Step 1: Perform market research

With thorough market research, an entrepreneur can gain valuable insights into the current trends and consumer sentiment, creating eye-catching products that won’t leave anyone indifferent.

Here are a few basic techniques:

• Identify current trends. Explore marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon to find what currently sells best.

Additionally, check what people search for using tools like Google Trends, Ahrefs, Semrush, or BuzzSumo. This information will also come in handy when choosing a niche, which we’ll cover in the next section.

• Identify your target audience. Save time by focusing on those most likely to buy from you.

As an example, gather data – explore who purchases online the most. In the UK, eCommerce is popular among various age groups, providing leeway for entrepreneurs to create products that appeal to many.

Furthermore, collect information from Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Quora discussions, or survey your own network with tools such as Crowdsignal, SurveyPlanet, or Google Forms.

With this data, it’ll be easier to create products that match the market needs and captivate the interest of potential customers, resulting in a higher chance of success.

Step 2: Choose a niche

As easy as it may seem, choosing a niche is vital if you want to sell print-on-demand products successfully. With the right niche, competition is lower, and profits are higher.

A niche is a product that strongly appeals to a specific audience, making selling a lot easier.

When choosing a winning niche, there’s no better guide than your passion.

Here are a few ideas you can build your niche around:

• Coronations, jubilees, royal weddings, and events. The Coronation of King Charles III, Trooping the Colour, Royal Ascot.
• Festivals and celebrations. London Fashion Week, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, St. Patrick’s Day, Glastonbury Festival, Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, Notting Hill Carnival.
• Social trends. Sustainable fashion and eco-friendly products. Awareness of social justice, climate change, mental health, and animal welfare.

Step 3: Legal requirements and taxation in the UK

Before registering a print-on-demand business, there are several things an entrepreneur must  consider.

With that out of the way, here’s what to think about.

Business structure

While there are several types, the most often chosen routes are:

• Sole trader
• Partnership
• Limited liability partnership
• Limited company

Each, among other aspects, has its own requirements and risks. Explore the most common business structures, and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages.

Typically, merchants choose ‘sole trader’ because it’s easy to set up and there’s less paperwork. The negative is that a sole trader is also liable for all losses.

To learn more or set up as self-employed – a ‘sole trader’ – visit the government’s step-by-step guide.

Income tax

In the UK, the Income Tax you pay in each tax year depends on how much of your income:

• is above your Personal Allowance
• falls within each tax band

As an example, if you make £52,000 a year with your print-on-demand business, the math works out like this.

To learn more, visit the government’s Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances page.

Value-Added Tax (VAT)

VAT is a consumption tax that applies to orders sold within or between the EU’s member countries, the UK and Norway. It also applies to orders imported to these countries from other locations, such as the US.

With Printify, the applicable VAT rate is calculated automatically and added to the order cost. The taxable amount includes the shipping fees.
The VAT rate can range between 0% to 27% and is calculated based on:

• the country the order is printed in
• where it’s shipped to
• the country of VAT registration if you’ve submitted a VAT ID to Printify

Step 4: Set up your online store

Whether you want to create a stand-alone eCommerce store or sell on a marketplace, Printify’s got you covered. We offer seamless integrations with all major sales channels, so finding your favourite won’t take long.

Here are a few that are particularly popular in the UK.

Etsy

A trusted eCommerce marketplace that has stood the test of time. With over 96.34 million active buyers, Etsy is a go-to destination for buying one-of-a-kind products.

Setup: Easy
Best for: Beginners
Subscription fee: No subscription fee, but Etsy fees apply

Shopify

An eCommerce platform that offers various themes and pre-built templates, allowing anyone to design their own website and create a beautiful Shopify store with ease.

Setup: Easy
Best for: Small business
Subscription fee: Shopify pricing

Squarespace

A powerful and easy-to-use platform that enables entrepreneurs to build their store quickly.

Setup: Easy
Best for: Beginners
Subscription fee: Squarespace pricing

Wix

An intuitive online store builder with a drag-and-drop editor, enabling business owners to quickly and effortlessly create and customise their website.

Setup: Easy
Best for: Small business 
Subscription fee: Wix pricing

While others are popular in the UK – WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and PrestaShop – they require a bit more effort to set up.

For the tech-savvy, we offer the Printify API, which can be integrated with a custom-built website, app or become a part of other third-party solutions. With it, businesses can develop custom functionality, automate workflow, and save time on repetitive tasks.

Step 5: Connect your store to a Print on Demand service

After choosing an eCommerce solution, sign up for a free Printify account. When done, follow the applicable instructions in our Help Centre to connect your store. 

With a store connected to Printify’s print-on-demand services, you have an infinite supply of high-quality products at the best prices on the market.

Step 6: Pick the right products

When creating a product line, keep your niche, target audience, and market trends in mind. This will make it easier to stand out from the competition, make a lasting impression, and increase sales.

We offer a wide range products – from apparel to home décor to pet accessories. Altogether, the Printify catalogue is home to more than 1000 customisable products.

With a click of a button, anyone can quickly find the best print-on-demand products for their business, sorting them by brand, colour, size, print type, print area, and printing country. 

By choosing local print providers, you get the lowest shipping costs, the fastest delivery, and the highest product quality. Here are just a few of the products they offer.

Print Clever

Harrier

T shirt and Sons

Prodigi

M-A-N-A Factory

WPaPS

Eco Print Partner

Expert Workwear

Step 7: Create custom products

With our beginner-friendly Product Creator (formerly known as Mockup Generator), designing is easy. Add art, text, logo, or a combination of these and create designs without effort.

When products are ready, our tool generates realistic mockups for your print-on-demand store and social media accounts.

Step 8: Price and publish your Print on Demand products

In the Printify dashboard, setting a price is easy. Before publishing a product to an eCommerce store, you can:

• Select a mockup
• Edit the product’s title
• Write a description
• Edit price, profit, or profit margin for each variant

When ready, click Publish.

After the sales start rolling in, your chosen Print Provider does the rest – printing, packaging, and shipping the physical products directly to your customers.

With correct product pricing, print-on-demand sellers can make a profit while still giving customers a fair price.

Step 9: Market your business

In the print-on-demand industry, marketing is the engine that drives growth. Without a strong marketing strategy, your business will fail to reach its full potential.

Here are a few ways to increase the likelihood of success:

• Social media. Build a strong social media presence. Strive to create content that encourages customers to make a purchase: post great photos, run engaging contests, and offer giveaways.
  This way, you can generate interest in your brand, outshining the competition.
• Email marketing. With a return on investment of 4400%, email marketing is a cost-effective way to promote a business.
  Try tools like Sendinblue, Mailchimp, or Omnisend to automate the process.
• Search engine marketing. This strategy involves the promotion of an online store by increasing its visibility in search engines. Two ways to go about it: search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid advertising with Google Ads.
  To learn more, we offer an SEO Masterclass for Driving Sales explaining how to perform keyword research, find the most relevant keywords, and analyse the competition.

Niall Guite

Niall Guite is a British Special Olympics gold medalist and a talented artist who champions environmental conservation and raises money for the Special Olympics GB.

In his Shopify store, he sells t-shirts, journals, and wall art. Everything’s made on demand, allowing Niall to focus on his art and activism.

Gary Stokes

Gary Stokes – born in the UK and raised in the Mediterranean – co-founded OceansAsia, a marine conservation organisation.

With the help of the print-on-demand model, OceansAsia creates custom products that fund their cause, raise awareness, and inspire action.

Lindsey Ferris

While Lindsey Ferris is American, her brand – FerrisBuilt – quickly became a success after Meghan Markle wore her designed t-shirt in a move to support small businesses. A great example of how Print on Demand transcends international boundaries, bringing fame and profit.

FerrisBuilt sells t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, and other print-on-demand products with inspiring messages.

Etsy SEO

To enhance your product’s visibility on Etsy, it’s important to understand the factors that Etsy algorithms consider when determining the placement of your listings.

These include:

• Relevancy. How well your tags, titles, descriptions, categories, and attributes match the search.
• Listing quality score. The higher your score, the higher your listings will appear in search results. It’s based on factors like clicks, views, favorites, and purchases.
• Recency. New Etsy listings receive a temporary boost. If they perform well, they receive a higher quality score. Don’t renew listings; optimise them instead.
• Customer and market experience score. This score increases with good reviews, a shop policy, and an About section.
  Issues like intellectual property infringement lowers your score. 
• Shipping services. Etsy pushes sellers to offer free shipping in the UK and prioritises items with lower shipping prices. Remember to add shipping costs to the retail product price if you’re offering free shipping.
• Translations. Etsy automatically translates your shop and listings, but you can add your own to improve your ranking.
• Shopper habits. Etsy personalises search results for each user, considering customer behaviour, history, and favourited listings.

Google SEO

Optimising your store for popular search engines is important to drive traffic to your shop and increase customer conversions.

So, how do you improve your visibility on Google?

• Add a shop title and description. Briefly describe your business and the items you sell when starting an Etsy shop. Share your story, experience, and creative processes.
• Add visuals. Upload up to five images and a video in your store’s About section to showcase your brand to potential customers.
• Add shop policies. Add all the details on shipping, payment options, returns, and exchanges.
• Use relevant keywords. Choose all the keywords that potential customers will likely use when searching for products like yours. Sprinkle them throughout your shop page and product listings.
• Optimise your metadata. Make sure that your titles and descriptions meet the necessary character count. Keep it between 50-60 characters (or approximately 580 pixels) for titles and 50-160 characters (or roughly 920 pixels) for descriptions.
• Add high-quality images and videos. Capture your products’ unique features, colours, and materials from various angles and close-up shots.

Tools for Etsy and Google SEO

Explore these SEO tools and utilize them for keyword research, tracking, and analysis:

• Semrush. The free plan allows tracking ten keywords, ten analytic reports per day, and managing one project.
  Paid plans start from $129.95/month (paid monthly) or $108.33/month (paid annually).
• Ahrefs. Offers several free tools with limitations, including a Free Keyword Generator, website authority, and backlink checkers.
  Paid plans start from $99/month.
  Or check out tools that offer integration with Etsy, providing insights on SEO, keyword research and monitoring, market prices, or competitor analysis:
• eRank. Offer a freemium option and plans that start from $5.99/month. 
• Seller Way. Offer a freemium option and plans from $8.33/month paid yearly to $19.99/month.
• Marmalead. Paid plan only. The membership costs $19/month or $15.83/month paid annually.
• Sale Samurai. Three-day free trial. Payments of $9.99/month or $99.99/year.

After fine-tuning your store and product listings, take advantage of Etsy Shop Critiques to receive valuable peer reviews.

Add photos and a video

Upload up to ten product photos. Place the best pictures first, and use keywords in the alt-text. Follow Etsy guidelines for proportions and sizes. 

There’s also an option to add a video. Film an up to 100MB video of the product unpacking, being worn, or simply showcasing the product’s features.

Fill in listing details

Optimise your product listing by filling out all the important information and paying attention to every detail.

• Title. Use short titles and place the most relevant keywords first to improve visibility on all search engines.
• Category. Use relevant keywords in the search bar to find the right category for your product. Etsy will then include all nested categories, making it easily discoverable.
• Description. Make your description easy to read by using short paragraphs and bullet points. Add fitting long-tail keywords of up to three words to enhance search visibility without overwhelming the description.
• Add tags. Fill all 13 tags per listing with keywords (preferably long-tail) containing central characteristics of the product. Don’t worry about translations or plurals – Etsy handles these.
• Inventory and pricing. Set a clear price for your item and specify the available quantity for sale. Use our Etsy Calculator to simplify your financial planning.

Adjust shipping settings

Give your customers a clear idea of shipping times and costs by creating a delivery profile, which you can also later apply to other product listings.

• Specify how much time you need to prepare an order and hand it to a shipping carrier.
• Set fixed delivery costs or let Etsy calculate costs for you by choosing calculated shipping and specifying the item’s weight and size.
• Consider offering shipping upgrades for expedited and discounted delivery when buyers purchase multiple items or set up free shipping.

Click on Save and Continue to proceed to the next step.

Use Printify

After you’ve launched your store, connect to Printify and offer customized goods to your customers.

Easily create listings by choosing items from our Product Catalog, making designs in our Product Creator, and choosing the best product mockups.

Your products will be synched to Etsy as draft listings, including photos, titles, and descriptions, where you can adjust the final listing details.

Step 6: Adjust payment options, billing, and security

During registration, you’ll need to add a bank account, provide personal documents, and enrol in Etsy Payments. Follow these steps to the letter to avoid an account block or even being banished from the marketplace.

Add bank account

Open an Etsy shop as an individual or business seller, and fill in your personal information. You’ll have to register a business bank account to enable payment processing.

Make sure that the payment account belongs to the shop owner and that the registered name matches the one in your Etsy account.

Enable Etsy payments

If Etsy Payments is available in your country, you’re automatically enrolled. The Etsy Payments system allows you to accept payments from bank cards and several other payment methods, including Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Etsy Gift Cards, iDEAL, and Sofort.

Once you’ve accessed your payment method, adjust your payment settings by selecting when you’ll get paid – once per month, every two weeks, once per week, or every day.

Click on Save and Continue to proceed to the next step.

Choose a form of payment

Add a credit or debit card and billing address.

Keep in mind Etsy seller fees, starting with listing fees for adding an item to your storefront. Etsy fees for listing products are due on the first day of the next calendar month.

Click on Save and Continue.

Verify your ID

Complete your registration by uploading a valid UK ID – a passport, driving licence, proof of age card, or EU national identity card.

Proceed to the last step by clicking on Save and Continue.

Keep your shop safe

Enable two-factor authentication to make sure you’re the only one who can access your Etsy account.

If you select SMS or Phone authentication, you’ll need to enter your phone number to receive the registration code.

If you select the Authenticator app, download the Google Authenticator on the App Store or Google Play.

Click on Open your shop.

Craft a personal bio and shop story

Navigate to the Shop Manager → Sales Channels and select the pencil icon next to your shop name.

• Shop members. Add a personal touch by including a picture, specifying your role, and adding a brief bio. Allow customers to connect with the faces behind the brand.
• Story. Share your brand’s journey as an Etsy seller. Include a shop announcement, headline, video, photos, and links to your external web presence like your webpage, Pinterest, Facebook, or blog.

Work out shop policies

Clear store policies ensure transparency and cultivate a mutual understanding between Etsy sellers and buyers, fostering trust in the shop owner.

Etsy provides fixed policies for estimated delivery updates, customs and import taxes, and editable policies for order cancellations, returns, and exchanges. You can also write your own privacy policy.

Use social media

Expand your shop’s reach, connect with a broader audience, and drive up customer purchases by using social media strategically.

Use popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok to share important information and updates on your shop activities and engage with user-generated content.

Include a direct link to your Etsy shop in your social media profiles, which will make monitoring analytics easy and help potential customers find you.

Use Etsy ads

Etsy’s built-in ad feature is your way to strategically enhance your shop’s reach, drive traffic, and improve your sales potential with promoted listings.

These ads run only on Etsy, placing your listings in Search, Category, and Market pages on Etsy.com and the Etsy app.

Set your daily budget, starting at $1.00, and Etsy Ads will automatically optimise your bid for maximum exposure.

Keep a close eye on your performance through the Etsy Ads dashboard and fine-tune your strategy to achieve optimal results.

List production partners

If you’re selling custom products with POD, you’ll need to specify that they are ​​handmade with production assistance.

Add a production partner in your Shop Manager → Settings → Partners you work with → Add a new production partner, including the following information:

• Production partner – Printify.
• Location – United States of America.
• About production partner – A production partner.