Guide to Print on Demand Drop Shipping

Print on demand drop shipping is the full process of connecting your eCommerce store to a credible platform, carefully selecting product to fill your online store fronts, selling your products and printing, packing, and shipping it to the consumer. This guide breaks down this process into bite size pieces for easy digestibility.

Let’s start with Print on Demand Drop Shipping. What does it mean?

Print on demand drop shipping simply means products are printed as orders come in. This highly sustainable process does not require stockpiling millions in inventory to get ahead of trends or prepare for an upcoming event thus potentially wasting product. The company follows the consumer’s demand and prints as many or as little as they need.

From the start, print on demand drop shipping allows a company to dive into new product markets without having to invest heavily into a new business. Here is an example of the process:

1. Connect your online storefront with an eCommerce platform
2. Browse the products available to you and create your custom designs to be featured on your storefront
3. Market your products to your consumers and watch the Sales come in
4. Have your products printed, packed and shipped to your customers

What are the benefits of print on demand services?

With print on demand services, you are receiving a number of benefits right from the start, including:

Low Investment Costs

Since, as the storefront, you are not printing the products yourself, you do not need to invest in equipment for printing nor do you need to worry about inventory or delivery. The eCommerce platform of your choice will take care of everything that has to do with inventory for you. The storefront is responsible for choosing the product, setting the pricing, and providing the artwork.

Sustainability

As mentioned above print on demand is a highly sustainable process. Since you are printing as needed, there is no need to overstock printed products that may or may not be sold. The whole point of this process is to print the product as the orders come in.

Personalized Products Made Easy

Since you are printing on demand, personalized products are easier to print than ever. Print a product specifically for someone special or, print a few for an event such as a Bachelorette (or Bachelor) party, birthday party etc.

How do you make money with print on demand?

While print on demand offers a lot of benefits, it is important to note that the low barriers of entry also mean a larger number of competitors. In this market, design differentiation and being able to offer a good product mix is key. That is why keeping up with trends for both artwork and new products to sell is important. On top of this, your pricing strategy will be very important. If you are overcharging for a product that someone else is selling, they will most likely switch storefronts.

Starting from the basics, a storefront will determine their own pricing. The eCommerce platform will have costs for blank products and shipping but it is the storefront’s decision as to what the price to the consumer will be.

What are the best print on demand products to sell?

Apparel is saturating the print on demand market and while consumers love clothing as a way to express themselves, more eCommerce platforms are looking for more product differentiation. One of the hottest print on demand products to hit the eCommerce market is print on demand drinkware. Print on demand drinkware offers a new and sustainable canvas for an artist’s curated designs. Not only is drinkware easy to stock due to its durability but there is only one mouth size so inventory management is easy. With t-shirts, inventory must be managed per size, per sku. Drinkware eliminates this.

Learn more about Print on Demand Drinkware and the Business Case for Drinkware.

What is drop shipping with print on demand?

Now that we’ve defined the print on demand portion of this process, let’s dive into drop shipping. As noted above, print on demand encompasses the whole online process. Drop shipping brings this all to how the consumer will receive their printed goods.

Once a consumer selects your storefront to purchase a product from, the orders will need to go to a drop shipping facility to be printed, packed and shipped. This whole process is taken care of by the eCommerce platform which will either print it themselves or send the orders to another company to print. Through an API connection, the order is sent directly to the drop shipping company for printing. The company will print the product, quality check it and then ship it to the consumer.

How do I select a drop shipping company?

Lucky for storefronts, eCommerce platforms already have integrations that they can connect with. As with any business, these eCommerce platforms are always looking for new ways to innovate and differentiate so it is important to pay attention to the new integrations that they sign on.

How does Digital on Demand fit my needs?

Digital on Demand offers a seamless connection from top eCommerce platforms to your storefront. We take care of the printing, fulfilling orders and shipping. With state-of-the-art Helix® technology, we are able to reproduce your kick ass graphics on high end drinkware products.

See our Print on Demand Merchandise

For more information about Print on Demand Drop Shipping, contact us.