4Over for your Country
5. Work on pricing and payment
Since pricing is what concerns the most for your customers, you have to make sure that all your products are priced such that you earn your profit as well by the end of the day. Research current market trends, check product costs for similar items, and calculate delivery and shipping costs as well as taxes, to finalize your product retail price. For payment, set p secured payment gateways like credit/debit cards, net banking, digital wallets, etc.
6. Double-check, test, and launch
Your customers should never face any kind of glitch while shopping or else it will turn them down forever so you must go through every single thing in your online print store before making it public. Look for errors, make sure all your links work, visit your product pages, and check all your informational pages for accuracy and completeness, analyze the time taken for page loading, ensure the navigation is smooth, test your store from the point of view of a new customer, run payment tests, ask your friends, family, or business consultants to take a look and go through the checkout process, in short check every nook and corner of your store to ensure if anything needs improvement. If all ok, make your store live, and once live, check for errors again just in case, and keep analyzing the functionality of your store.
7. Start promoting your products and store
Congratulations! You’ve successfully created, designed, and launched your online print store but, there’s more to do. Making your store live doesn’t mean people will see your site on Google search, you will have to earn that position. For that, you need to invest time, money, and resources in two things – Marketing and SEO. So, keep aside a separate budget for both because you will need a lot. You can start by preparing some basic print-on-demand marketing strategies and start promoting via a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast to build a following, maintain a social media presence and engage with your target audience, and consistently create new content for digital platforms to engage with users, run paid advertising campaigns on Instagram or Facebook, video ads and so on. In short, you must always keep reminding your online presence to your customers. Then, to make your site visible get your SEO done right by adding keywords, and optimizing your content, including meta tags, XML sitemap, and so on.
Get the most out of eCommerce by understanding its most famous terms
What is Web-to-Print and How Do They Work?
Web to Print,” “Web2Print,” “Web-to-Print Shop,” “Remote Publishing,” and “Print commerce,” you might have heard or come across all these terms which is nothing but e-commerce solution for print shops and product decorators that offer custom printed products.
An advanced web to print online designer is integrated into your e-commerce store-front which then allows your customers to choose a product from your website and design/personalize it in your online print shop itself.
Apart from allowing users to customize products, web-to-print software provides live estimates, accepts payment, helps create and upload the artwork files using the online design tool available within the website, receives orders, and produces print-ready artwork (verified through an automated production workflow) as part of the process.
Web-to-print software for all nature of printing needs such as commercial and wide format printing, custom and photo products, real estate, marketing, and ad agencies, franchisee, and corporates, are available today which enables online printing companies to maximize their efficiencies and offer a wide range of customizing options to their customers.
A Web-to-Print provides its customers with an online platform to select, design, or customize their goods and order merchandise. It works by generating high-quality print-ready files that go to the printer for production. In a nutshell, it provides control over the design and creation of marketing content while not compromising essential branded elements. Furthermore, it reduces the printing turnaround time.
Web-to-Print Terms You Need to Know
Complete Web-to-Print Guides
We have Solution to All Your Web-to-Print Requirement
We at Design’N’Buy, being an experienced provider of the web to print solutions, have two such complete B2B And B2C Web-To-Print solutions that are desktop and mobile-friendly, responsive, SEO-ready storefronts with a comprehensive design tool named All-in-One Web2Print and DesignO.
For New Website
AIOW2P is a proven B2C and B2B web2print solution for commercial, wide format, trade, and photo book printers with easy order management from start to delivery, design tool, multi-vendor store setup, and integration with on-demand third party applications (CRM, ERP, QuickBooks, etc.) and workflow systems
Most suitable Web to Print solution for you is
ALL-IN-ONE WEB2PRINT
For Existing Website
DesignO is an API-driven plug-n-play online designer tool powered with centralized print management software that works for all businesses – B2B and B2C and easily integrated with any eCommerce, ERP, MIS, CRM or other systems. More than 100 platforms are pre-integrated with DesignO, including Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Shopware, OpenCart, Prestashop, Odoo, Zapier, and more.
Most suitable Web to Print solution for you is
DESIGNO
Complete Guide on How to Start Printing Business
Examples of Successful Ecommerce Print Businesses
With low-cost and accessible web-to-print solutions now available, many print companies have tasted success
Naambordencentrale
All-in-One Web2Print – HTML5
Naambordencentrale believes that a nameplate adorns your home. Hence, they offer a diverse assortment in their shop nameplates, company nameplates, icons and house numbers . Once found a nice fit nameplate, then buy is a piece of cake. Enter the text or number that you want to put on your nameplate or design it yourself with the designer nameplates.
Handy Tags
All-in-One Web2Print – HTML5
Handy Tags is a company with vision to delight every one of their customer and not just satify them. Handy Tag offers products such as swing tags, bottleneck tags, door hangers, retail tags, clothing tags and more. They can customise and personalise these products to suit your requirements.
Digitaal Drukwerk
All-in-One Web2Print – HTML5
Digitaal Drukwerk is online printing company that provides best quality printing on high quality papers. They offer products like wedding cards, business cards, name tags, stickers, flyers, posters, banners, buttons, leaflets, wraps and more.
Get Ready to Level Up Your Print Business
Success doesn’t happen overnight but it is not impossible either. You just have to be consistent in your efforts and plan everything even if you are starting small. Just put yourself in your customers’ shoes and set your store up with them in your mind.
Don’t forget to research well, choose the right supplier, and partner with an experienced web-to-print solution provider like us Design’N’buy for making the right and good start with your online print business.
Take demo of our two iconic web-to-print solutions DesignO and AIOW2P and others and select your web-to-print software according to your need. Then just integrate, operate, and start selling now!
