Do I need to engage a POD company to make my products before I add the app to my store, or will adding the app to my store (which has no products yet) then engage that company which will begin my product development with them?
Hey, @PinstripedSoul .
Thanks for reaching out to our Community! I’m excited to hear that you’re opening a new POD business. I’m happy to help.
To answer your question, you can simply connect your POD app of choice to your Shopify store and begin to design and import products right away. There is no need to reach out to the company beforehand. Once you decide on a POD service and add it to your store, you will be able to view the range of products they carry.
These print-on-demand sites are free to start with and require you to pay only for the cost of the product and shipping after someone has placed an order: 10 Best Print on Demand Companies. It’s important to consider the type of products you’re hoping to sell when deciding on which company to work with.
I’d love to learn more about your plans! For example, what type of business are you starting? From there, I can suggest some POD companies specifically if you’d like.
Talk soon,
1 Like
Thank you for your response!
We are designing t-shirts mostly, but will want to print some if the
designs on stickers and/or tote bags, mugs, etc.
Its been a little confusing trying to get the images designed from my
original ideas and knowing what size file to provide, and been wondering if
different types of tees will be available or do I need to have the actual
shirt pattern made, etc.
I’ll also be publishing a children’s book via a POD tool and don’t know
which one to use for that either.
Any suggestions you can give will be greatly appreciated!
-Ashley
Hi @PinstripedSoul ,
I’ve scrolled through your question, and also your concern towards opening a POD business and I think what you need now is some kind of workflow idea how to get everything in shape. Although I’m not a merchant, but I’ve been working with several merchants who are working on POD before, so I hope my suggestion can help.
First, please research for a supplier first. Based on your listed concerns, I see that you’re not sure if adding an app of supplier will solve your questions on print file, product import, product variants,… So that’s why my suggestion is you need to research for the supplier you want to work with first and engage with them. Currently there are many suppliers on the field, and they all have different range of products, also printing system & requirements, and seller support services. All the information you need about product variety and print file requirements, normally, it will be all listed on their official website - where they also put their product catalog there. After, you’ve found a suitable supplier that has the fitting product you want to sell, you can contact them if you have any questions related to product, product price, or if you want to check the quality of product before making any decision (some suppliers will give you free printing sample to check out the product quality). So yeah, please go and research on the suppliers first.
Now after you’ve chosen the supplier you want to work with, you can now check if they provide an application to link your account with Shopify. Normally, POD supplier will have app to sync products to Shopify, it’s a way they easier the selling process for seller. In case they don’t have an app, you can contact their support, or check their docs if there’s any other workaround to connect your Shopify store to your supplier or not. Because once the orders are coming in, you might be overwhelmed if you have to send orders to supplier manually.
And lastly, make sure you test the whole workflow on customer’s side before start selling. You should play role and become your own customer first, and see first the flow that they will need to engage on your site in order to buy a product. You will gain valued insights to optimize customer experiences, which later can help your store to actually earn. Also, test the process as a merchant once you receive an order, which task that you’ll need to do once you have an order from customer, and again how to optimize it.
So yeah, basically that’s everything you might want to check to get started with POD. I hope this piece of advice helps you with your new business. Best of luck!