What Is Print-On-Demand
A lot of people think you need money to start a print-on-demand business. You need to pay for designs, pay someone to build you a store, pay for products upfront. But that’s not how it works anymore. When I first tried print on demand years ago, back then you did need to invest a bit upfront. Today, you can start much faster and at almost no cost.
It’s a way to sell products online without ever holding any stock. You go to a POD platform like Printify, you pick a product, a t-shirt, a mug, a hoodie, there are thousands of options. You create your design and add it to that product. Then you upload it to your store. When someone buys it, your POD platform gets the order, prints it, packs it, and ships it directly to your customer. You never touch the product. You can run this from anywhere in the world. And because you only pay when you make a sale, there is no inventory risk and no upfront cost.
Step 1: Pick Your Product
Where do you start? Not with design. Not with your store. You start with your product. And I want to save you from the mistake most beginners make, which is picking just anything that they personally love. That is not the right way to do it. You want to pick products that people are already buying. The best products for beginners hit three things: High demand: people are actively searching for them. Evergreen: they sell all year, not just for one season. Good profit margin: you should target something around 20-30% profit. T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, these are classic for a reason. They sell consistently. I recommend beginners start with one of these.
Step 2: Find a Winning Design Idea
You need to figure out what kind of design actually sells. And this is where most people waste so much time, they just guess. There is a much better way. I use the EverBee browser extension for Etsy sellers that shows you real sales data, so you can see what’s selling before you create anything.
New EverBee Features
They recently added some new features that I find really useful. First, you can now filter search results by Bestseller, Popular Now, and Free Shipping tags. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of listings, you can just filter for what’s actually selling on Etsy right now. Second, there is a toggle to hide all sponsored listings. You only see organic results, real data, not paid placements. And third, if you right-click the EverBee icon, you get access to an AI prompt generator that helps you come up with product ideas and even write your listings.
Let’s say you find a design niche that looks promising, like dog lover t-shirts, or funny mugs for nurses. Before you design anything, look at the listings already selling in that niche. Check the tags, the titles, the monthly sales. That tells you who is buying and what they want.
Step 3: Create Your Design
Once you know what sells, you need to create your design. You do not need to be a graphic designer. You do not need Photoshop. There are tools built specifically for print on demand that make this process very accessible. What you are looking for in a design tool is: POD-specific templates and artboard sizes so you don’t have to set up dimensions manually. Good typography options, because text-based designs sell really well on Etsy. A clear commercial license, so you can actually sell what you create. And ideally, something that lets you create more than one design at a time without starting from scratch every single time.
Kittl
I use Kittl for this, it’s a design tool that is built for print on demand. The first thing you notice when you open it is that it has artboard presets for Printify and other POD platforms. You don’t have to look up dimensions. You just select your platform and start designing. The typography in Kittl is also really different from other browser-based tools. You can layer text effects, curve text, warp it, add drop shadows, apply decorative patterns, all without any workarounds. And if you’ve ever tried to do this in Canva, you know how limited that can feel. The commercial license is also very straightforward. You can sell designs you make in Kittl, use templates commercially, and create for clients. No ambiguity.
Kittl Flows and Remix
But the feature I want to show you for this workflow specifically is Kittl Flows, and in particular, the new Remix feature. Let’s say you created one design that’s getting good results. Instead of starting from scratch to make variations, you can use Remix to spin that one design into dozens of different styles, colour variations, style variations, niche variations, in one session. What used to take days of manual work now takes maybe an hour. And one more thing, Kittl also lets you create short video clips of your design directly inside the tool. You just attach an AI video board, write a short prompt, and it generates an animated version of your product. This is useful for Etsy, since listings with video mockups tend to convert better than listings with only photos.
Don’t forget to use my coupon code ANASTASIA, it gives you 25% off on your first month or year of Kittl Pro and Expert plans.
Step 4: Set Up Your Store
Now you have a product idea and a design. You need somewhere to sell it. There are two main options: Etsy: a marketplace with millions of buyers already searching every day. Your own website: more control, but you have to drive your own traffic. For beginners, I recommend starting on Etsy. It’s one of the fastest ways to get in front of buyers without spending on ads. And to actually create and connect your products, you can use a POD platform like Printify. It’s the print on demand platform I recommend.
Printify
When you open Printify, the first thing you will see is their product catalog. There are hundreds of products to choose from, t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, tote bags, phone cases, home décor, and a lot more. And they have a Bestsellers tab so you can immediately see what’s actually selling well, without any guessing. When you pick a product, you will see an option called Printify Choice. This means Printify automatically selects the best supplier for your order based on location, price, and shipping speed. You don’t have to research suppliers or compare options manually, it’s done for you. And connecting your store is very straightforward. You can connect Printify to Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, and several other platforms in just a few clicks.
Step 5: List Your Product on Etsy
Once your product is created in Printify, you connect it to your Etsy shop and publish your listing. How you set up that listing matters a lot. This is where most beginners publish something and then wonder why nobody finds it. Here is what you need to get right: Title: use keywords your buyer would actually type. Something like “Funny Nurse Mug Gift for Coworker” is much better than just “Nurse Mug”. Tags: use all 13 tags Etsy gives you. Look at what other successful listings in your niche are using. EverBee makes this easy to check.
Photos: use clean mockups with a natural background. No plain white. Show the product being worn or used. Video: add a video to your listing. Etsy reports that listings with video get twice as many orders. This is where those Kittl AI video mockups are helpful. Description: include your keywords naturally and make it clear who this product is for and what occasion it’s good for. Gift buyers are a huge market on Etsy, don’t ignore them. One more thing: don’t upload one design and stop. The more listings you have, the more chances you have to appear in Etsy search. Treat each listing as a new entry point.
Step 6: Market for Free with Pinterest
Etsy can bring you traffic on its own, but it won’t do that overnight. Especially when your shop is new and you have no reviews yet. The free marketing channel I always recommend for print on demand sellers is Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual search engine. People go there looking for gift ideas, style inspiration, home décor ideas, exactly the kind of things you are selling in print-on-demand. Here is how to use it: Create a Pinterest business account, free. Take your product mockups and create pins, vertical photos or videos for each listing. Write a pin title with keywords, something like “Funny gift for dog moms, comfort colors t-shirt”. Add the link to your Etsy listing as the destination URL. Post consistently, even 5 to 10 pins a day can make a real difference over time.
The great thing about Pinterest is that pins have a long life. A pin you post today can still be driving traffic six months from now. That doesn’t happen on Instagram or TikTok.
Step 7: Scale What Works
Once you have some listings live and you start seeing which ones get clicks and sales, that’s when you scale. Here is how to think about it: Look at which listing is getting the most favorites and clicks organically. Take that design and use Kittl Remix to create variations, different colours, different niches, different products. List all of those variations. Only run Etsy ads once you have proof something works organically first. That last point is important. Ads don’t fix a listing that isn’t converting. They just spend your money faster. Wait until you have at least some organic activity before you pay to boost anything. And don’t try to be in 10 different niches at the same time. Pick one. Understand who the buyer is. Get some listings working. Then expand.
The sellers who do well with print on demand are not the ones who upload the most random designs. They are the ones who pay attention to what works and do more of that.