Today, when the seller's market is gradually transforming into a buyer's market, on-demand production and private customization are becoming more and more popular, opening a door for consumers who are increasingly pursuing personalization.

Customization models are not new in the world, people are more common with custom clothing, custom furniture, custom gifts, etc. If you are running an e-commerce business and want to expand into new areas, then custom products are a model you should consider.

Table of Contents

• What Is POD(Print on Demand)？

• Two Modes of POD

• Recommendations For The Direction Of The Selection Of Products:

• Why do independent website sellers choose POD customization mode?

• Suggestions

1、What Is POD(Print on Demand)？

POD is a business model to meet the individual needs of customers. Merchants generally make and sell products according to customer needs. Sellers even only need to select and list the customized products you support, determine factories and promote stores.

2、Two Modes Of POD

Basic version: Customize with pictures, send the required pictures to the production department for location typesetting, and print directly for production. Conventional POD sellers, use the basic version more, put pre-designed patterns on the shelves for customers to choose from, or let consumers provide pictures and then send back the renderings for their reference. In the end, this model still showed obvious drawbacks, not only is it a problem of inefficient communication after the return of modifications, but it is also a barrier to gaining customer speed and improving conversion rates.

Elite version: Different from the traditional customization of drawings, consumers can do DIY designs by themselves. Customers can customize upload materials, edit text, preview in real-time, obtain the desired effects, and realize efficient customization, which is more personalized and diversified. 

3、Recommendations For The Direction Of The Selection Of Products:

•  Home & Parent-child Theme(Home Products)

The home niche has been receiving a lot of attention from sellers of custom products. The advantages are:

-Customer range is very wide, not limited by geographical restrictions

-Stable market. When buying a gift for a loved one, of course, do not want the same gift as others, so many overseas consumers are keen to customize.

-It can be sold throughout the year and has high sales on many holidays such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, and birthdays.

-A wide variety of products, such as pillows, mugs, photo frames, etc.

• Apparel products

Apparel T-shirts have always been one of the most popular products in the POD industry. In today's pursuit of personalization, people love to wear unique pieces of clothing, and customers always like to customize products and are willing to pay extra for them. According to a study by Deloitte, one in five clients would not hesitate to pay an additional 20% for a personalized product.

And since many companies today make bulk purchases for their employees, the future of this niche market is promising. In addition to the most common T-shirt products, you can also sell hats, socks, shoes, etc., and subdivide the track again to get breakthrough points.

• Pet products

Today's cute pet family pays extra attention to the clothing, food, housing, and transportation of their pets. According to the survey, the average pet owner pays about $300 a year for their pets, while 21% pay more for their pets during an epidemic; more than 50% of pet owners give their pets gifts at Christmas. This shows that the pet market has huge consumer potential.

In addition to conventional pet clothing and collars and other pet supplies, you can also use pet photos as prototypes to draw a two-dimensional graphic image, and then print it on various daily items according to customer needs, which is also very popular among cute pet family. If the product is special enough, they will be willing to pay for your higher profit margins.

4、Why do independent website sellers choose POD customization mode?

• The target group is accurate and the conversion rate is high.

• Large premium space, high profit.

• A wide range of business, diversified marketing.

• POD hot straight up, more room for sustainable development.

After choosing the market, we need to find our creative inspiration. Doing POD can indeed rely on customers to solve the product pattern or color matching, but the product foundation still needs to be optimized by yourself. 

Here are 4 suggestions:

•  Spy on competitor ideas

In finding design ideas, the opponent's design is a worthwhile reference to consider. You can use spying tools to spy on your competitors' creatives. Recommended tools for finding ideas: Sunfrog, Teeview, TeeSpy, Etsy, TeeGrasp, DmmSpy, Nicheminer, Smallfbtools, and Teespring

•  Keep up with new trends in real time

If there is a new trend on the Internet, a new movie is released or an artist is releasing a new album, etc., you can introduce these topics into your design. Since your audience is paying special attention to these topics, your product will also catch their attention. To stay up to date with new trends, you can visit these sites: Google Trends, Reddit Popular, and Twitter Trending ......

•  Design products by season

Seasonal products are products that are sold only on a special holidays. For example, summer designs should have elements with summer styles such as the sea, beach, etc. Knowing the peak selling season of a certain type of product, you can take the initiative to prepare in advance and create seasonally appropriate designs.

• Design products by holiday

If designing products by trend requires you to constantly update global trends in real-time, then seasons and holidays are regular and you can plan your sales for the year in advance as well as proactively control your time. Each holiday has a special theme, and you can come up with a lot of ideas just by focusing on the theme.

Now, do you know how to start your POD business?