What is Print on Demand Business and why is it becoming popular in India?
Today Print on demand (POD) is becoming a booming business all over the world. You will see many content creators on YouTube making videos about Print on Demand Business model, explaining its benefits. I know many such POD business owners who are earning good profits with a monthly revenue of Rs. 1-2 Cr. I myself have run a T-shirt print on demand business for a year and experienced what challenges you may face after the POD store goes live.
This is a kind of business model where you do not need to keep pre-made inventory or stock physically with you. You process the product only when you get an order from a direct retail client. This business can be started with B2C (Business to Client) model and gradually you may add the B2B (Business to Business) vertical as well. POD business is the next level of drop shipping, where you print your innovative and creative ideas on various products and sell them directly to clients through online stores. You also save a lot of money as you do not need to set up an offline store locally. You can target a larger region via online selling.
POD business is going to be a successful business model in upcoming 10 years in India especially. In this blog we will know in detail what types of challenges you may face and how to overcome it to become profitable.
Table of Contents
What is the difference between Print On Demand and Drop Shipping business?
Both print on demand and drop shipping are business models done without inventory. These two businesses have a basic difference – In POD business you print your customized and creative designs on the product before selling it whereas in Drop Shipping model you directly sell the pre-made products that you would have sourced from a supplier or a dealer.
In both the models, either you can handle the shipping yourself or you may ask the vendor or supplier to ship the products directly to the customer for you. If you have already established a brand, you can provide your logo and company details to the third-party supplier who will seamlessly integrate it on the products before shipping it.
What are the best products to sell in Print on Demand business?
POD business deals in a wide variety of products.
The most common products which are highly demanded in the market and can give you a lot of profit are t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, oversized t-shirts, shoes, pendants, jewelry, mugs, sipper bottles, mouse pad, gaming pad, head phones, phone covers, posters, tote bags etc. Home décor items like cushions, wall art is also quite popular.
Your target should be to minimize production and shipping cost so that your profit margin is maximum. You can customize all these products by printing unique and sellable designs that you have created with your innovative and creative thinking.
Remember only good and high-quality designs that people can connect to emotionally, make your POD store profitable. I have experienced it live and sharing my learning with you all.
Print on demand business flow. Can you make it profitable?
It is very important to understand the flow of such business model before investing your time and effort. Please note, I have not mentioned “investing money”, it is because you can start this business with a bare minimum investment and build a scalable print on demand brand without actually worrying about:
- Manufacturing
- Inventory or stock
- Funding
- Packaging
- Delivery
Below is the general flow or Print on Demand business:
As per the business flow given above, you list the customized products on your store and start running ads. It is advisable to run only meta-ads and not google ads because the customers that you would be targeting for POD products are mainly in the age group 18 to 35 or 40 years. And people of such age groups are very active on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
When customers place the order, you inform your print partner to process and ship it directly to them. But remember, you will have to pay to your vendor or print partner for the material, print of the design and shipping. Deducting the cost of production and shipping, you calculate your profit margins.
But is this business flow so easy and simple? No, not at all. For a beginner, its very important to understand the challenges you face when you enter the Indian market with print on demand business model. If you overcome these challenges, you can easily earn a good chunk of profit by selling POD products online.
Top 10 Challenges Every Print on Demand Business Must Overcome
Print on Demand seems to be a simple and easy business model, but that is not the case. It has its own challenges and many things have to be kept in mind to run this business on a long term. You must have heard, Harshad Bhai had said once, “risk hai to ishq hai” [Without Risk there is no Love].
Note: People who tell you that you can do this business part time or along with the job or by working just 2 hours a day, be aware and take steps wisely as you will be investing your hard-earned money to start a business. Strategic planning and proper market research is a key to run this business successfully. Let us start what challenges you can face while running a POD business:
1. Indian market or USA market, which one to start with?
Challenge: This is the biggest confusion or challenge for beginners. They don’t understand whether to make products for USA market or for Indian market. In USA profit margins compared to India are higher, but is India also a promising market. This is a basic question in the mind of a beginner who is interested to start a Print on Demand business.
Solution: There is a simple solution to this, If you are residing in India then start it only for India region and if you reside in USA or any other country start it locally first. If you run this business locally then it will be easier for you to handle the operational challenges smoothly.
2. Cost of the Product and Print
Challenge: For Indian and USA markets, you will get different integrated suppliers on Shopify or Woocommerce. Some Indian suppliers like Qikink & Printrove and USA suppliers like Printify or Fuel Print on Demand and many more fulfill and deal with POD products. But there is a major challenge here – cost of the material and printing. If you are doing it for USA market then it is not that big a challenge but if you are doing it for Indian market then it is very important to have a nominal price in India.
Solution: Try searching local vendors who can fulfill your requirement without compromising the quality of the material and printing. By this way, you can increase your profit margins. If you have money to invest, you can set up your own printing store as well [But this is not strictly advised for people who want to start with low investment]
3. Shipping Cost
Challenge: Generally, if you are shipping through vendors then the shipping charges will be higher for you.
Solution: Try negotiating with them or target those places for initial orders where shipping charges are less. Once you are able to build a brand and can handle printing and shipping at your own, it can save you a lot of money. Please note, building brand takes Time & Patience!
4. Print Quality Issues
Challenge: Some Vendors to save cost, do not pay much attention to the printing quality.
Solution: Remember, if you are planning to build a brand, never compromise with the quality. Immediately change the vendors if you get frequent complains from the customer about print or material quality. It will not help you to sustain for long in the market.
5. Trending and Sellable Designs
Challenge: For me, this was the toughest challenge I faced. It is very important to do a design research and market research to understand what is the trend being followed in the market. How would you understand that?
Solution: You can find trending and sellable designs and products from many sources such as – amazon website, competitors’ website, Ads library, spy tools, viral video trends, viral events etc. I am not going into details here, but will surely bring a detailed article on how to do design and market research. Remember your research should coincide with the niche you have selected and if you have started with a general niche, then you can consider experimenting with all the research methods.
6. Creating a High Quality, Unique and Sellable Design
Challenge: Some people even after putting all the efforts, not able to make high quality designs using any designing tool such as Canva or Adobe illustrator. Remember, only designs can give you good sales, repeat customer, word of mouth and most importantly branding. If you are also one of them, who is unable to produce a high quality unique and trendy design then it is wise to hire a designer and consider it as an investment.
Solution: Start with hiring a freelance graphic designer who is expert in creating designs used for printing on t-shirts or cups or any other product of your choice. You can use freelance hiring websites such as Fiverr & Upwork. You may also try looking for high quality unique designs on Etsy portal. The graphic designer may charge you starting from 600 to 1200 per designer based on the type of design you are creating.
7. Controlling RTOs, Fake Orders, Cancellations
Challenge: Return to Origin (RTO) is one of the major challenges for POD businesses in India. The customers have less trust factor and after seeing the meta-ads, either they order it to test our site or just to see if they receive a product. You also get a lot of fake orders which are easily recognizable by incorrect email, phone numbers or addresses. When you are starting a POD business you will have to keep Cash on Delivery as a compulsory payment option. Most of the people misuse it and cancel the order on arrival.
Solution: It is important to call each customer who has placed an order on your store. How would you understand whether the customer who spoke over the phone really wants your order? You will have to learn the art of understanding the tone of the customer over the call. Obviously, you cannot be 100% sure, but you can easily make out whether the customer really wants your product or he is just testing it and may cancel the delivery. But Calling reduces your RTO by 50%, I have experienced it myself.
8. Product Variety
Challenge: Let’s say you are starting a T-Shirt POD business. Initially it is advisable to start with very few colors so that you do not end up with unused RTO products with the supplier. But this sometimes becomes a challenge, as customers love to see variety of a single product especially in India.
Solution: Divert customers with more unique and trendy designs. If the designs are really looking good on the product, the customer will not focus much on the color of the products.
9. Fast and Efficient Delivery
Challenge: Long duration of delivery makes your customer impatient and your store or product ultimately results in low rating or bad review.
Solution: At any cost the duration of the delivery should be 3-4 days from your order date.
10. Selecting the Right Product to Scale
Challenge: Sometimes a beginner or even an experienced POD store owner is not able to make out which products he should choose to scale and become sustainable.
Solution: Niche based products and designs can help you overcome this challenge as you become more focused and market it accordingly to build a brand in that niche.
Scope of Print on Demand Business model. In India or USA?
Lastly I would like to conclude this article to let you know from my research and experience that both Indian and USA market has high potential for POD business. In USA people spend more on custom products, hence the demand of POD is still on a higher side there. But it is gradually coming to a saturation point in USA and people are looking for more business options related to sustainable living and projects.
Whereas in India, it’s a booming market and it has just started. I know many POD owners who are doing really well. The good thing about this business is, you do not own a stock and you can easily be adaptive and agile based on the demands from the market. Indian Urban cities have developed to build more trust in small POD stores and have started to order custom made products. This business model is more famous amongst youth and GenZs as they get the most trending customized designs. Young entrepreneurs have started showing interest in this business model as it has low investment and creative freedom.
Hope you enjoyed reading this article and I was able to add value to your experience and learning. Please do share this article with your friends and relatives who are already in this business or planning to build a POD brand.
If you are interested for a one-to-one consulting for more help, please connect and I will revert within 24-48 hours.