An Independent Print-on-demand platform is also known as a “All-in-one POD” , “self-printing” or “print-on-demand marketplace for artists” .
An independent POD platform allows you to upload a design and list it for sale on their Marketplace and it would offer you a Storefront as well that you can customize and categorize the products in it as you wish. From marketing to customer support, they do everything for you and that’s a huge advantage. You will get a royalty payment each time a product with your design on it gets sold. Some platforms have a fixed profit margin per product sold while some other sites will allow you to set your own profit margin.
If you rely exclusively on their marketing you should choose the platforms that gets the most traffic on the Internet. The best ranked will give your designs more exposure. In this table you can find them all sorted by its Global Alexa Traffic Rank.
These POD sites can be categorized in 3 Sales Channels:
1. Marketplace: Once you publish your design on the chosen
products, they will appear on their own marketplace, and they do the marketing for you, the higher you rank in there the more chances you get listed on the first page when someone is looking for a product via any search engine.
2. Storefront: You’ll get a unique URL to your shop in which you have some custom options to set a logo/profile picture, a storefront banner, description and choose to categorize the products in it as you wish. This is for you to market it as you wish and share the link to your shop with your audience.
3. Campaign: A fundraising tool that enables nonprofit organizations to promote their cause and mission, and raise money by selling custom print-on-demand products.
Great Advantages
✔ They handle everything for you: Printing, Fulfillment, Payment, Inventory, Shipping, Customer Service and Marketing;
✔ Zero costs to run it! They pay for the products and they handle the refunds/returns;
✔ Have your own storefront that you can promote or be featured on the marketplace;
✔ Your designs get lots of exposure and huge free traffic on their marketplace;
✔ Some POD sites allows you to set your own profit margin.
Some Inconveniences
-You can’t establish your brand as their storefront is not white-labeled;
-Low profit margins with the POD sites that have fixed profit margin per product sold;
-Non-instant payments. Payments are issued once or twice a month to allow time for returns and chargebacks;
-Your designs will be featured on their marketplace together with many other designs, distracting customers from purchasing your designs.
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