When start selling on Print-on-Demand websites it is important to hedge your bets. The main reason is that you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox. Each POD-provider is a business on its own and it needs to answer to its owners or shareholder. Every business will change its strategy or mode of operating when circumstances demand.
A good recent example is Society6, it is a POD-provider that caters to the more accomplished artistic designers. At least that is what they suggest. A nice side-effect is that Society6 attracts customers with deeper pockets than other providers. I always had a solid margin on my sales, not rarely a sale of more than a $100.
Unfortunately, many who were into a quick buck also discovered Society6 and flooded the marketplace with substandard designs. In a response, last year Society6 introduced payed seller subscriptions. One free tier and two tiers for a monthly fee. The free tier has a maximum of only ten design. I ranted a bit about this on my Facebook page late last year.
Hedge your Bets
Most designers curated by Society6 itself barely had more than 50 designs! A long story short, I’m on the free plan now and my royalties plummeted. This bet didn’t pan out. Which brings me to my hedge. I have multiple POD-providers and one of them recently started to show a resurgence.
Cafepress is the original Print-on-Demand platform and it showed. Questionable product assortment and a horrible outdated seller/shop owner experience. Applying a design on a product was clunky at best. Maintenance and administration of designs and products was quite confusing. Cafepress for me simply wasn’t worth the hassle and the shop was just on automated pilot.
This has changed radically in the last months, the buyer experience was already brought in the twenty first century, but now for us sellers our life is greatly improved. The whole process of starting a shop on the website is fresh and modern again. The last week I doubled my products from about 4000 to 8000. Cafepress still lacks some features, but the promise is there.
Last year I lost a nice stream of royalties with the Society6 debacle, but if you keep a list of providers, then an opportunity with another company might pop up to compensate. I hope with the revamped Cafepress and an ample stocked shop, I’ll recoup my lost Society6 revenues.
Selling on a Print-on-Demand platform is not a business you own, you’re playing in some else’s sandbox. It’s a gamble and therefore you need to hedge your bets.