Did you know you can create your own line of custom merch products to stock in your own online store without needing to purchase any inventory whatsoever? Yes, this is actually possible and in this post I’m going to go through the steps on how to do it and the tools you need to make it all possible.
Do you love those cute little t-shirts with fun quotes and sayings on them? Just like this one. A simple, text-only quote printed on a grey t-shirt. Very Cute and cool!
Or have you got some design ideas in your head but don’t know what to do with them? If you’re a bit of a whizz with Photoshop or other graphic design program and can create cool graphics, you can have them printed on products for you to sell.
CREATE YOUR OWN LINE OF CUSTOM PRODUCTS
I love online shopping! If I can get something online and save myself going out to the store, then I will.
So it is pretty obvious, that e-commerce is one of my favorite ways to make money online and I have created many online stores since 2006 when I first starting building online businesses.
The first online store I built was called Yuppi Puppi and I sold cute products for dogs. I then created an Ebay store and sold women’s fashion. I also sold a range of different physical products on Amazon.com.
The problem I had with all of these?
Amazon gave me very little control of how I ran my business and I had zero access to my customer’s information so I couldn’t promote my other products to them. They forever belong to Amazon.
The other online stores I built required me to purchase bulk inventory, which I didn’t have the money for, so I was extremely limited on the range of products I could offer. It isn’t very good only having 10 products for sale on your online store.
They also meant that I couldn’t run my business from anywhere in the world because I needed to be able to pack and ship an order when I got one.
I wanted something that required very little money to start up, didn’t mean I was tied to one location to fulfil my orders and I was able to easily scale and grow to more styles and products.
I finally discovered a way to create an online store and get it up and running with an unlimited amount of products that I didn’t need to buy upfront.
Being able to design my own products is a bonus that means I get to use my creative side at the same time. And this isn’t just for graphic designers. If you want to just offer a range of branded products with your logo on, you can do that too.
Creating custom products also gives you something unique, that people can’t get anywhere else and helps you stand out from the rest of the online stores out there.
Whether you’re a lover of graphic design like me or you want to create a range of branded products to help promote your company, you can basically create any design and have it printed on a range of different items.
The first decision you need to make is figuring out exactly what it is you want to print your designs on.
WHAT CUSTOM MERCH PRODUCTS DO YOU WANT TO SELL?
There are lots of different products that you can choose to sell with your designs on. This is just a short list of some of the items you can have your custom designs printed on:
- T-shirts
- Towels
- Mugs
- Tote Bags
- Hoodies
- Cosmetic Bags
- Aprons
Firstly, decide exactly what you want to sell as this will determine which company you choose to handle the printing and fulfilment of your products.
WHERE DO YOU ACTUALLY GET THESE PRODUCTS FROM?
Once you have decided what products you want to print your designs on, you can now start to look for a printing company. But here, you are not just looking for any printing company. You are looking for a print-on-demand company that also handles fulfilment.
What does this mean exactly?
Print on demand means the printing company will print just one of your products at a time rather than you having to purchase bulk inventory up front. Then for the fulfilment, once they have printed your design on their product, they will package and ship out the order directly to your customer.
Your customer doesn’t even realize that it has been sent from your printing company. They receive their order with your company name on it. There is no reference to the printing company on the product or package at all.
Yes! There are companies out there that actually do this for you!
And there are actually quite a few of them. I will list a couple here but feel free to do a Google search for a company that really suits your needs if the ones I recommend don’t.
Personally, I use a company called Print Aura. At the moment, I only want to print on t-shirts, tank tops and hoodies and this company has a really big range of brands and styles compared to other company’s that I looked at.
They also have super simple integration with the major e-commerce platforms that you will be using to build your store on.
Another company which has a really great reputation, though I haven’t personally used them yet, is Printed Mint. Printed Mint have a really good range of products like cosmetics bags, stationary, towels, yoga mats, totes and mugs.
So, if you’re looking to have more of an accessory type of merch line, this would be a good choice. I definitely have plans to use them in the future but as of right now, I can’t go much further in detail of how their website works or how to link your site up to theirs but all the information will be on their website if you want to use them.
HOW DO YOU CREATE YOUR ONLINE STORE?
This is where you decide where to host your website. Again, you have lots of different options here from building, designing and hosting your website yourself to hosting your site through Shopify to creating an fully hosted platform such as an Etsy store.
Which one you decide to use will depend on your budget and how much knowledge you have with creating websites.
I’ll briefly go into each one for you to help you make the decision on which way you want to go.
ETSY.com
If you have absolutely zero knowledge and feel completely uncomfortable with web design and creation, Etsy.com would be a good starting point as all you do here is create an account and upload your product images and descriptions.
If you haven’t heard of Etsy.com it is a platform where you can sell hand-made or custom goods.
The thing I don’t like about Etsy.com (or any other owned platform like Ebay and Amazon) is that you have basically no control over your store.
Firstly, the look and functionality of the website is completely out of your control.
Secondly, you have no idea what is going on behind the scenes of the business. If you created an online store that was generating $5,000 per month and you went to bed tonight and when you woke up, Etsy had shut its doors, you wake up to $0 income overnight.
Scary, huh?
There are also fees associated with selling on Etsy.com. It can seem cheap at first as there is no up front fee to join, you only pay when you sell a product but the fees can quickly add up.
If you decide to use Etsy.com you will have to price your products higher or your profit margin will be a bit lower than hosting your own online store.
But, it is a good place to start and get your feet wet in the online store arena, learn about selling online and build a brand.
It’s extremely easy to use, it’s a well known popular site and you get access to their already massive customer base.
It’s also a great add-on if you are already hosting your online store yourself, to generate extra sales you might of missed elsewhere but isn’t the main stream of income for you.
SHOPIFY
If you want something a little more custom than Etsy and don’t have the time or knowledge to build your own store from scratch, then creating your store with Shopify is a great choice.
Shopify is a hosting platform that is a “click and play” type of software. You don’t to have any (or much) web development or design knowledge – though it does help if you want to really customize your store.
Shopify is so easy to use you and you can get your store up and running in hours. Literally.
I have had a store running on Shopify before and I just found the monthly costs can add up a little bit.
Firstly, there is the monthly fee to have your store on Shopify. You can then purchase apps to plugin into your store to give it some really great functionality such as automatically emailing people who abandon their cart (add items to their cart but leave your site without actually placing an order).
These apps also have a monthly fee and while you don’t need to install them to run your store, they do help you run your store better.
SELF-HOSTED
I like building websites so I build my websites and online stores using the Thesis framework and host them with Hostgator.
I then install WordPress and use the free WooCommerce plugin which builds an online store into my website.
This means I have absolute complete control over my store. It also means that other than the fee I pay to Hostgator for hosting my site, I have no other costs associated with keeping that website running.
And, the costs for using Hostgator are very, very low.
You can still use this option even if you are not a web developer as there are hundreds of pre-made online store templates that you can buy and install on your site.
NOW YOU GET TO CONNECT EVERYTHING UP!
Once you have either set up your Etsy.com account or built your online store you need to connect it to your Print Aura account.
They have the functionality to connect to Shopify, Storeenvy, Etsy, Woocommerce and Bigcommerce.
For me, connecting was as simple as installing a plugin into my site.
What is the point of this?
Well, it creates an automated online store for you.
By connecting your site with your Print Aura account it means that someone comes to your store and makes a purchase, this order is automatically forwarded to your Print Aura account where they receive it, print it, charge your credit card and mail the order out for you.
Basically, once you have set your store up and added all your products, it can become an extremely hands off business.
HOW DO YOU CREATE YOUR DESIGNS FOR YOUR CUSTOM MERCH?
Now for the fun part! Creating your designs!
I create all my designs in Photoshop as I love graphic design and this is the program I know how to use but if you don’t know how to use Photoshop, then Canva is your best bet.
Canva is free to join and use but you will need to upgrade to their paid membership as you need your designs to have a transparent background and this feature is only available in the paid Canva membership.
Why is this important? It is the difference between your design looking like this:
Unless this is how you want your design to look, then you need to make sure your images have a transparent background.
HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY CREATE YOUR CUSTOM MERCH PRODUCTS?
Actually creating your products will become the most time intensive part of creating your online store, but once it’s done you only need to focus on creating new products now and then if you want to continue adding to your inventory.
Here you will take your designs and create your products in Print Aura. It will be a little time consuming, especially if you have lots of designs.
This is where you will upload your design, choose the item you want it to go on, place it in the correct position on the item, choose the colors and sizes you want to sell, add pricing, create your descriptions and all the information you want displayed on your product page.
Once you have created your product in Print Aura it is automatically displayed in your online store.
Once you have finished adding your designs to your products and creating the product listing, this is basically your online store built and full of custom products available to sell without having to purchase a single piece of inventory!
This is one of my favorite business models and I’m sure by now you can see why. You can create a passive or semi-passive business in such a short time.
Personally, I don’t believe you should want to create a totally passive online store because that won’t create you a sustainable, long-term income.
Once your store is set up you will still need to market and promote it, push it on your social media accounts, build a following and customer base and continue to create new products to stay relevant and to keep customers coming back for more.
Once you’ve created your customer merch online store, drop the link in the comments so that I can go check it out!
