There are 2 types of print on demand platforms:
- Using your own online store to sell your merch to people who are searching your niche, (which you can get help choosing using our niche research tool tutorial post), on google and or people following you.
- Selling on platforms that have marketplaces already that let you add your designs to their products.
This tutorial is for people using the first platform.
Now that you have your niche, you need a place to sell your merch. This seems intimidating, but it’s actually relatively easy. There already are a lot of great platforms where you can build a website with pre made templates, so it’s not like you need to code or anything crazy.
These platforms allow you to edit your site to look exactly how you’d like; For example, Dealbeasts was actually made on a GoDaddy website builder. A site can be built extremely quickly if you’re motivated, and it will look clean and professional.
Get A Domain Name
Every good website needs a good domain name. Ideally you should get a domain name with whichever website builder your using since transferring over a domain name can be a pain for a beginner. Every good website builder allows you to buy domain names, and some even come included with your website building plan for a year. You’ll want to pick something that’s catchy and easy to remember, so people can find it when the’re looking for it. These domain names will plug right into your website, and your store will look way more professional. Would you buy clothing from a store that’s called freshmerch.myshopify.com? We didn’t think so. This is definitely a step you don’t want to skip.
Pick A Store Builder
Now that you’ve picked a great domain name, it’s time to get started on your store. In our experience Shopify is the most intuitive platform for beginners, but there are a lot of other great platforms since this industry has had so much growth. There are a few factors that go into picking your platform.
- Pricing:
The cheapest mainstream platform we’d recommend would be Squarespace. Their platform lets you make an ecommerce store for just $26 a month. You get a lot of great features with this plan, and you can always upgrade if you need more.
The other plans don’t have as many features. It’s the best for your money. This plan also has 0% added transaction fees, (it still has the automatic credit card fees though)
- Features
Shopify would be the best for features. They have an entire appstore dedicated to adding any features you may need, and their platform gets better by the day. It’s $30 a month plan, so it’s only $4 more than the Squarespace plan.
- Ease Of Use
They’re both easy to use once you get the hang of it, (both are very intuitive so you’ll be able to do this quickly). They’ll both work for whatever you need in the long run, so don’t worry about it too much.
Make A Logo
Once you pick your hosting provider, your going to want to set up your store. A logo is important since you want your store to look legit. Would you buy from a store without a logo? This is also important so that you can have a favicon. A favicon is the little icon you see in your browser tab when you’re on a website.
Creating a logo may seem intimidating, but it’s really not hard. You can generate one easily using a logo creator. These logo creators come with both of the essential tools you’ll need to make designs and get model mock ups, so it’s not going to add any expenses that wouldn’t be there anyway. Canva even has a free logo creator tool, but you’ll need to use a background eraser if you want no background since it only allows you to save transparent designs if you have a pro membership, (which we have a free month trial to here). Either way, it gets the job done.
Pick A Template
Once you have a logo, the rest should be really simple. The templates that are provided for designing your site are really simple to edit, and they give you options for almost anything you could even think of.
This applies to almost every website builder. Their free templates are already amazing outlines for stores, (especially since they’ve updated to 2.0). Many big name brand stores actually use these. You’ll probably start recognizing this in popular websites your already using once you get more acquainted with your builder. This is a game changer for newbies since you really don’t need to know much to make a great looking store from scratch.
Customize Your Store
They all make everything extremely easy to customize, so you can really make it your own on any of builder. You’ll want to make sure all of your settings are in order before you actually start adding products. Make sure to add everything you need to make your store look legitimate. You don’t want anyone leaving your website since something isn’t there that should be. This is really simple once you’ve already done everything in the earlier steps. Now you’ll just need to plug in the rest of your info.
This is really not a big deal. It should only take you a few minutes. This is especially true after you’ve already plugged in your domain name, (preview given above).
Add Your Finishing Touch
Your shipping policies and everything else should be done after you’ve already picked your fulfillment provider for your merch, (we discuss fulfillment providers in our other post here). You’ll probably want to start off shipping just in the United States since it’s easier to keep track of, but eventually you can branch out if you want.
If you picked Shopify, your store will be locked until you pick a plan. You can undo this easily in the preference section after you’ve done this.
Once your store’s completely set up, it’s time to make designs and pick your fulfillment provider.
Don’t worry, we’ve already done all of the research, so you don’t need to look up a thing. We tried a lot of tools and providers, and this is what we find works best.
You can find amazing design tools for your merch and how to use them from our post here.
You can check out our comparison on the most popular print providers and which one we actually use for our own stores from our other post here.
Important Links From This Tutorial:
Canva Logo Design Tool Free Month Trial
Free Niche Research Tool (From Our Niche Research Tutorial Post)
