Have you ever considered investing in a printer to convert to sublimation? You could use an old toaster oven or air fryer and make your own mugs as people order them. Even if it's local at first. It's how I make mine and it's such a relief for quality assurance checks.

I’m so terrified that I’ll pick a poor printer and they’ll send out bad products that break and look really cheap, I’m so glad you’ve done this experience for us 😊

Answering this with fingers crossed very tight. I've been on Etsy for around 14 years and the past 3 or 4 have sold only POD. Main product is a book of pictures (funny wild swimming drawings) printed by Kindle Direct Publishing, then I've put various art on to things like stationery as well, using different POD companies. So far, so good .

I solved the positioning issues by making a template in my photo editing software the same size as Printify's and making all the adjustments there first. You add your image as a layer to your template and adjust it so it fits half the width of the template then copy and paste it as a new layer and flip it (if needed) to be the opposite of the other side. When happy they match up, save it and it is ready to drop into Printify's temple with no adjusting needed.

Great thumbnail, Kim 😄Ah, the joys of outsourcing printing. I got some greetings cards printed a couple of years ago and they weren't quite right. The card quality was great but the print was just a little blurry. My family couldn't see what I was complaining about but it was obvious to me. I ended up buying my own printer and making them myself. I do like having quality control myself 😁

A few thoughts: Printify has an option, at least available in the US, where you can make a shop on their platform and you do not have to prepay. Some people create their items, keep them private, and order through that method, but you have to have the customers payment details to enter. Or you can direct people to the printify store you set up, but then you're sending traffic away. I consider you an artist so POD as many of your designs as you like. I understand your concern about possibly risking your Etsy shop by adding POD that the bots reject, so I would suggest opening the separate shop using the same name but adding mugs at the end, if you're just going to stick with mugs. The allure of POD is scale. The per item profit can be relatively small, but you're not making each one, so you can sell more than you could make. It is essentially residual income that you're only effort may be to process the order, you don't have to fulfill it so that takes a great deal of the work out of it. Also, I am particularly fond of the make upon order aspect of the business model. So many horror stories about unwanted inventory and what happens to it, of all types of merchandise. As always, thanks for sharing your experience, your thoughts, and concerns. You are a very thoughtful business person, and I appreciate your opinions more than most.

Hey Kim! I've had my Etsy shop for 11+ years now and I started with handmaking jewelry for a niche. In the last 3 years I've toyed with print on demand to make more items for my target customer (her name is Hannah; lol) and I started with a second shop, but starting a new shop for me was requiring more time to grind out new listings than I had the mental bandwidth for. I did okay, but I started doubting myself and took it down. About a year went by and I decided to add it to my main jewelry shop and the POD items don't get much attention and it's probably because I don't have a lot of them and I need more variety of designs but I still have to make and fill jewelry orders which is obviously comes first. - Regarding the mockups; I understood that Etsy wants only the ones from the print provider and not mockups generated from another source so that it gives the best representation of what the customer can expect. I've also noticed that Printify has the ability for sellers to upload a different background for the mockup images so that it gives the seller a different look and not match all the other mockups on Etsy or other search pages. Love your videos! It's hard to find a fellow handmade seller these days. ♥

I used to sell POD products in my Etsy shop (from Printify) and ultimately didn’t like how I had absolutely no control over the quality that was being sent out to my customers. 😣 To me, it felt like all the POD manufacturers did was print and ship the products out and if the products looked bad, then they didn’t care. The only people that suffered were the small businesses who had to deal with angry customers. The POD manufacturers did their job, so whatever else happened wasn’t their problem 🤷‍♀️ So yeah, I’m not touching POD with a 10 foot pole 🤣

Kim, not sure if you found this out or not, but you can in the settings, have them hold orders until you approve them, which means they will not make them or charge you until you approve it.

I purchased a couple blank mugs off Amazon and I plan to make my own mockups with those. I made sure the ones I bought were identical. They're not just white mugs, they are called "sublimation blanks" coated specifically for being printed like Printify does.

Good to hear your experience! I've just placed a test order for mugs and a t-shirt on Gelato, so we'll see how that goes!

I thought about trying it but every niche I was interested in was SO saturated I could not imagine having a sale. And the niches I thought about were unusual too … thanks for the videos Kim !

❤

I love your videos. I use printify for my POD and agree about centering of the mugs! It's frustrating!

Thank you Kim for sharing your experiences. Very helpful!

Just leave the mugs on the website for the fans! No need to risk it!

Loved to hear your experience and thoughts on POD. Not something Ill be dipping my toes into but loved to hear how it went with you. I do enjoy the toad stool cup one I bought though!!!!😄

The positioning issue you talked about on Printify is the reason why I've stopped myself multiple times from selling mugs. I imagine customer reviews. "It's crooked". "it's not centered". That seems like a big deal

Yes, I'm in the USA. LOUISIANA

Enjoyed the video. Thank you.

Certainly enjoyed this. As usual, you were delightful. But I must say I am totally confused. I have considered putting some of my pieces on mugs, shirts, etc. because it’s been requested by my clients. I think I will just wait another six months and see how well this turns out for you. Thank you for taking us on this exciting print-on-demand adventure. Wahoo! Best of luck!

Hmmm this is kinda timely. I've been humming and ahhing for ages about adding just a select few crochet themed pod items to my etsy crochet pattern shop. I've not done it for all the same fears you express. I thought it would add added extras for my regular customers to add to orders etc. but im still on the fence lol

Dipped in myself

I’ve sold thousands of mugs through printify … pick a provider with a good review score and the quality is an issue. There’s always the 1% that will either arrive broken due to some freak incident or the print is bad. Apologizing to the customer and shipping out a new mug (they replace it for free) has always fixed any issue.

Curious...did you photograph your embroidery designs and upload to printify? (forgive my ignorance)

Did you make a video how to sell on facebook page, facebook shop ?

Can customers go to the site and order from them, and you receive the commission?

Hi Kim, a very insightful video. Defiantly a lot more goes into it than people realise. I can relate with the anxiety over loosing controll and guessing on quality, it would scare me too... Urm, now might be a good time to ask, on my to do list for later in the year is to reach out to you about your opinions on some sewing/ stitching themed designs (I do glass engraving, so it would be more like illustrations type of thing) when I do designs that I'm not directly related to I like to get someone's opinion. :) might that be something you could glance at? And where might be best to contact you about it. I have a friend that's a watercolour artist and they do pod but just buying in stock from a local company and selling in craft stalls. They do well with the mix of original artwork and then cheaper prints. Does it work similar for you or do you think its maybe a new category that your attracting with the mugs? Curious about that. :)

have you had any broken mugs? If yo, where you happy with Printify's customer service?

Do the design on something else first with the template they provide you for perfection positioning. Then upload.

But that is why everyone use print on demand... because everything is out of hands 😅

Thank you. I have used POD with no problems in the past and have added a few items to my shop recently with no problems. I use the item from my supplier and put it in a Canva setting. Like a mug on a table. The idea of not seeing each item before the customer does bothers me too.

I use a credit card for POD purchases and get rewards off of it!