don't use print on demand. Don't do it. Don't use print on demand. That's what they all say, right? Well, let me tell you something. They're not wrong, but they're not right, neither. So, in this video right here, I'm going to let you know why you should not use print on demand, why you should use print on demand, and how you actually should use print on demand. What is up? My name is Rich. I am a full-time e-com seller. I've been doing this since 2014. I've used print on demand a lot in my business, even fulfilled in-house. I've gone through a lot of the struggles with building an e-com business, especially in the apparel space. Done well over seven figures, and I've even helped students reach six and seven figures themselves. So, what is print on demand to begin with? These are companies that allow you to white label their products. Typically, it's a blank product like a t-shirt or a canvas, and you can upload your design, and they will print and ship it to your customer for you. So, some reasons why you

should not use print on the main and for one is going to be quality control a lot of you all seem to want to have that control. You want to see how your T-shirt feels, how it actually looks printed before it goes out of the door. You want to control every aspect of the packaging, and you just want that, you know, clear state of mind that you are actually getting that product shipped and handed to your carrier for you. Now one big thing that I have noticed is that a lot of people come into the comments and they always say things like, the quality is so bad. I just want to touch on this and say that it's not necessarily true. I've shipped out thousands and thousands of T-shirts. I know people who use solely print on demand for their seven and even they figure businesses, and the thing is when it comes to Quality bad reviews always shout louder than good reviews. It's more likely that if you go to a restaurant and you have an amazing experience, you get great food, great customer service, you probably won't even

leave a review, but the moment that you get some kind of bad service, or some kind of bad food, or something went wrong, you are more inclined to leave a bad review. That's just the nature of how things go, and the same thing is happening in the print-on-demand space. I see sellers try to start off, and then they have the same types of issues. For me, myself, I personally see this as a myth. There have been so many times I've sent out thousands of t-shirts, and I've never even ordered and sampled to myself. Now, that is another thing. If you do feel really badly about this, you know, feel free to order yourself a sample. But remember, you are going to be your own worst critic. A lot of you are going to look at a T-shirt and see one small misprint. I won't even say misprint; it's just something that is very typical, and you want it to be a one. It has to be perfect. Now, this is where you're kind of overthinking the entire thing. I see lots

of people doing this whenever they first start off, and they are nitpicking every single little thing, and this is holding them back from starting or even scaling their actual business. Now, the next reason why you shouldn't use print on demand is because of limited creative ability. A lot of these places aren't going to have screen printed puff because they can't print that one off easily, and now they might not have something like patches on a t-shirt everywhere because it's not necessarily easy to print patches one off for your actual garment. When it gets really creative, you can't get the inner lining of your hoodie dunk, you can't get custom printed pockets, you can't get over the sleeve prints like coming all the way across. You are going to be limited in your creativity. Now, there are some things that you can do like a full-size print, some people allow all-over prints, a lot of these companies have embroidery, so don't think you are limited in that aspect. You can be quite limited if you want that full creative control.

want to go really crazy on some types of garments, but the beauty of print on a man is you don't always have to solely use print on demand. You can mix this in for your own products on your store. If you want to have those crazy quality apparel decorated items, you can still print and ship this yourself or outsource it and ship it yourself. And have certain products on your store that is print on demand. Now, some reasons why you shouldn't use print on demand. It's really easy to start, it's super simple. It's really easy to go to any of these print on demand platforms, these websites, and integrate it with your website. And they integrate with lots of different platforms nowadays, and it makes it really easy so that whenever you get an actual order, they print and ship it automatically. So that's a whole nother department that you don't necessarily have to worry about and learning that game, because those are whole other departments where you have to actually learn when you do it yourself, printing or outsourcing, then fulfillment then.

shipping and how to get the best shipping rates and so on. But the con of this as well is the fact that it eats into your profit margin. That is one thing I probably should have mentioned when it came to why you shouldn't because you're not going to have that crazy crazy profit margin as if you are doing it yourself. Which brings me to my next topic of why you should use print on demand. A lot of you all are so worried that it's eating so much into your profit margin that you don't even want to do it. The thing is you can get way more sales to make up for it because now you can just focus on selling only. And you won't have as much time being taken away when it comes to printing, shipping, or outsourcing and fulfillment. And especially if you're starting off by yourself and as a small team, these are some time that you really need to focus on just sales and marketing at the core of this. You want to focus on that. Don't worry about the profit margin just yet.

you want to use print-on-demand as leverage to get as many sales as possible. The thing is, with these companies, they can print and ship and handle it for you, whenever you are focused on just getting sales. Now, at the end of the day, it's up to you as a business owner. Once you get those sales in, you can sit there and look at it and digest and see which products you want to focus on so that you can get that profit margin back. Say this item right here is selling a lot and is going on print-on-demand. Instead, we want more of that margin back. Let's take this one in-house and let's figure out how we can outsource or produce this ourselves and fulfill it ourselves. So, you have to use it as leverage. You're always so concerned that it's eating too much of your profit margin that you're not looking at the bigger picture sales. Another reason why you shouldn't use print-on-demand is product availability. They have hundreds and hundreds of products on here that you can actually

use now when it comes to doing things yourself, or you know, trying to outsource, it's hard to find certain products that you want to purchase. And most of the time when you're outsourcing, you have to do a MOQ, which is a minimum order quantity. Sometimes you have to order 36 hoodies or 36 t-shirts with 36 mugs. When it comes with print on demand, and you don't even know if your audience is going to purchase these products just yet, then instead of you being so concerned about carrying inventory, you can test your audience. You can put a mug out there and see if people like it or not. And if they don't like it, you can do away with it easily instead of being stuck with 36 mugs. But guess what, if you actually sell through it or print on demand, it gives you the idea of, hey, maybe we do want to focus on this as a product. So it's really easy and simple for you to be able to test your audience.

with different types of products. When it comes to doing print on demand, one other thing is the fact that it is really easy to go international. It's really easy to go global because some of these print-on-demand companies have multiple print houses across the globe. So now, even if someone is ordering something in Australia, sometimes they may already have a print house in Australia and it gets printed and shipped directly from Australia. And a lot of people want to sell in the US market. This works in that way as well. A lot of people who are in India and want to sell in the US market, they can use a US print provider and sell to the US market. So really think about that as well. It's easier to take your brand or your business global with print on demand. Now, how you should actually use it, I already touched on it. You should use it as leverage, access to things that you don't typically have in-house. You can test different products. And if you are just starting off, don't look at that

small thing known as profit margin. Yes, it is a big concern, but if you never even sold anything, what's the point of having profit margin? When you're incapable of getting sales, focus on getting sales and increase your profit margin at a later time. Use print on demand as leverage, test as many different products as you can, test the market, see what you can sell, and then once you are done focusing on sales and marketing, you can go and look in different departments that you want to leverage so that you can get your profit margin back. Print on demand is not the reason why you're not getting sales. Just really think about your business model. If you are selling T-shirts as a brand or you're just selling it as a t-shirt seller. If you're doing it the way that I typically do it by selling on Amazon and that's the end, just selling generic style t-shirts, or do you actually have a clothing brand. But at the end of the day, you should be using print on demand as leverage for your business. You don't

necessarily have to use it solely, although I do know of a handful of people who just solely use this print-on-demand because they don't want to build a team in-house for product fulfillment, for creation, for outsourcing, and so on. It's really easy to build a team online and have that automated. Now, on the other hand, I know of companies who use this print-on-demand alongside of themselves also creating products, designing, and shipping in-house, but they also use print-on-demand as leverage for testing points to test and try different products. Now that you know how you can use print-on-demand for your business, remember this: a lot of you guys may be struggling to get those first few sales or even to scale. Remember, remember, it's not exactly easy; however, it is simple. It can be easy in the long run once you keep on doing it and you start to understand and know when and where you should put this to use. It's not necessarily hard either; this is not rocket science. It's really simple and it's straightforward. And once you really

start to understand the game. Remember, there's a learning curve to this, just like anything and everything else, but once you learn it, it's going to be really easy for you to leverage it.

Don't Use Print On Demand in 2024 (The Truth)

Don't Use Print On Demand in 2024 (The Truth)