So you want to make money selling t-shirts, eh?
I have sold a lot of shirts--but it definitely isn't a get-rich-quick scheme.
The good news is, with print-on-demand (P.O.D.), you no longer have to order mass quantities of shirts, store em in your garage, or ship them out yourself. And you don't have to spend ANY MONEY.
Without spending any money, you can upload designs to many different platforms online. When someone orders one of your designs, a print on demand fulfiller prints your design onto a blank product and ships it to the customer. Then, you collect the profits.
And T-shirts aren't the only print-on-demand product you can sell. There's tons of P.O.D. products now--and more are added all the time.
Unfortunately, there's now also more competition than ever. So you'll definitely want to keep up on trending niches--and how to do keyword research. If you know how to find keywords with good search volume and low competition, it'll be much easier to make consistent sales year-round, in evergreen niches.
Just don't make designs that violate trademarks/copyright laws, or you risk getting banned/sued.
Where I'd Start Selling Merch as a Beginner
There are 2 free platforms I recommend for people starting out with print on demand and don't want to spend any money:
- A Printify Pop-Up Shop: Printify is a great print on demand supplier platform. I've used them for a while for my website and Etsy. Recently they came out with this 'pop-up shop' feature, where for no up front costs at all, you can create a store right there on Printify, so you don't need a website or a marketplace like Etsy/eBay, which take 10%+ in fees. (Affiliate link.)
- Teemill: Also free (but have a paid option--affiliate link.) The only place I know with 100% cotton hoodies. (Everywhere else tends to have 20-100% polyester--which leaks microplastics and other toxic chemicals through your skin. They also have organic cotton--for no glyphosate either!)
Unfortunately, both of them only pay out via PayPal, and you'll have to wait a while to get paid. 30 days for Teemill, and I think a bit longer for a Printify Pop-Up shop. For a quicker payout option, you can just use Printify to push listings onto eBay and/or Etsy.
Etsy is a big marketplace too, but they charge $0.20 for each listing you create. :(
Then there's Amazon Merch on Demand. You have to apply and get approved--so I'd wait until you have some experience to put on your application--then wait and hope they don't turn you down!
How to Create Designs
You don't need to be a graphic designer. Text only designs sell--sometimes very well.
For graphics you can legally use commercially, Creative Fabrica (affiliate link) is a great option. They also have countless fonts--plus an "A.I." tool which will create graphics based on whatever you describe via text.
Photopea.com is a great free option for creating designs. It's a free clone of Adobe Photoshop--and its browser-based, so you don't even need to download or install any software.
Just click 'new project', and set the dimensions to 4500x5400 pixels. (That is the default recommended size for most platforms--including Redbubble and Amazon Merch on Demand.)
I make designs with Canva--which has many graphics and pre-made templates you can use. You have to pay for Canva Pro to be able to download designs with a transparent background. If you don't, you'll have a big colored rectangle printed on the shirt--which looks bad and amateurish.
Canva Pro is worth it to me though--it comes with several other great features. They do 30 day free trials if you want to check it out.
Kittl.com is another option. I haven't tried it, but it is tempting. It looks like its geared towards print on demand even more than Canva, so if that's all you plan on doing, it may be the better choice.
If you're artistic and have an iPad, you can buy the $10 art app Procreate. You'll definitely want to get at least a knockoff of the Apple Pencil, which can be had for $20~. Here's an Amazon affiliate link to the one I got--it works great--but there are 2 versions, depending on the type of iPad you have you might need the other version.
How to Make Sales
If you have a big email list or a huge amount of followers on social media, you can send a lot of traffic to your designs and make a lot of sales. (And if you have a big following, I recommend a Shopify store for the easiest setup and most profit.)
If you don't have a big following to sell to, you're going to need to upload a LOT of designs. And ideally, you'll want to upload all your designs to as many marketplaces as possible.
How to Scale Up Designs And Sales
It takes a very long time to upload lots of designs--especially if you want to upload them to all the possible marketplaces. There is a way to speed the process up considerably with automation software--which uploads your designs for you, one by one--but it does cost money.
The closest thing to a free option is MyDesigns. They have a free plan (affiliate link), but it currently only works for Etsy--who has the $0.20 fee per listing. On the bright side though, you can use it to upload digital products like printables--and people buy a lot of them. And you can use it to upload physical print-on-demand product designs too.
Flying Research (affiliate link) is a cheap option. If you like, you can go a la carte and only automate uploads to 1 platform of your choice, for $9.95 per month.
I use Merch Titans Automation software (affiliate link). It's a bit pricier, but can upload to all the platforms I want (except Teemill, which no automation service integrates with.) It works with Redbubble, Amazon Merch, Redbubble, Etsy, Printful (which you can use to upload to Amazon--but it's kinda complicated) - plus other platforms, like Teespring, Zazzle, Teepublic, Spreadshirt, and Society6--which has expensive P.O.D. furniture you can put designs on.
Need help with designs and don't mind spending a little money?
If you want to spend some money to have someone create custom designs for you, I'm here to help. I'm currently doing freelance work, and will make a design for you for $10.