If your a fan of TikTok and have found yourself in the Making Money Online section of the app then I’m sure you’ve seen videos about Print on Demand in the UK. It’s all my feed is filled with at the moment. Young 20 something’s promoting Print on Demand as the way to quit your 9-5 day job and achieve financial freedom. One particular TikToker claims to have made over £20,000 using the Print on Demand business model selling via Etsy.

I’m always sceptical when I see something suddenly being promoted so heavily. So I decided to test the method out for you so you can save yourself time and decide if Print on Demand is the right business venture for you.

What is Print on Demand or POD?

Print on Demand is the process of designing and selling printed items that you don’t actually hold as stock. Instead, you would work directly with a supplier who would print your designs onto products and then dispatch them on your behalf. Essentially the print of demand model is a form of drop shipping. A number of products these TikTokers are selling include mugs, art prints, phone cases and tote bags.

Because there are no start-up costs or overheads it’s a business venture absolutely anyone can do. You could very easily start a print on demand business within 24 hours without spending a penny.

How do Print on Demand services work?

First up you would need to create an account with a company like Printful. Printful is where you will decide which type of products you want to create. They will take care of the product creation and shipping to your customers.

You will also need to create an online shop. The majority of TikTokers promoting print on demand seems to be selling their products via the Etsy platform. You can then link your Etsy account directly to your Printful account to automate all your incoming orders.

Every order that gets placed on your Etsy store gets automatically sent to Printful. Printful will then print your product and ship it straight to your customer without any involvement required by yourself. It is very much a passive way of earning. The most involvement from yourself will be designing your products.

Do I have to sell via Etsy?

No. You can sell on your own online store if you want to. The start-up costs will be more as you’ll need to invest in a domain name, hosting and integrate a shopping platform like Shopify or using the Woocommerce plugin for WordPress. This is definitely something I’d look at later down the line but if you are just starting out Etsy will do everything you need.

How do I design products for Print on Demand in the UK?

The easiest way to create your designs is by using the free online platform called Canva. Canva is an incredible tool for creating graphics online. It’s something I use for all my blog and Instagram imagery.

To create a design you will first need to check the dimensions for whatever product you are choosing to print on. For example for Printful if you want to create a two-sided mug design the dimensions for your graphic will need to be 9″ x 3.5″. You can easily set the custom dimension size of your graphic in Canva by selecting ‘Create a design’ and then selecting ‘Custom size’.

For your imagery to be ready for print it will need to have a transparent background. You aren’t currently able to do this via the free Canva account and will need to upgrade to Canva Pro. Currently, you can get a 30 day free trial of Canva Pro and you can whip up some designs and download them before your trial expires. If you decide to continue with print on demand then you can upgrade to Canva Pro from £10.99 a month or £99.99 yearly.

What sort of products can I sell?

There are a huge amount of products available to have your design printed on to. Some of the most popular print on demand products are:

• T-shirts
• Mugs
• Keyrings
• Hoodies
• Sweatshirts
• Art prints
• Tote Bags
• Phone cases

The options really are limitless. You can choose to create your design onto every type of product or you could make your account a little more niche and stick to one type of product but with 100’s of design options. The choice really is up to you.

How much can I really make doing Print on Demand in the UK?

So I’ve crunched some numbers. I’ve used the data and details of the TikToker who claimed to be making £20,000 via Etsy using POD.

Now I completely believe she’s made £20,000 on Etsy as she shared some screenshots but that was her turnover. So let’s work out what her profit was based on her using Printful UK as a supplier.

The price of a mug in this particular Etsy store was £15.59 including shipping costs. Now first up, that is very expensive for a mug. The average price currently on Etsy is more around the £8-£12 margin. So you’d need to do some serious marketing to sell them at £15.59.

Printful Costings

Printful currently charges a price per product, shipping fee plus VAT. The price of a small 11oz white mug on Printful is £6.06. The cost of shipping to the UK is £4.25. And then VAT on top of that is £2.06. So this one printed mug is already costing us £12.37! That’s a huge dent in profits already.

Etsy Costings

Etsy only charges you per item sold. Etsy’s current costings is a 14p listing fee, 5% transaction fee plus a 4% + £0.20 payment processing fee.

Based on a sale price of £15.59 the costings would be:
– 14p Listing Fee
– 79p Transaction fee
– 82p Payment processing fee

In total the cost per sale on Etsy based off a £15.59 mug would be £1.75

Etsy currently offers 40 free listings for all new Etsy sellers. This would mean your first 40 listings would not incur the 14p listing charge which would bring your start-up costs down to nothing.

If we take 14p off because we’ve used our free listening the first 40 products listed would cost £1.61 in Etsy fees.

Get 40 Free Etsy Listings Here

Total Profit

For every mug sold at £15.59 inclusive of shipping. We would be paying Printful £12.37 and Etsy £1.61 (based on using free listings) leaving us with a profit of £1.61 per mug.

So the TikToker with a turnover of £20,000 on Etsy would have actually made around £2065.43 in profit. That equates to selling 1,283 mugs!

Is it possible to sell that many mugs on Etsy?

I did a bit more research and looking up the first page of mugs selling on Etsy between £15-£16. The average number of sales for those shops is around 522 sales.

There is a huge amount of competition on Etsy. You would either need to seriously up your marketing game to sell mugs at £15.59, or you could look at print on demand suppliers in the UK with a more competitive price margin.

Where can I ship my products to?

The beauty of dropshipping is that you can send your items internationally. Printful ship globally which gives you so many more market options than just being able to ship within the UK. Make sure to check the shipping cost for each product item and country so you can list then within your profit margins on Etsy.

How to drive sales to your Etsy store

We live in the age of social media and TikTok is an extremely powerful platform. You can set up social media accounts with your new brand and business and start promoting your products. A great way to get your products seen on TikTok is to create videos using trending sounds and hashtags. Don’t forget to interact with others in the same niche as you.

Is there a UK version of Printful?

Although a lot of TikTokers recommend Printful they aren’t actually based in the UK. They do ship worldwide but as products are being shipped from the USA the shipping cost is much higher.

Alternatives to Printful that are UK based include Printify, Gelato, Inkthreadable, TwoFifteen and Prodigi.

All the above-mentioned suppliers can be directly linked to your Etsy account. I’d highly recommend checking them all out as they all offer different products and services. If you have an idea of what you would like to sell then see which ones can offer you the best price to increase your profit margin.

Would you recommend Print on Demand?

It’s definitely not the get rich quick scheme a lot of TikTokers are promoting it to be but, it is passive income. The profit margins are quite low but there’s no real effort involved to make that money. The only time taken is initially setting up your designs, product templates and Etsy store, everything else is automated. And with no start-up fees there really is nothing to lose.

I’d highly recommend though if you make enough from your Print on Demand UK based business to invest in a Cricut or screen printing kit and do it yourself. You can really increase your profit margins but holding stock and creating designs yourself does come with risk.

If you want something that’s just going to tick over in the background and bring in some passive income then Print on Demand is for you. If you want something you can grow into your own business to become self-employed then it’s not something that will be sustainable or get you those kinds of figures in the long run.

I hope you’ve found this blog post useful. If you’ve decided to start a Print on Demand UK business then drop your store links in the comments. I’d love to check them out.

Pin it for Later