Let me put it out there now: selling personalized products on Etsy is the fastest way to make money.

Take it from me!

It’s an excellent way to make massive short-term sales. However, it’s not so good for the medium or long term.

This is because personalized products are a bespoke approach to POD sales. Products are specifically made for each customer. This takes a whole lot of time.

To create a personalized product, you need to have the customer’s name, photo, and info about the customization the customer wants. You use these details to create a design.

A simple design might not take much time. Designs consisting of a person’s name, for instance, are easy to create. But if the design is complex, it might take much more time.

Once your design is ready, you have to fulfill the order manually. You need to get the address and complete fulfillment by yourself. No system can do this yet.

But here’s the silver lining! You can make many sales fast with this kind of product. This is because people on Etsy love personalized designs and products. People love the sense of ownership that a personalized product offers.

Having a product bearing a design they can identify with goes a long way. This is why there’s been increasing demand for personalized POD products.

I know someone who sells a lot of personalized products. She can sell 3,000 personalized mugs for Mother’s Day alone! And all her sales come from free organic traffic. Insane, right? But it’s true!

I don’t have any personalized products in my store. Not because they don’t sell. It’s just simply because I’m too lazy to do all the processes manually, all by myself.

But I do get orders for personalized products from time to time. People contact me and ask if I can make a personalized design or even tweak the design on one of my existing products.

One time, one person wanted to order about 10 personalized mugs. The offer would make me about $100 in profit, and the design was easy to make. She just wanted to change some text in the design. I accepted the order.

I once had another personalized product order for New Year’s. The person wanted 250 coffee mugs as gifts for her customers and coworkers. She just wanted me to add her company logo to the product.

I accepted this offer too. I made around $2,000 in profit from this order alone.

These are some of my experiences with selling personalized products over the years. it can be profitable, but it takes a lot of time and can’t be automated.

So, if you’re just getting started with your POD business and want to make money fast, this is a good business model. Just ensure that you also focus on listing other products in your shop for long-term sales.