Do you fancy having your own online e-commerce store? A store filled with some great apparels and goodies. Wow, what a dream is it, huh? The trend of setting up a dream business is viral out there. But there are definitely cases when your dream can get difficult to achieve. Hence, the conventional term being used before you start a business, “planning” is important. Planning or precisely speaking, efficient planning is vital before beginning a new business.
Among the e-commerce industry, the easiest and creative space is occupied by the POD or the Print-On-Demand businesses. This is considered among being the easiest to launch with the humongous availability of designs and templates that you can lay hands on without making a hole in your wallet. Print-on-demand businesses are also known for their flexibility and customizable platforms which will aid in scaling up the business or bringing in new changes to the business platform. Another factor is the inventory section which will also be taken care of by the supply handlers so that you can stay away from the headaches of logistics and management. How can things get any simpler for a business person, right?!
Selecting the Right Profitable Niche
Selecting a profitable niche is inevitable not just in Print-On-Demand business but also for all eCommerce trades. You can decide to focus on either a product niche or a subject niche. The former as the name suggests will focus on particular printable products like t-shirts, hats, bags or mugs whereas the latter will require you to unveil a trending subject based on which your designs will be prepared without any restrictions on the articles to be printed upon. Conducting wide market research will help you in deciding the most profitable option to consider. Try including most talked about brand names such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, CustomInk, Google trends, etc.
Selecting the product niche will allow you to experiment on different trends like movies, seasonal events, quotes, challenges, graphics, etc whereas subject niche groups can experiment on the products used with their shape, materials, look, style, etc.
You need not confine the printable products to the usual apparel range or crockery but can also expand your product range into using different kinds of glass and wood products that can be etched or craved according to the design selected by the customer on your website.
Sharing your ideas prolifically through social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter will help in creating brand awareness amongst your targeted audience. This will help you in evaluating your designs as per the reachability and preference of the targeted customers to improve and customize your designs in a fruitful way.
Things to Consider to Build a Print-On-Demand Online Store
Once all this is ticked off your checklist, next comes in deciding the software or platform to launch your e-commerce store. There are plenty of websites that provide Print-On-Demand services such as Customink.com, Printyfy.com, etc. Selecting a good Customink clone script or Printyfy clone script will aid in making the whole process a lot more easier. User-friendly online designing and printing software such as iScripts PrintLogic are all available to assist you in opening your own online print-on-demand store in just a few steps.
Above all these steps, print-on-demand businesses survive with the quality of services they provide, ie; the design, its versatility and the cornucopia of mind-blowing templates. For this, it is important to use compatible and user-friendly file formats to be employed in the printing section. Some of the most common file formats in use are EPD, PDF, TIFF and PSD.
For the best and uncompromising printed products, certain factors must be considered. The perfect print file must follow the basic graphics requirements such as the following:
- maximum size of the print area based on the product on which the design is to be printed onto,
- file size resolution, and
- the file format(s) to be used.
It is important to avoid low-quality non-scalable images which will eventually result in orders being withheld or cancelled. Using a higher DPI will also not help you in such situations if you are using low-quality design files in the first place.
Another factor that may come in the file issues is related to the image such as incorrectly used transparencies. You can cross check this by switching off your white background on the editor. If the grid view is visible your image is transparent and vice versa. Having solid backgrounds can affect the designs when printed on apparels in case it is not part of the image hence it is important to keep a note of the image background.
From the above discussion, it is evident that the print file plays a very important role in the POD business. Hence, implementing the appropriate file format is inescapable. Among the most commonly used graphics file formats that include PNG, PSD, PDF, TIFF and EPS, EPS has been a constant in the long run.
What is an EPS file format?
EPS is the abbreviation for Encapsulated PostScript which is available in both bitmap and vector format used prominently for high-resolution illustration printing. Being a PostScript file, EPS format files are among the versatile file formats available. PostScript is a programming language that was developed by Adobe to become an industry standard for imaging and printing. It is a page description language that describes the appearance of a webpage. The EPS file formats are composed for several layers with different embedded paths that can be utilized by different page layout software.
The EPS format files are created and edited on platforms such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW. Vector file formats are great because the graphic is built with mathematically created curves and lines that translate well into screen printing designs. This makes the designs to be more scalable and flexible without compromising on the image quality.
Advantages of Using an EPS Format Print File
- Easy to import into computer graphics application.
- Cross-platform compatibility enables EPS files to be shared between conventional PC systems and MAC systems.
- These files are scalable to any size without getting pixelated and hence retaining the image quality intact!
- Combining text with graphics becomes easy.
- It includes preview images which will save time from checking images by opening them individually.
EPF format will soon become a legacy graphics file format being replaced with Adobe applications.
Bringing in versatility in your designs is the main weapon for you to come up at the forefront of the competition. Employing efficient supply handlers and drop shipping vendors will help in competing with the Amazon Prime systems.
Make sure you stay connected with the customers and their reviews to stay updated on the trends that are welcomed by the public and potential buyers. Customizing your designs will help in designs to not become repetitive hence keeping your brand consistent and better in the topper’s chart.
