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Selling custom products in your Etsy shop can help grow your business. A simple way to do this is by using print-on-demand (POD) services like Printify. Read on to learn more about how POD on Printify works.
First, though: what is print-on-demand?
POD is a business model in which each product is custom printed after an order for it has been placed. POD companies like Printify take care of producing and shipping products to the customer for you. All you have to do is manage your orders and market your business.
Printify charges you when you place the customer’s order and it’s sent to production. On Etsy, your shop account will already have been credited the funds from your customer’s purchase. This makes POD a lower-risk option.
1. Create an Etsy account and open your Etsy shop
If you don’t already have an Etsy shop, we have easy set-up instructions. Once you’ve activated your Etsy shop, you are ready for the next step.
2. Connect Etsy to Printify
When you have your Etsy account and store all set up, it’s time to link it to Printify.
- Go to printify.com and sign up to create a Printify account.
- Click on “My Account” and set up your business details, such as your Etsy shop name and your contact information.
- Add your preferred payment method in the “Payments” section. Check out the “Settings” section as well for other configurations.
- Make sure you are logged into your Etsy account, then go to the “My stores” section on Printify, click “Add new store,” and select Etsy.
- On the connection page, click “Allow access.”
That’s it: you have now successfully integrated your Etsy store with Printify!
3. Create a product With Printify
When selling print-on-demand products on Etsy, you no longer need to go through the product creation process on Etsy. Instead, simply go to printify.com and follow these steps:
- Go to “Catalog” and pick any of their 800+ products. To learn what products sell best on Etsy, you can use eRank’s Monthly Trends tool. It’s on the Main Menu under Trends. Then check the left side menu for POD.
This tool shows you trending product data in each POD subcategory for any month you select. For each keyword the little Trend Graphs on the right show data for the past 15 months, which helps spot seasonal favorites.
Next, back on the Printify product page, you may see multiple print providers listed. Choose one that best matches your product variant and location preferences, then click “Start Designing.”
- At this stage, you can add custom text or your custom design file to the product. Make sure it is aligned as you see fit.
- Click “prices & variants” in the top-right corner of the mockup generator to pick what size and color variants of the product you’d like to offer in your Etsy shop for this product.
- Click the “Preview” button to see a realistic mockup of what your product will look like.
- Finally, click “Save product” and – voilà! – it’s done!
Printify makes the listing creation process easy. Etsy Print on Demand shops can choose from a massive catalog of products to customize and sell on Etsy.
4. Edit and publish your product to Etsy
After you have created your products, go to the “My products” section in Printify. You will see your creations there. Click on them, and you’ll be able to edit the following details:
- Title image and mockup views
- Product title and description
- Pricing
- Shipping profile (which is generated automatically with all the correct shipping rates)
Once you have adjusted these details, click the green “Publish” button. This will publish your Printify product to Etsy and make it available to Etsy shoppers for purchase.
5. Adjust product details on Etsy
To find your newly-published product on Etsy, go to “Shop Manager > Listings.” You can then click on the gear icon next to the product and select “Edit.”
Etsy allows you to customize your listing further and add such refinements as:
- Product video
- Attributes and listing details (color, material, intended recipient, etc.)
- Tags
- Return and exchange policy
- Production partner*
* Important! Note that Etsy policy requires that you describe the manufacturing process of your items. Etsy shop owners who use POD must pick the “Another company or person” option under the “Who made it?” section and fill in the production partner details.
And while optional, by filling in attributes, product details and tags, you help your product’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This will better enable your product to rank on Etsy, and more customers will be able to find them. To learn more about Etsy SEO, we’ll link some helpful blog posts here under Resources at the end.
As for defining your return and exchange policies for POD products, we recommend that you consider these carefully. If you sell other types of items in the same Etsy shop, you may want to maintain separate policies for your POD listings. The fact that they are personalized and/or customized and made to order should exempt them from your having to accept returns. But you will want to spell that out explicitly where customers can easily see your policy. (One place is to use one of your ten photo slots. Another is in each POD listing description.) Visit other Etsy POD shops to see how they do it; eRank’s Shortcut Button is perfect for this. That link takes you to a short blog post about how to use it.
6. Customize Your Etsy storefront and open your shop
You need to do a few more things to get your shop ready and begin selling products. These last steps concern the creation, presentation, and setting up of your brand on Etsy. Let’s take a look at what you need to do:
- Make a memorable first impression of your Etsy store by creating a brand logo and banner with a welcome message.
- Use the “About” section to share your company’s origin story and vision. Create an image for your brand by posting videos and photos in this section.
- If you have team members, introduce them here.
- Since all new shops must adopt Etsy’s standard policies concerning shipping, refunds, exchanges, payments, and custom orders, you can use the FAQ area to reiterate your POD policies.
Customizing both your listings and storefront is important, as these details boost brand recognition and shopper trust. So make sure to dedicate some time for these.
7. Start marketing and selling your products
Now that all the product listing and store setup is done, you can sit back and wait for the orders to roll in. If you wish, you can also explore ways in which to market your products and boost their visibility.
When you receive a POD order on Etsy, it will also sync to Printify’s “Orders” tab. Once you send it to production, Printify will print, package, and send the order to your customer – the order status and tracking updates will also sync over to Etsy.
All you have to do is make sure your Etsy listings and storefront are optimized, manage your listing and orders, and implement your marketing and promotion strategies.
About the author
Filip Nikoloski is a Partnership Specialist at Printify. Printify is a transparent print-on-demand and dropshipping platform designed to help online merchants make more money in a simple and easy way.
RESOURCES
