Why Graphic Designers Should Start a Print-on-demand Shop (or multiple) — Guide

7 min readJan 14, 2023

In this post, I want to give you some reasons why you should start a print-on-demand shop or multiple shops.

By starting a print-on-demand shop on sites such as Redbubble, Teespring, and Society6, graphic designers can enjoy the creative freedom of designing their own products without the added stress of worrying about production costs

Here are some more reasons:

Freedom to design what you want.

If you start a print-on-demand shop, you will have a lot of freedom and won’t need to worry about shipping or customer service. You can focus solely on the creative aspects of the business and design whatever your heart desires.

Not only do you have the freedom to design whatever you want, but these websites also provide the tools necessary to make sure your designs are of good quality and will look great on a variety of products.

Create a passive income stream.

Starting a print-on-demand business can be an excellent way to create a passive income stream. After you upload the design onto the print-on-demand platform, it takes care of producing and shipping the item, as well as handling customer service inquiries.

Although sales will not be much right away. Any sale you make is basically passive income. Now all you have to focus on is finding good keywords to target and create awesome art.

It’s easy to set up.

All you need to do is create an account, upload your designs, and list them for sale. Your designs will be in the store as long as the store exists, and you will earn a commission every time someone purchases one of your designs.

Another benefit of print on demand is Low Risk + Low Investment.

With print-on-demand, you don’t need to invest in large amounts of inventory upfront or worry about unsold products. All you need to do is upload your design, set your price, and wait for the orders to come in.

Print-on-demand FAQ

What is print on demand?

This image shows in a simplified way of how Print-on-demand works.

Print-on-demand is a business model where a company prints a product only after receiving an order for it. This allows individuals or small businesses to sell designs without having to invest in inventory or fulfill orders themselves.

There are several websites, such as Redbubble, Teespring, and Society6, that allow you to upload your designs and sell them on a variety of products, such as clothing, phone cases, and home decor.

To sell designs on these sites, you’ll need to create an account, upload your designs, and set prices for the products. The website will handle the production and shipping of the products, and you’ll receive a profit from each sale.

How many shops can I make?

You can make as many shops as you want, You can create a shop on society6, Redbubble, and Zazzle and upload the same designs to all of these shops. This gives you the freedom to create as many shops as you want and reach multiple potential customers at once

What Kind of designs should I make?

One strategy for selling designs on print-on-demand sites is to create designs that you personally enjoy, but this approach may result in fewer sales. Simply because you have no idea if people actually want to buy those designs.

Another option is to create designs that are currently popular or trendy, but this approach may face heavy competition from other designers. Remember, only the few that are on the first few pages actually get most of the sales.

Even though you love to make cat designs, a simple search for “cute cat” on Redbubble resulted in 1.3 million results. It’s unlikely you will rank on the first page. Basically a zero chance of making sales with this keyword. — Even though you love to make cat designs, a simple search for “cute cat” on Redbubble resulted in 1.3 million results. It's unlikely you will rank on the first page. Basically a zero chance of making sales with this keyword.

The most effective strategy is to focus on keywords that people frequently search for, and use tools like AHrefs, Semrush, or the Google Ads keyword planner to identify these keywords. Then, create designs that align with these keywords and also check for the number of designs already present on the print-on-demand platform. If there are only a few hundred, it may be more likely to be successful in making a sale.

Don’t focus on stickers!

I would suggest looking into products like T-shirts and prints. While it may be easy to sell a lot of stickers, the profit per sticker is quite low, making it not worth the effort. My advice would be to focus on items that can earn you at least $5 or $10 per sale like T-shirts or wall art. This will be more profitable in the long run.

That also makes it easier to create designs, as you can focus more on simple text-based designs.

The above image shows a search on Google, with the keyword “beautiful woman’s face Art”. I used the chrome extension keyword surfer to determine that this isn’t the best keyword because there isn’t much monthly volume. — The above image shows a search on Google, with the keyword “beautiful woman’s face Art”. I used the chrome extension **keyword surfer** to determine that this isn't the best keyword because there isn't much monthly volume.

Is tagging important?

Yes, it is most important. It's often overlooked and neglected. But it's the most important factor to make sales. If people can't find your designs you won't make sales, no matter how good your designs are. So be sure to learn how to propper tag your designs and find out what “keywords” people use to search for your design.

Use as many relevant keywords as possible. See what keywords other creators use or search Google for related keywords.

What are “too-saturated” niches or keywords?

It depends, but obviously, the less competition the more chance you have to stand out. Just be sure people actually search for your design, and the keyword(s) your rank for.

But let's say you want to rank for the keyword “cute cat with blue fish”. As you can see from the screenshot below, there are only 1,467 other designs you have to compete with. This is far less than 1.3 million for “cute cat”, i mentioned previously. I'm not saying that this is a good keyword, but it's far less competition.

This keyword has only 1,467 other designs. Of course, I prefer fewer, like 100 or 200. But if I like the keyword, I will still try it.

The best keywords are those that are searched for a lot (large monthly volume) but have 1000 or fewer designs. Sometimes you might be lucky and find a totally new niche or keyword with no designs at all.

Don't bother making designs in a niche or keyword that have or 2000 designs or more. It will be really hard to make a sale.

I don't really understand any of this. What do I do?

Learn! But I will try to explain it in short. If you want to make sales anywhere on the Internet, including with Print on demand. You have to understand how people find your products. For that, you have to learn how SEO works. This includes how to rank on Redbubble, and how to rank on Google. (These are 2 different things.)

Why also on Google? Because more than 50% of your sales will most likely come from Google / search engines. Google is the biggest traffic source, see similar web.

Yes, it doesn’t say 50% but there is a high chance these numbers aren't 100% accurate, especially since the “direct” traffic source could be from anywhere. Source: Similar web.

How do I rank on Redbubble (or other print-on-demand sites)?

Create stunning designs, that are in demand and in a niche/keyword that are not oversaturated.
You have to do keyword research first! BEFORE you make and upload a design. If you already have a design, do keyword research anyway. Find keywords that have a good monthly volume and tag your designs properly.
Use the right keywords! After you uploaded your design, where do you rank? On which page number? Everything that is not on the first page will have a huge disadvantage…
You will go up in rank after your product made a sale.
Follow the rules from the print-on-demand website, otherwise, you might get banned or shadowbanned (not appearing on Google).

What other print-on-demand site should I join?

You can join all of the if you want. But the best ones are probably:

Amazon Merch
Redbubble
Etsy (not free, and you have to connect to Printful.com)
Society6
Spreadshirt
Others.

Amazon Merch is simply the best because it has a huge amount of monthly traffic. This increases your chances of making a sale. Redbubble has 30 million visitors per month, which is not bad as well. Besides, Amazon and Redbubble rank very well on Google, often on top.

Can I make sales without keyword research and SEO?

Sure, but the chance is really low. If you don't want to do SEO. Then a few other options are:

Build an audience on social media, for example, YouTube.
Learn how to build an email list and use your email list to sell your products.
Spend money on marketing and advertising.

But you can also do these things besides SEO, to increase sales even further.

Nonetheless, the above options also mean you have to learn how to do it, and it's often much more costly. If you already know how to do it, or if you have the money to invest, great! Otherwise, SEO is your best shot.

Conclusion

So, if you are a graphic designer, and you are looking to make some extra pocket money, maybe even a full-time living. Then print on demand is certainly a great way to start.

I hope this was helpful

Ron.