With a built-in customer base of more than 95 million buyers and a reputation for selling goods with a handmade look, Etsy offers a strong avenue for your print-on-demand (POD) business. This guide shows you which products succeed on Etsy, how to meet platform requirements for POD sellers, and the five essential tools for running your business efficiently.
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What is Etsy print-on-demand?
Etsy print-on-demand (POD) is a business model where you design and sell products on Etsy, but a supplier only makes them once sales are made. In this model, the Etsy seller creates a design that can be printed on a pre-made item, such as a shirt, mug, or notebook. They then chose a print-on-demand supplier to integrate with their Etsy shop. When a customer places an order, the supplier receives the order, prints the design on the appropriate product, and packs and ships it off to the buyer.
Etsy’s platform originally revolved around handmade goods, but today, print-on-demand products are allowed under specific conditions.
Businesses selling print-on-demand products on Etsy are subject to Etsy’s creativity standards, which outline the platform’s criteria for items that can be listed and sold. The standards require that products fit into at least one of these categories:
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Made by a seller. “Physical items that a seller produced in their personal shop or home, using computerized tools such as a laser printer, 3D printer, CNC, or Cricut machine. These items must be produced based on a seller’s original design and are often personalized or customized to a buyer’s specification.”
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Designed by a seller. “Sellers’ original designs produced by a production partner: Original designs created by a seller and produced with the assistance of a production partner. Sellers must disclose that an item is made by a production partner, and provide accurate information about where the item will ship from.”
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Sourced by a seller. “Buyer-personalized items produced by a production partner: Items created using a buyer’s unique text or image, produced by a production partner.”
If you use AI tools to create designs for your products, you must disclose that. Etsy has additional listing image requirements for sellers who use production partners to create their goods.
Etsy print-on-demand product ideas
T-shirts are the cornerstone custom products of the print-on-demand industry because they are easy to print and are regularly in demand. That said, there are many print-on-demand products to choose from, and it’s important to choose top-notch print providers who can deliver high-quality products. Keep an eye on Etsy’s trend reports to spark new ideas, and don’t be afraid to try your most successful designs on new and different products.
Here are popular products to try:
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Custom apparel. Unisex t-shirts and hoodies are tried-and-true POD products with year-round appeal. You can also print leggings, hats, dresses, onesies for babies, bandanas for pets, and more. Keep seasonality in mind for products like tank tops and beanies, as well as for designs tied to holidays.
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Home décor. Blankets, cushions, and tea towels are versatile products that offer a canvas for designs. Home goods like mugs and water bottles are also popular picks and often come with a range of customization options beyond the printed design, such as color, material, and finish texture.
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Posters and wall art. For photographers and artists, POD offers an easy way to distribute their work as framed prints, posters, printed canvases, or photo books. The material you choose to print on adds dimension to the art. Glossy poster paper adds vibrancy to a photo and is more affordable on a large scale, whereas a canvas print has more depth and can feel more premium.
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Stationery. With their low consumer price points, greeting cards, postcards, calendars, and notebooks are perennially popular.
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Tote bags. Like blankets and tea towels, tote bags provide a clear canvas for any design. Because they’re often used in public places, they also function as a form of marketing and can help you generate brand awareness for your store if you include a logo on your bags.
Free Webinar:
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Best print-on-demand tools for Etsy
Managing orders across platforms, finding profitable niches, and creating designs faster all require the right tools. These five address the most common POD challenges:
1. Shopify
To get the most out of your POD business, opt for multichannel selling on both Etsy and Shopify. Etsy integration apps like Shopify Marketplace Connect and Etsy Integration by QuickSync allow you to sync your listings, orders, inventory, and analytics from Etsy with your Shopify ecommerce store.
Cost: Shopify plans cost $29 per month with promotional pricing for the first three months. Shopify Marketplace Connect and Etsy Integration by QuickSync are subscription services with Marketplace Connect charging a 1% fee per additional synced order, capped at $99 per month, and Etsy Integration starting at $19 per month.
2. eRank
eRank is a search engine optimization (SEO) tool that integrates directly into your Etsy store and comes in handy both in the research stage of product development and when you’re listing products. It provides product keyword analytics, including average numbers of searches for a given keyword and trends over time. This can help you select popular products or untapped niches, optimize the wording of your listings, and understand what tags your competitors are using to their advantage.
Cost: Free basic plan with limited features. Paid plans start at $5.50 per month (when paid annually).
3. Canva
A popular online graphic design platform, Canva can be helpful in many aspects of your business. For print-on-demand sellers, it can be an invaluable tool to help you design and create the images you’ll eventually turn into t-shirts, mugs, and more. Its drag-and-drop interface is user-friendly, even for people with no graphic design experience, and it allows you to save your graphics with the specifications that your POD supplier will need.
Cost: Canva has a free version with basic editing tools and access to a large library of templates. Paid plans, which include more advanced editing capabilities, a larger library, AI tools, and more cloud storage, start at $120 per year.
4. Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica offers a creative library with more than 220,000 fonts and millions of graphics. Creative Fabrica also offers tutorials, articles, and video classes on illustration, graphic design, and more, to help you hone your skills. Sellers should be careful not to simply use a Creative Fabrica graphic as the main element of their POD designs. Etsy’s platform rules mandate that all print-on-demand products must feature the seller’s original design.
Cost: A free trial comes with 10 free downloads. An all-access yearly subscription costs $3.99 per month.
5. Printify
There are many print providers to choose from, most of which integrate directly with Etsy. Printify has one of the largest POD supplier networks, meaning it has a large catalogue of high-quality products—giving you more options to test different niches and product types without switching suppliers.
Printify now also has a “pop-up” store feature, which enables merchants to create their own shops to sell POD products directly from Printify.
Cost: Printify offers a free plan that offers unlimited product designs. Its premium plans, which start at $29 per month, include order management tools and discounts.
Alternatives to Etsy print on demand
Print on demand is a business model that can be applied to many different ecommerce platforms beyond Etsy. Most print-on-demand services can integrate with Shopify, TikTok Shop, Amazon, eBay, Wix, Squarespace, and WooCommerce. Some POD services, including Printify and Teespring, let you create your own store page to sell your products.
Small business owners who host their print-on-demand businesses as standalone ecommerce sites on platforms like Shopify don’t face the same competition that sellers face on marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon. They also have more control over the user’s shopping experience through interface customization tools. The trade-off is that you’re responsible for marketing your shop.
Some sellers find success using both the Etsy platform and Shopify through multichannel selling. They use Etsy print-on-demand as a testing ground for new merchandise designs, then feature consistently popular designs on their Shopify stores. They may even integrate more complex customization options to listings on their Shopify stores, or decide to hold inventory for those popular designs, investing in raw materials that are higher quality and more customizable than the options that print-on-demand platforms offer.
Etsy print on demand FAQ
Is print on demand allowed at Etsy?
Yes, print on demand is allowed on Etsy, as long as items are sourced by the seller and feature the seller’s original designs. Etsy strictly forbids any intellectual property infringement.
Is print on demand profitable on Etsy?
Print on demand can be a great way to make money on Etsy, but like any ecommerce business, it takes work to hit positive profit margins. To stand out from the stiff competition, you need to have a marketing strategy in place and invest time and energy into building your business.
Can you make $10,000 a month on Etsy?
Making $10,000 a month on Etsy is possible with a combination of hard work, effort, and the right products, but the average Etsy seller makes around $3,500 to $4,000 per month.
