Now that you have the designs you need to create your print-on-demand products, the next step is to upload information about the product to your desired marketplace (such as Etsy, Amazon, or eBay).
This is where prospective buyers will see your products and place their orders.
Let me put this out early: uploading products on POD marketplaces can be extremely stressful, especially if you’re listing thousands of products.
At some point in my POD journey, I had to hire someone to take care of uploading products for me. It removed a burden from my shoulders. But I now use a sophisticated, automated system to upload products. I’d tell you all about it in the automation chapter.
Anyway, when you’re just getting started, it’s better to everything manually so you can understand the entire process.
Uploading a product listing to a marketplace requires that you fill in all the necessary product information such as the product design, product titles, keywords, prices, product types, and product description. Marketplaces like Etsy require that you fill in your product attributes also.
Before you can start uploading, there are some things you need to prepare.
1. Amazon Account
Amazon is the largest online store, so you need to have an Amazon seller account as a print-on-demand seller. The world’s largest marketplace is one of the best places for you to upload your POD products for sale.
One great thing about Amazon is that there’s no one way to start an Amazon business. Amazon supports different kinds of business models, from private labelling to wholesale and online retail. But most importantly, Amazon supports dropshipping and handmade products.
In case the term ‘dropshipping’ is new to you, it’s simply a business model where an Amazon seller doesn’t stock their product inventory, but instead transfers their customers’ orders directly to the product manufacturer or supplier. Another word for it? POD!
The print-on-demand business runs solely on a dropshipping business model. Amazon has put in place some key features to help you open and run a profitable business on its platform.
This is why you need an Amazon seller account. Once you have products, you can apply to become an Amazon seller.
The Amazon seller registration process is simple. Once you visit the Amazon services website, click on the “Become an Amazon seller” heading.
Choose between the individual or professional accounts.
If you’re going to sell more than 40 products per month, signing up as a ‘professional’ is your best bet. Even if you’re selling as a hobby and don’t consider yourself to be a professional, this plan will help you save money.
But if you’re planning to sell on a smaller scale (i.e., fewer than 40 units per month), select the individual plan.
Amazon has a pretty linear registration process that requires sellers to provide relevant details about their business.
Some of these details include the name of your Amazon store, whether or not you’re the manufacturer and/or brand owner of the product(s) you’re selling, and whether you have a registered trademark for your product(s).
Sellers are also required to carry out a couple of verification procedures to ensure that they carry out their business in a safe digital environment.
Once Amazon has verified your information and your application has been approved, start uploading your products and creating your product listings. Once you create your listings, you can start growing your Amazon sales!
Easy, right?
2. Etsy Account
Etsy is one of the best places to sell print-on-demand products. Opening an Etsy account is easy, too!
- Open an Etsy Account
You can click here to open your shop. There’s no fee to open a store, but you’ll have to pay listing fees when you list products.
- Set up the profile name and image
These things will show up on your front store page, so make sure you use appealing images. Then enter other details for your shop, such as your Shop Policy, About, Frequently Asked Questions, etc.
- Set up the payment info
You have to set up a method of payment for receiving money from your customers and paying Etsy for the listing fees. I use PayPal for these two activities.
- Start listing products
Now you’re ready to add products to your store and make sales. You have to pay $0.20 every four months to list a product.
That’s it.
3. Account with Supplier
Once you have one or both of these accounts set up, you should proceed to open an account with a supplier. The supplier will be responsible for the production of the products and fulfilment of orders.
Several suppliers out there can help fulfill your order(s) as they come in. Recommended suppliers include Gearbubble, Printful, Printify, and Teelaunch.
There are many suppliers out there, so you need to do your research before selecting one. Every supplier has its pros and cons. You must be aware of them before choosing where to set up your account.
4. Photoshop or Canva
Design is a key part of the POD business. This is why you need a Canva or Photoshop account.
While Photoshop might require basic graphic design skills and knowledge, Canva offers you a self-help design experience. With hundreds of templates available for your picking, you can’t go wrong with a simple product design.
Canva allows designers to create designs using simple drag-and-drop features. You need a Canva or Photoshop account before you start uploading products.
Basic Manual Uploading Process
Next, it’s time start uploading products!
First, you have to create a product on your supplier’s website. As you know, the product-creation process includes market research, niche selection, and quote research.
Once you have all of these figured out, you can then move on to your supplier’s website. There, you will create a mockup image of your product. Export the mockup image to your device for later use.
From there, you start the product listing procedure on any desired POD marketplace, either Amazon or Etsy. You can now create a product on the marketplace using the product mockup image derived from the above step.
While uploading your product, pay close attention to your product title and product description. Use the right keywords in your product title and product description to boost your product visibility when customers enter a search query.
You also need to craft a detailed product description to explain why your product is the best fit for your buyer.
Once you’re done, you can move on to another product. Then the next. And the next thousand products. Finally, you can repeat the same process on another marketplace.
All my life, I have been running away from chores. I don’t like chores. I’m not the kind of guy who does chores to clear his head or something. I play video games. A lot!
So, you can understand why the process of manually uploading products on POD marketplaces is a big pain in the ass for me! I’ll show you how to leverage technology to help you to handle the work later in the next chapter.
Pro Tips on Uploading a Product
Uploading a product means more than merely putting up a product design and descriptions. It can be the key to boosting your SEO (search engine optimization) performance.
When uploading your product, you must consider your product title, your product tags, and your product description. How you place them when uploading goes a long way in determining how well your product will rank in a search result.
If you want to rank well in a search result, there are several factors to consider, especially when listing a product on a marketplace like Etsy and Amazon.
Here are some of them:
**One of the best places to put your keywords is in your product title. **I’ll tell you why this is important: marketplaces will mainly use your product title to rank your product.
If you don’t have a good product title, people won’t find your product!
Bummer, right?
Etsy Product Titles and Tags
Let’s focus on Etsy for this discussion.
Now, Etsy allows you to have a 140-character product title. When it comes to keyword distribution, your product title should use the main keywords.
In the search result, the first 40 characters of the product title are the most evident. So, concentrate on placing the main keywords at the front of your product title to get more results.
Insert the most important keywords in the first few words to add more weight to your product title.
As a print-on-demand product seller, consider placing terms like** “Funny {NICHE} Mug” or “{NICHE} Mug”** at the beginning of your product title.
The **{NICHE} **here refers to your target market or your target audience. So, if your market target is **“Dad”, **that would be **“Funny Dad Mug” **and “Dad Mug”. That’s your {NICHE}.
If your niche is **“Accountant”, **that would be **“Funny Accountant Mug” **or **“Accountant Mug”. **Got it?
It’s good practice to insert key phrases in the product title, because many people search using phrases.
When it comes to title arrangements and character diversity, Etsy only allows a maximum of 3 words to be in all caps.
The use of special characters is also restricted. While characters such as the percentage symbol (%) and the ampersand (&) are allowed, the dollar sign ($) and caret (^) are disallowed in Etsy product titles.
You can also add **the recipient **to the product title, as in “Mug for Mom”, “Gift for Men/Women”, “Gifts for Engineer”, etc.
Surprisingly, many people search for print-on-demand products using the quote they want to see on the product.
Although the number of people who go this route might be small, you can still make good sales. This is because people who search with quotes often know what they want and are ready to buy.
This is why you should have the quotes shown on your products in the product titles when listing them.
During the Mother’s Day holiday, I had hundreds of buyers visiting one of my winning mug product pages. Guess how they found my mug?
Through the quote!
When people know what they want, they just go for it!
Like I said before, most customers will purchase a print-on-demand product because of the message on it. If you have a product with the message they’re looking for, the chances that people will purchase that product are high.
This is why they run their searches for products that carry the words they desire. When I searched for my winning product on Etsy using the quote, my product was the first search result!
Why is that?
My guess is that because no other product title had the quote on it, my product ranked better than everyone else’s. More on this in the uploading section.
**This is the trick. **Many top-selling products on Etsy don’t have a quote on the product. Most people on Etsy usually compare product designs or prices before making a purchase. They will search for other products to make a comparison.
Again, many of them will search using the quote!
So, if you have products with popular quotes that people are searching for and include the quotes in your product titles, you’ll benefit. Your products will be visible to people who are ready to buy something.
Adding your product quote to the product title can boost your traffic volume a little more. Sure, it’s not a strategy that will drive high traffic. But the conversion rate will be good, because the product is exactly what the customer is looking for.
So, in essence, when creating your product title:
- Include relevant keywords- Include your quote- Include the recipient’s name- Include holiday keywords- Include event names
A good example of a product title is: **“Funny Accountant Coffee Mugs, Keep Calm, I’m an Accountant, Unique Gift for Coworkers on Christmas, Birthday, Holiday”, **and so on.
What to know about product tags on Etsy
Product tags are additional keywords and related phrases that Etsy allows sellers to use to describe their products. They help tell the buyer more about the product.
Tags also help your SEO and product ranking when they are properly used. Product tags increase your chances of getting matched with different types of search queries. So, you must strategically spread them around.
When uploading a product on Etsy, there are 13 product tags available for use. It is highly recommended that you use them all. Each tag presents you with an opportunity to include 13 different phrases that uniquely describe your product.
Etsy tags are 20 characters long, allowing you to express yourself and describe your product in the best way possible.
Here are some important product tag DOs and DON’Ts:
DO
- Use all the 13 tags! You’ll have more chances to be matched with a buyer’s search query.- Tags can be up to 20 characters long, so it’s better to use phrases than single words. For instance, “Birthday coffee mug” is exactly 19 characters (counting spaces) and is a better choice than using single words string together and separated by commas (like “Birthday, Coffee, Mug”).- Consult your shop stats from time to time to know which tags are attracting less traffic. You can replace them with better tags.- If you’re selling geographically focused products, try adding tags to match the geography of your target audience.- Use long-tail keywords. Instead of settling for generic keywords or key phrases, go for tags that describe the uniqueness of your products. Often- times, buyers who have a specific product in mind use specific search words to get what they’re looking for.- Add your product niche or main keyword to the tag. VERY IMPORTANT!
DON’T
- While you must repeat your product title in your tags, avoid repeating tags. You have 13 tags, make each of them unique. For instance, tags like “Lawyer T-shirts” and “Nurse coffee mugs” would give you more traffic than having “T-shirts” and “coffee mug” as tags on the same products.- Avoid repeating keywords in your categories and attributes. They already work like tags, so try to come up with something better. The main idea is to diversify your tags as much as possible.- Never include misspellings or adulterated spellings in your tags. Etsy will automatically redirect buyers to the correct search result if they make an error in their search query.- Etsy automatically translates listings visited by a buyer who is foreign to the language you used when setting up your Etsy shop. So, you don’t have to write your tags in multiple languages. Alternatively, you can create another listing for the same product in another language. You can also recommend translations for your titles and tags to avoid any funny translations.- Don’t try to add both the singular and plural forms of a word in different tags. When searchers send in their queries, results are matched based on the root word of the search.
A good list of tags for a product titled *“Engineer Coffee Mug” can include words and phrases like engineer mug, engineer coffee mug, engineer gifts, gifts for engineer, sweatshirt, shirt, shirts, raglan, biggie smalls, sibling, ***and best friends.
All 13 tags, complete!
Understanding Amazon Product Title & Search Terms
Next, let’s talk about Amazon Product Titles and Search Terms.
The way you create a product title on Amazon is similar to the way you do it on Etsy. The product title is of similar to products listed on Amazon. A great product title will help ensure your product ranks well on Amazon.
But the way to insert **search terms on Amazon **is different from the way we insert product tags on Etsy.
For customers to find your products on Amazon, it’s important to provide Search Terms they might use when searching for what they want to buy.
Amazon limits the length of the Search Term attributes to less than 250 bytes. The Search Terms limit applies to newly registered as well as existing sellers.
While there is no *“secret formula” *for acing the SEO performance of Amazon search terms, some things can help ensure better performance.
Tips for optimizing your Amazon Search Terms:
- Stay under the prescribed length limit.- Include synonyms.- Be sure to use correct spelling.- Include abbreviations and alternate names.- You can use all lower case.- You don’t need punctuation, such as: ”;”, ”:”, ”-”.- Separate words with spaces.- Don’t repeat words within the Search Terms field.- Don’t include your brand or other brand names in Search Terms.- Don’t include your Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) in Search Terms.- No need for words such as “a,” “an,” “and,” “by,” “for,” “of,” “the,” “with,” and so on.- Use singular or plural, no need for both.- Avoid temporary statements such as “new,” or “on sale now.”- Don’t use subjective claims, such as “best,” “cheapest,” “amazing,” and so on.- Don’t include abusive or offensive terms.
These tips are not fail-safe, but they will help you a great deal!
How to Write a High-Quality Product Description
If you want to use all the keywords in the world to describe your product, knock yourself out! When you’re filling in your product description, try to insert at least one main keyword related to your product niche.
For an Engineer Coffee Mug, a good product description will read something like this:
Product Features
- Engineer Coffee Mug - To show that person how special he/she is, get him/her this coffee mug.
- Highest Quality - You don’t have to worry about our mugs getting broken in the dishwasher or microwave, they are made from the best ceramics.
- Great Engineer Gift - this coffee mug is a great gift during birthdays, Christmas, graduations, celebrating friendships, and the like.
- Printed with Superior Ceramic Inks - A Truly Permanent Imprint That Will Never Fade Or Lose Its Glow.
- Shipped from USA - The Styrofoam casing guarantees it will arrive in one piece.
Description
Engineer Coffee* Mug makes for an elegant gift that speaks to a person’s uniqueness. Don’t sweat over the right gifts! This mug is as beautiful as it is durable; a great gift for a loved one.*
The universal acceptance of coffee mugs as gifts makes it a preferred gift choice, and this mug is an excellent gift for the one you care about.
* Raise the bar higher by filling the mug with coffee samples, special tea samples for their enjoyment, or candy.*
Isn’t that sweet? Wouldn’t you want to make that special person happy? Get the Mug before it sells out!
The keywords here are Engineer Coffee Mug and Engineer Gifts.
Pretty detailed, right?
This is the kind of description that converts visits to sales! When you’re writing your product description, don’t write like a robot.
Just stop and think for a sec. What exactly does a buyer need to see before he is convinced of the quality of a product? Its benefits? Its features? Its uses and applications? Or all of these?
You need to skillfully highlight all of these and more before you can boost your sales. A robot cannot connect to the needs of the buyer the way you can. You should be able to tell your buyers what the product can do for them.
Your description should also define who should buy this product and why it is best for them.
A great description does not only get you a better ranking. It also persuades people to purchase your product.
