You have a social media following, your posts get reshared, and you may even sell stickers or prints of your art. How can you continue to expand your brand and offer your fans new ways to support and rep your work?
Selling custom merchandise can be a great way to make extra income, while your fanbase will also be excited to keep tabs on your pages to see what you’ll launch next.
WHAT PRODUCTS TO SELL?
T-shirts are always a classic, but adding some creative options to your product line can help attract more sales and keep things fun and exciting. Try selecting a couple home decor items that people can use to decorate their space, or products like phone cases that have high usability and will increase brand recognition.
Wall Decor
Tapestries, canvas, and penants.
Accessories
Totes, phone cases
Home Decor
Rugs, blankets, throw pillows
SELECT PRODUCTS THAT FIT YOUR NICHE
What gender and age are the majority of your audience? What are their hobbies? How much money are they willing to spend on merch?
Asking these questions can help you determine what products will sell well among your audience.
If you specialize in dog portraits, selecting items like custom pet beds or feeding mats may be in demand.
If you create psychedelic illustrations, yoga mats or custom rolling trays may be creative options that your fanbase will love.
Photographers may want to display their best selling work on tapestries or even a tote bag.
WHAT KIND OF PRINTING?
Sublimation Printing
Sublimation is awesome when it comes to full color artwork and patterns. It opens up a world of possibilities in terms of garment options as well, allowing you to choose from apparel to home decor. Print from seam to seam so that your artwork is displayed on all areas of the product.
DTG Digital Printing
A good option for smaller quantities or high color artwork. This is useful for printing on tees, hoodies, and other apparel items. DTG prints just like an office printer, except instead of printing onto paper it is translated onto fabric, capturing all of those tiny details in your artwork.
Sublimated Patches
A good alternative to embroidery if you are looking to decorate hats or jackets. It is harder to translate detailed/high color artwork with embroidery, but Sublimated Patches allow for full color printing on a patch that is then sewed onto the garment.
Specialty Ink
If you choose to go the traditional screen printing route, specialty inks can be used to enhance certain areas of your artwork. Add dimension with HD Ink or Gel, or make your artwork light reactive with glow or UV ink.
WHERE TO SELL?
OK Option
Print On Demand platforms like Redbubble and Society6 are designed to help creators sell merch. You upload your artwork, select the products you want to sell your artwork on, set the price, and they do the rest. This is a great starting place if you want to test out the market or just make a little passive income, but in the end this is not a very profitable option. With platforms like this, you only make a small percentage of every sale since they are doing all of the printing and shipping. Plus, you don’t have quality control or freedom when it comes to decoration, product selections, and personalizing shipments.
Better Option
Platforms like Etsy and DePop allow you to set up your own shop page on list products on their platform. Unlike a Print On Demand platform, these platforms have a large community of artists that sell jewelry, printed tees, or other creative products. It’s easy to set up your shop on these platforms, and these sites already generate a lot of traffic so it can be helpful in attracting new buyers outside of your existing following. Since you are listing your own products and handling shipping, this means you will make more profit than with services like Redbubble, but these platforms still do take a percentage of every sale and a fee to keep listings active.
Best Option
The holy grail: Shopify! (No, this is not sponsored)
Shopify should be the end-goal for all sellers in the e-commerce space as it is the most customizable, offers a ton of apps & plug-ins, and allows you to have your very own website. Keep all of your profits from what you sell, and your very own unique domain to send visitors to. Hosting your own site gives you ultimate control over pricing, shipping, and building out web pages.
If you want to keep products up on your site year round and make passive income as orders come in, our Print On Demand App could be a good solution for your Shopify store. All the perks of Print On Demand, but hosted 100% on your store.
