Pros and Cons of Print on Demand

Print on Demand business is among the most booming sectors in this decade. The Print-on-Demand business has seen the most growth in the last few years. On the social media platform, we have all kinds of services for shopping. Post COVID-19, online shopping has increased.

Now, the Print on Demand business is a business service where the owners provide customized and beautiful prints for your t-shirts. It is a service that provides you with customized t-shirts according to your taste and liking.

Print on Demand is a business and printing service in which the final product does not have to be prepared in advance. It is created once the owner receives an order for the product. The process allows the owner to print single products or small quantities of products.

It is a substitute for inventory management. It helps in reducing the investment and saves time. This way, the owner can focus on simply designing bundles or prints for t-shirts and other merchandise, and not worry about the tenacious process of managing the inventory.

Before starting any business, one needs to focus on all the aspects of the industry, whether advantages or disadvantages. No matter what the industry is, every business has some positive and negative points to consider. Now, for the Print on Demand business also, we have some pointers to consider. Let us discuss a few advantages and disadvantages of POD.

Advantages of Print on Demand Business:

1. Establish a unique brand and develop your niche.

For any business, be it traditional or online, standing out from competitors is a difficult task. Especially when you are an owner of an online business, being on top is incredibly tough. Starting a Print on Demand business gives you complete authority over the venture. You can establish your brand as per your wish and define the niche for your venture.

Customers appreciate unique products. When you give what the need, you have loyal customers for life. And, this will help you define your niche as well. Also, you can offer to personalize their order, like adding a name or some personal message they might want to gift their loved ones.

2. No inventory management, packaging, and shipping hassle.

The biggest disadvantage of any business is the inventory issues like expenses, stock cost, the left-over products. It may happen that some of your products might not be as successful as others. In that case, it will cause you loss. The stock-out issue is also a big problem traditional businesses face because the merchandise goes into production after an order has been placed.

In the Print on Demand business, the owner can be free from the tension and hassle of managing the inventory. Since it is an online business service, you do not have to manage the raw products and the final product physically. So, you save space plus you save your energy in inventory management.

Also, since it is a service on the online platform, you do not need to have any particular machinery to produce your product. It is done online. Also, since you will be selling designs, you do not have to worry about packaging your end product and then shipping it.

3. Convenient to test new designs and products

In general, in traditional business models, the risk of trying to sell or design new products is high. We can even consider it a bit risky. Because the new product might or might not be reciprocated well by the audience, and if not, the owner might suffer financial loss.

But, it is not the same with the Print on Demand business. Here, the online platform is our savior. To introduce new designs, we do not need any funding or prior investment. All you have to do is design new bundles you want to test and display them at your online website or store. To check the product’s review, you can also test the products by placing an order with your supplier.

You can check with your supplying partner if they provide the facility of mock-up. Using mock-up you can check how your design will look on the t-shirt before placing the order. This way, the customer can make sure the design is exactly how they wish.

4. No hardware and machinery are required.

The Print on Demand business is an online platform service. Here, you only have to display your designs on your website or your online store. Once the customers place an order, the design is printed and the final product is shipped.

So, the most beneficial fact for POD is that the owner does not have to worry about the machinery required for printing. In POD, we generally have tie-ups with a printing partner who looks after that. So, the technicality of the printing process is handled by the printing partner. So basically, we do not need the machinery to do our business so this will reduce our costs.

5. Save money by reducing overhead costs.

If you are looking for a business model to reduce your overhead costs to a bare minimum, the best option to go with is the Print-on-Demand business. To start a business in this industry or genre, you do not need to rent an office or space to start and run your business. Plus the business owner does not have to pay for the utilities that one would generally pay if one rented an office. When you have a POD business, you do not need to manage the inventory and hence you can cut the warehouse storage cost along with inventory management cost. Also, you can cut down the product costs, no equipment cost or no machinery cost and no logistics cost.

So, overall you only have to manage the designs and no extra costs for starting the business. So, when you have to start your business on a low budget, you can opt for the Print-on-Demand business as the overhead costs are almost negligible in this business. POD is a low investment business model which has high-profit potential.

Disadvantages of Print on Demand Business:

1. The profit margin is low.

Your profit margin will be low in the Print-on-Demand business because the cost of goods for a Print-on-Demand business is higher than buying for a wholesale business.
The management of tasks like shipping, packaging, marketing, and selling is basically handled by the Print-on-Demand owner. So it is logical they take a larger percentage of the profit and other helping partners are paid a commission for the products being sold.
The artists or the graphics designers working in partnership with the POD business can either be paid on a percentage of each sale or through loyalties or shares. Hence, depending on the product, the profit margin could be quite low.

2. Dependency on multiple business partners

In a Print-on-Demand business, the owner depends on multiple partners. There are several suppliers to source products and materials. This increases the POD business owners’ dependency on their printing and distribution partners.

This means you have to coordinate with various people when the order has been placed. This brings in the disadvantage of dependency. If one of the partners is not having sufficient stock, the order might get delayed. The POD business owner might not know of the unavailability until after the order has been placed. And he has to wait for their business owner restocks.

3. Lack of control over product quality

The most inevitable prospect of the clothing industry is that the prints and designs on clothes are going to fade eventually. But the most important question to ask here is how many washes can it endure before giving up on the design. If the designs and prints fade quickly, we might not be able to have a repeat customer. But, if this duration is long, we might be able to pull off the repeat customers and develop a higher repeat purchase rate.

So, to the loyal users club, the owner needs to have control over product quality. If there are repeat complaints from users about the quality, the owner should consider changing the supplier. Fortunately, the POD business is emerging these days and there are plenty of suppliers and distributors available in the market.

4. Order completion takes more time.

In the traditional business model, the time of order completion is almost instant. The products are ready in the shop so you just purchase and the product is readily available to you. Or if you are shopping online, you just have to wait until the delivery of the shipment as the product is already ready.
But in the Print-on-Demand business model, the order completion takes more time than other business models. This is because the designs are printed after the order has been placed. So, the owner, after the order has been placed prints the graphics on the ordered t-shirt or object and then sends the shipment. So, the customers have to wait longer than usual in POD. Not all customers are patient and can wait for a long duration for their product.

5. Handling returns can be tedious and tricky.

In this business model, the POD business owner depends on their supplying partner for the process of fulfillment. Now sometimes this can be considered an advantage for the POD, but this is a major disadvantage when some customer returns your product because of some reason.
When deciding the supplying and distribution partner make sure you define all the rules and regulations clearly.

In case of involvement of any third party, always be clear about the limitations that are set by them. You need to define your own rules and regulations for the return process so you do not get caught up in any complications.