There are so many marketplaces, too many to number, where Print-on-Demand products can be sold. But the top 3 marketplaces where you can make massive profits from selling POD products are Amazon, Etsy, and eBay.
I’ve had a much easier experiences selling on Amazon, Etsy and eBay than elsewhere. This is because these platforms already have huge traffic and ready buyers.
These platforms have free organic traffic, you just need to be able to divert buyers’ their attention towards you and your products. You can’t get this many ready buyers anywhere else, trust me.
Also, with POD, you don’t need to spend much money upfront. You might just have to spend money to get your designs made if you can’t do it on your own, and to pay product listing fees.
All you have to do is upload your product and wait for an order. The production doesn’t start until an order comes in. This model poses less risk to you as a seller, since there is no major financial investment required beforehand.
I call Amazon, Etsy and eBay the 1st-tier marketplaces.
Selling on Etsy
I’ll talk about Etsy first, because it’s the marketplace where you can make your first sale easily.
Selling Print-on-Demand products (POD) on big marketplaces like Etsy is one of the best ways to build a passive income stream.
Like I told you, I started selling POD on Amazon first. And trust me when I say that I made a lot of money from Amazon. But I wanted to put Etsy here first, because I’ve found that it’s much easier to make sales on Etsy.
If you’re starting a POD business, it’s a good place to dip your toe in the water.
Etsy is an eCommerce website crowded with people who love unique and handmade products. Print-on-Demand products are perfect for Etsy. And they sell well, too.
I’ve been selling POD products for many years. After I saw a lot of sellers making big sales on Etsy, I decided to expand my business there. As of February 2020, Etsy had around
264 million monthly visitors. Lucky for me, I got my first sale after listing fewer than 10 products.
Getting started on Etsy is easy. Just open an Etsy Account, then click click Open Your Etsy Shop. The good news is that there is no fee to open a store, but you’ll have to pay listing fees when you list products.
Once your shop is open, you can set up your profile name and image. These things will show up on your store’s front page, so make sure to use some friendly images. Then, enter some other details for your shop, such as the Shop Policy, About, Frequently Asked Questions, etc.
The next important step is to set up your payment information. You have to set up a way to receiving money from your customers and pay Etsy the listing fees. I use PayPal for these two activities. You can use any payment portal that works for you.
Finally, start listing products! There is a $0.20 fee you have to pay every four months to list a product.
And that’s it! Easy peasy!
Selling on Amazon
When I first started selling on Amazon, it took me a while to get the hang of how it works, how to boost sales, and how to sell more Print-on-Demand products.
One thing I quickly realized is that the way to sell products on Amazon is quite different from selling on other marketplaces such as Etsy.
I have discovered that making sales on Amazon can be slower than making sales on Etsy.
There are two ways to sell on Amazon: FBM and FBA.
There is an option called **“FBM - Fulfilled by Merchant.” **In the Fulfilled by Merchant model, Amazon sellers store and ship items on their own or outsource fulfilment to a third party that is not Amazon.
You, as the seller, would be responsible for meeting Amazon’s service levels about shipping and orders. Also, sellers using the FBM method must provide customer service and return processing for all FBM orders.
In other words, sellers have to produce and ship their product by themselves to their customers.
Anyway, as a Print-on-Demand seller, we use a supplier to make and ship a product. These suppliers can be considered as third-party agents used for the fulfilment of product orders.
But you see, you might not be able to make so many sales from Amazon FBM. If you want to make tremendous sales from Amazon, you should try Amazon FBA.
Now, if the term **“FBA – Fulfilled By Amazon” **sounds strange to you, pay attention here. So, in simple terms, it means “you sell it, and Amazon ships it.”
As a seller, your job is to send bulk products to Amazon’s fulfilment centers. Then, Amazon will pick, pack, and ship a product once it is sold.
You create your product lists, while Amazon handles everything regarding storage and all aspects of order fulfilment.
Enrolling in the FBA program means you’re taking advantage of Amazon’s innovative technology and automation system.
You get to enjoy the benefits of Amazon’s advanced shipping and fulfilment services and earn more sales from their coveted Prime customers.
Although both methods have their pros and cons, the majority of Amazon sellers make sales more easily with their FBA products. When you begin to make some FBA products, you can make far more sales than you can on Etsy.
One of the most popular ways to earn income online is through Amazon FBA.
I learned a lot about this during Q4. There are a lot of advantages to selling FBA listed products.
As an internet marketer, you should know that the fourth quarter of the year is prime shopping season, when we can all make a lot of sales.
So, at this time of year, don’t go around slacking or taking breaks when you should be racking up more sales. Okay?
In late 2019, if I’m not mistaken, I think I placed 20 boxes (I can’t remember the exact number), or around 720 coffee mugs in total in my Amazon account as FBA products.
For FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant), my team was still listing 150 products a day for me while I was travelling. I think I had around 40,000-50,000 products in my Amazon account at that point.
So, I had both winning FBA products and thousands of FBM products in my account during that Q4.
Print-on-Demand products sell well in Q4 because most of the products purchased are gifts. People usually buy gifts for Christmas and New Year’s for family members or friends.
So, if you’re selling products that display meaningful messages, there’s a chance that people will buy them.
During this time, most sales come from FBA products, especially in December because of the last-minute purchases that a lot of people make.
FBM, on the other hand, is NOT the best option for doing things like this. You usually can’t ship the product on time. FBA works better because Amazon can ship the item fast.
Selling on eBay
**eBay **is another great marketplace to sell Print-on-Demand products. It might not be as popular as Amazon or Etsy, but there’s tons of traffic here and you can make decent sales.
Before expanding to eBay, I researched POD sellers on eBay – and guess what I found? Many sellers from Amazon and Etsy also list their products on eBay! And they make good sales here, too.
I was able to track their sales success because eBay’s product page shows the number of units sold for each product.
Anyway, getting started selling on eBay is not as easy as the other marketplaces. First off, their user interface is kind of difficult to follow. In addition, they have a product listing limit for new accounts.
But there are benefits to selling on eBay. To start with, eBay enjoys huge visitor traffic. As of December 2019, eBay had about 107 million active monthly visitors. That’s huge!
Also, the POD competition on eBay is very low compared to Amazon and Etsy. During my research, I ran a search query for the keyword **“Mother’s Day Mug” **and got just 9,560 results at that time.
When I used the same keyword to search on Etsy, there were over 70,000 products. There were also over 20,000 items on Amazon.
So, there’s room to break new ground on eBay.
2nd-Tier Marketplaces
There are hundreds of online stores out there where you can sell Print-on-Demand products. But none of them has the kind of traffic or ease of sale that you would enjoy when you set up your store in any of the first-tier marketplaces.
If you have spare time, you can add your products to these marketplaces to make a little extra income. Many of them are good for making some side cash.
Marketplaces like **Bonanza **and **Storenvy **seem to be doing pretty well. For instance, 50,000 sellers voted Bonanza ***“Best Overall Marketplace” ***over eBay, Amazon, and Etsy, according to its website.
Storenvy also has over 65,000 merchants and millions of products listed. They’re worth checking out.
But it’s still better to focus on the three first-tier marketplaces above.
