0:05

Welcome back to the Print on Demand cast In

0:07

this week's show . We're going to be talking about the difference

0:09

between Spotify and

0:12

Etsy , so let's get into it .

0:21

Radical . Welcome to this week's

0:24

episode of the Print on Demand cast

0:26

. Each week , join the gnarly , travis

0:28

and Josiah as they provide insight

0:30

into the print-on-demand industry and equip

0:32

you with the totally tubular tools

0:35

, advice and strategies you need to achieve

0:37

success and , hopefully , have a few

0:39

laughs along the way . Now on

0:41

to this week's totally tubular show the

0:50

way .

0:50

Now on to this week's Totally Tubular

0:52

Show . Well

0:56

, hey everybody , welcome to the Print On Demand cast . My name is Travis and , as you have probably

0:58

surmised by now , josiah could not be with me . He's actually

1:00

traveling . He's going to visit

1:02

his family in Wyoming for

1:05

a reception of some sort , so

1:07

a family thing up there . So

1:09

, yeah , he hopefully will be back next week . But

1:11

he asked me to do this one solo . So first of

1:13

all I want to say I am sorry

1:16

that this is a little late or

1:19

later , I guess , getting out into

1:21

the world . My wife got home

1:24

from being in

1:26

England for 15 days , so everything's

1:29

kind of been a little bit slower

1:31

around here , kind of been on pause

1:34

. So that's why this

1:36

is coming out a little bit later . But you probably

1:38

didn't even realize that , because you just

1:40

download it whenever your

1:42

phone downloads it and you just listen to it whenever

1:45

you see that it's available . So , um

1:47

, I it's not on

1:50

youtube yet , but it will be . You know I don't

1:52

think you guys care , but I just thought I'd say that

1:54

. So sorry it's a little late . Um , last

1:56

week wow , what a fun

1:58

time . 200th episode

2:01

. Uh , realized after we published

2:04

everything and went for about an hour

2:06

that Josiah

2:08

had forgot to turn on

2:10

our mic and so we were using

2:13

the webcam's mic and

2:15

so the audio is really bad . We really

2:17

apologize for that . 200 episodes

2:20

in and we have a bad audio

2:22

thing . So you know , I

2:25

think it's also partially due to

2:27

the fact that I was about 30

2:29

minutes later than I said I would be , because

2:33

of traffic and because I was just late

2:35

and we didn't have a chance to test

2:37

it . So anyway , thank you for

2:39

all of you who did participate

2:41

. You sent in some voice messages and we played

2:43

those on the show . It's

2:45

it's after . After

2:48

we did the show , I put out a bunch

2:50

of you know messages and everything asking

2:57

people to to contribute and to say you know things and answer the magic questions

2:59

. And our good friend of the show , kate Lane , sent in something

3:02

, but it was too late to make the cut . So Kate

3:04

was on our episode in our

3:06

on our show , in episode one

3:08

37 . And so you could check that out

3:11

if you'd like . But she's just a real sweet person

3:13

. She actually we did a live episode with her because

3:15

she lives here in the Denver area . Back

3:18

when I still had make your mark design

3:20

, she came to the shop and we had a nice

3:22

little conversation in episode one9 about

3:24

print on demand . She does all kinds of really

3:26

cool things in

3:28

the print on demand space . So , with

3:30

all of that said , I just wanted to

3:33

go ahead and play her

3:35

clip , if I can find it here , and

3:38

and this is what she had to say

3:40

based on the the prompt

3:42

of the magic questions and answering the magic

3:44

questions for our episode 200

3:46

.

3:48

Hey guys , it's Kate . In

3:50

business , we experience wins

3:52

and we experience things that make

3:54

us feel like we failed . So

3:56

I wanted to kind of share an example of both

3:58

of those things . So

4:01

a win I recently experienced was

4:03

having the opportunity to play with Shopify

4:06

and get a store live . So

4:09

that was very satisfying

4:11

to learn the ins and outs of that web

4:15

setup , and now I have a live store

4:18

that I can say that I was a part of . That

4:20

was very satisfying . That

4:28

was very satisfying . I would say . A failure that I experience often is a lack of consistency

4:30

and execution . Now , those are personal things , so just a reminder

4:32

to everyone out there you

4:34

have to , you know , do some self love

4:37

and some self care and have some self awareness

4:39

and in turn , you'll probably find

4:41

success in anything you pursue . I

4:44

just want to say that the Print

4:46

on Demand cast has been

4:48

really helpful to my business because

4:51

Travis and Josiah are

4:53

very passionate and they're willing to share their

4:55

knowledge and

4:58

their consistency with posting episodes

5:00

is inspiring , so I'm

5:02

very thankful to that . Yeah

5:04

, thank you guys .

5:08

I love the way she ends up with

5:10

saying that we're consistent , but she didn't mention

5:12

that we're tardy sometimes . Yeah

5:16

, so thank you to Kate and

5:18

to everyone who left messages , voicemails

5:21

, voice messages for the

5:23

200th episode . If you ever

5:25

want to leave us a voice message , you can

5:27

always go to our speak pipe

5:29

, speakpipecom . Slash

5:32

print on demand cast and you can leave

5:34

us a message there , just like Kate did , and

5:36

we might play it on the show . Who

5:38

knows ? You never know , but

5:41

I think we'll just keep going . It's

5:44

time , your favorite time , my

5:46

favorite going . It's time your favorite

5:48

time , my favorite time . It's time for the weekly dad joke . Time

5:51

for the weekly dad joke

5:53

. All right , well , earlier today

5:56

my wife just got home . Like I mentioned earlier

5:58

, she's been doing some laundry and such

6:00

and she

6:03

tripped and fell while

6:06

carrying a hamper full of ironed

6:08

clothes . And

6:15

it all happened so fast . There really , honestly

6:17

, nothing

6:21

I could do . I just sat there and watched it all unfold . Yeah

6:24

, okay , well , that's your weekly

6:26

dad joke . Um , share

6:28

that with somebody . Share that at a poker

6:30

night or , I

6:32

don't know , on the bus , or with your family

6:35

. I just thought it was funny . Um

6:37

, all right , so the point of interest

6:39

this week is the fact that there is no point

6:41

of interest . Um , we just don't have one . So I decided that no point

6:43

of interest , we just don't have one . So

6:46

I decided that the point of interest would be the

6:48

fact that I made a video bumper

6:50

out of one of

6:52

our old audio bumpers . If you've

6:54

been a longtime listener , you know , josiah

6:56

and I used to have all kinds of

6:58

audio bumpers for the main event

7:00

and for the point of interest , and so

7:03

I took it upon myself to just jump

7:05

into Canva and play around a little

7:07

bit and , frankly , that's part of why this episode

7:09

is late because I was learning the

7:11

the Canva app and learning how to

7:13

do video in it . I'd never done that before and it's

7:15

actually it's pretty intuitive

7:18

. There's a couple of things you got to find

7:20

, but and it's obviously doesn't

7:22

have the power of something like a adobe

7:25

premiere or something like that , or

7:27

even a cap cut , but um , it

7:29

was pretty cool . So , anyway , that's

7:31

really it , so let's go ahead and

7:33

jump to . If I can find it , let's

7:36

jump to this week's main event

7:38

. On

7:40

a cold , drearyary night in September

7:43

of 2020 , travis

7:45

Ross and Josiah Cifuentes

7:48

created the Print on Demand cast

7:50

. This is

7:52

the main event . So

7:56

there you have it , my handiwork

7:59

for the last I don't know hour , half

8:02

hour , 45 minutes , okay , an hour

8:04

. Well

8:08

, today's main event we're going to be talking about the difference between selling

8:10

print-on-demand on

8:13

Shopify and versus

8:15

Etsy , and we've talked a

8:17

lot about both of these platforms

8:20

probably more Etsy , because that

8:22

seems to be where a

8:24

lot of our listeners are starting

8:26

and actually selling

8:29

on . But Shopify , obviously

8:31

we've mentioned that a lot and it is

8:33

kind of the website of choice if

8:35

you're building a brand off

8:38

of one of those platforms like Etsy or Amazon

8:40

. But when people

8:42

think about selling print on demand

8:44

, they usually think about one of these two places

8:47

. They think about Etsy

8:49

or Shopify . But I think , if we back

8:51

that up a little bit , I think it's really that they're thinking

8:53

about two different strategies and

8:56

they're trying to figure out which strategy is for

8:58

them , although there are other strategies . It

9:00

doesn't . Print on demand does not

9:03

have to be limited to online

9:06

sales . And , um , I have

9:08

actually three orders right now in the queue

9:10

. Um that I am producing for

9:12

local uh ones a maternity

9:15

, like a nonprofit maternity , helping

9:17

like unwed mothers . Um

9:19

, doing some shirts for them . Uh

9:21

, I'm doing some for a . I'm

9:23

doing some hats for a , a

9:27

landscaping company , a tree like

9:29

they cut down trees and such like , things

9:32

like that . And then another order of t-shirts

9:34

for family reunions . So all

9:36

of that is because I have been

9:39

in the community , I have a website , I

9:41

have a Google place pin

9:44

, I guess , or on the Google maps I have a place

9:46

that people can call , and so the

9:48

, both , both of those

9:51

are all three of those actually Well

9:53

, the , the , the hat person I know

9:55

. So they actually used to go

9:57

to our church , but I've been doing their stuff for a lot

9:59

of , for several years their hats and their shirts

10:01

. But the other two , literally one

10:04

called me on the phone

10:06

from the Google Maps and one emailed me

10:08

from the Google

10:10

Map . That sent them to my website

10:12

, which they then emailed me from . So all

10:14

of that to say I'm

10:17

using print on demand just in my everyday

10:19

business , because I don't have a DTG machine

10:21

anymore . I have to get transfers

10:23

and have them sent , and then I have a heat press and I

10:25

, you know , I ordered the shirts and I have a business

10:28

license so I can get wholesale on the shirts and

10:30

then I print them and then I provide

10:32

that service to other people

10:34

beyond e-commerce . But I

10:37

digress Wow Did I digress

10:39

? I digressed a lot because

10:41

we're talking about print on demand

10:43

, specifically on Shopify

10:46

and Etsy . So I'm

10:48

just going to do a real easy , quick

10:50

pros and cons list

10:52

of both platforms and

10:54

then we'll kind of wrap it up or summarize

10:57

it at the end Without

10:59

Josiah to bounce things off of . I'm guessing

11:01

this is probably going to be a little bit shorter podcast

11:03

, but that's okay , it doesn't matter . I

11:06

hope you still find value in it . All right , so

11:08

, selling on

11:10

your own site , or , in this case , shopify

11:13

, you can also do this with like WordPress and an

11:15

e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce

11:17

or something else that you're using

11:20

on your WordPress website

11:22

. But a lot of people really

11:25

jump into Shopify for the ease of use

11:27

. So some of

11:29

the pros of going with Shopify

11:32

, you know what , before we do that

11:34

, I do want to talk about the

11:36

strategies that I was talking about , because

11:38

there really are two strategies and then I went off on that

11:40

tangent about local , but

11:43

they're really the two strategies

11:45

. That most people think about is like building a brand

11:48

that encompasses

11:50

, you know , a specific niche . They jump out

11:53

, jump at it and they go for it and

11:55

they're all of their designs , all of their products

11:57

really are trying to serve a particular

12:00

demographic in a specific niche

12:02

. The other way that kind

12:04

of became really

12:06

popular back when Amazon

12:09

Merch on Demand came on the scene

12:11

, which at the time was called

12:13

Merch by Amazon , was

12:15

just getting up as many

12:17

potential products as you can , finding

12:20

trending designs

12:22

or design ideas or trending events

12:24

and designing around those , finding

12:26

other things that were selling well in the marketplace

12:28

and improving on them . Those

12:36

were a lot of strategies

12:39

get outside of a specific niche

12:41

because people were having you know hundreds

12:43

, thousands , tens of thousands , hundreds of thousands

12:46

of designs on

12:48

these platforms and obviously

12:50

it's hard to have

12:53

100,000 designs . It's hard to have a thousand

12:55

designs that are really just like

12:57

one niche . So they weren't really

12:59

building a brand , they were just throwing

13:02

out as many as many different niches

13:04

as possible and then from there

13:06

they would transfer some of their better

13:08

sellers to an Etsy or an

13:11

Amazon seller central side or the

13:13

Walmart side , because all of these platforms were

13:15

relatively inexpensive . Some

13:17

would even take their best sellers and

13:19

create a niche and go to

13:21

the Shopify route . But

13:24

those are really the two kind of ideas

13:26

. You're either doing a brand

13:28

, you're really niching down , or you're being really

13:31

wide with all your niches and you're trying to capitalize

13:34

on trends and things like that . So for

13:37

the niche thing

13:39

, the brand thing , I think Shopify

13:42

kind of rises to the top . Or , like I

13:44

said , a WordPress site and

13:46

then on the other side for kind of throwing

13:48

things at the wall and seeing what sticks , really Etsy

13:51

kind of shines there as well

13:53

as a Merch by Amazon , a Redbubble , teespring

13:56

, all of those other places , as well as the

13:58

Amazon Seller Central

14:00

side where you are the seller

14:02

of record , whereas Amazon

14:05

Merch on Demand is a royalty-based platform

14:07

where you get paid a royalty

14:10

. You're actually licensing your designs to

14:12

Merch by Amazon and they pay you a

14:14

royalty . You're not the seller of record , amazon

14:16

is , but they

14:18

both can have the same strategy

14:21

. It's just a little bit different . So amazon seller

14:23

central is more like etsy . If somebody

14:25

buys something on etsy , you have to

14:27

fulfill it same thing with amazon seller

14:31

central , whereas merch on demand

14:33

they make the product and

14:35

they send it to the customer because it's their customer

14:37

, and then you just get paid a royalty . All right , enough

14:39

about that . Let's talk about selling on shopify

14:42

, the pros all . Let me look at my list

14:44

here . The first pro

14:46

I wrote down was brand control

14:48

. You have complete control over your brand

14:51

, including the design

14:53

and user experience of your website

14:56

, and that's I mean . If

14:58

somebody goes to Etsy , they're going

15:00

to see the Etsy site and that's all you

15:02

can do . You can change the products , but everybody's

15:05

product page is basically going to look the same . It's

15:07

going to have a nice little banner at the top and announcement section

15:09

and then your products on Shopify

15:12

. There's so many different things you can

15:14

do , including you , can you know , having

15:16

a blog on your site or having

15:18

other products on your site , having

15:20

physical products on your

15:23

site beyond your print on demand

15:25

, having an email sign up

15:27

right there that pops up on your site

15:29

. You know all of these different things , contests

15:32

and all these other things

15:34

which kind of come into

15:36

the next point , which is customizability

15:39

. You are able to

15:41

really customize Shopify

15:44

or your own website . If

15:47

it's WordPress there's a lot of plugins for WordPress

15:49

as well , but you can really

15:51

customize Shopify in

15:53

particular , including your layout

15:56

, like I was just mentioning , and

15:58

your product page can look different . Your checkout

16:01

process can be really nice

16:03

. All of that is completely

16:05

customizable and then , because

16:08

you can do all of that stuff , it's a lot easier

16:10

to collect customer data , which

16:13

is the next one . So , because

16:15

these are people that are coming to your website

16:17

, they're actually your customers

16:20

and you have full

16:22

access over that customer

16:24

data and you can use that customer

16:26

data for marketing , for analytics

16:29

, figuring out which is which which

16:32

is selling better , what time of day people

16:34

are buying your products , I

16:37

mean all kinds of things , which day of the week is

16:39

best to launch a sale

16:41

versus another day . So there's all kinds

16:44

of things that you can get with

16:46

your customer data that you can't get

16:48

with

16:51

these other platforms and you can really

16:54

really dig into that . There's

16:57

also the potential for less

16:59

competition , and I know

17:01

that sounds a little bit strange

17:03

, but the truth is is that once

17:05

the customer is on your website

17:08

, the only products they're going to see

17:10

are your products . If

17:12

somebody goes to Etsy and they

17:15

don't like your you know I always

17:17

use nurse mug as an example they don't like your

17:19

nurse mug Well , they'll just go back to the search

17:21

and find somebody else's . Doesn't matter

17:23

. If they're on your now , they can still

17:25

do that in Google . Obviously , if they

17:27

found your site via Google and they don't like your

17:29

products , they can go back and do another search

17:32

, but you have a little bit better

17:34

. You've

17:43

captured that , that initial click , which will go a long way , versus on Etsy . People know that there's

17:46

an inexhaustible amount of options where on your site they

17:48

maybe see a couple . You know , if you have a nurse based

17:51

site , they see you know four or five

17:53

, six , 10 mugs and they know that's

17:55

it and so they're going to choose one of those likely

17:58

, as opposed to Etsy , where there's a

18:00

million of these things . So that's

18:03

potential for

18:05

less competition . The

18:08

next thing I've got here is SEO benefits

18:11

, and I mentioned earlier you can do a

18:13

blog , which you can't

18:15

do on Etsy or Amazon or any of these

18:17

other places , and what that does is

18:19

it allows for

18:22

better SEO , and what SEO

18:24

is is search engine optimization

18:26

, and what that means is that Google

18:29

is a search engine that is

18:31

ranking and

18:33

they have an algorithm

18:35

that ranks your website

18:38

on different search terms

18:40

. So if someone searches nurse

18:42

mug , you're going to come

18:44

up somewhere in the however

18:47

many sites or or maybe one

18:49

, one or two of your pages , and they're they're not only

18:51

just ranking your site , they're ranking the

18:53

every page on your site . Um

18:55

, if it has been indexed , and that's

18:57

another thing that . You know it's a little bit

19:00

, it can get

19:02

a little bit techie , okay , but

19:04

what that means is that Google

19:07

has actually seen and ranked

19:10

and indexed your site

19:12

in their database

19:16

, if you will , of web

19:18

pages . And it could be not just your site

19:20

, like some of your . Some of your pages

19:23

could be indexed , but some of them might not be , and

19:25

there's tricks and things that you can do to

19:27

actually make sure

19:29

that you're you're getting indexed , and

19:31

you can even do that with some Google

19:33

tools . And but

19:36

my point here is that your

19:39

SEO you

19:41

can write these keyword-rich blog

19:44

posts that are going to

19:46

hopefully tell people

19:48

or tell Google to your site , and

19:50

you can do that manually . You can just reach

19:52

out to people and ask

19:54

them for a backlink , a link to

19:56

your , and they go to , and

19:58

then they click it and they

20:00

go to the product page to actually check out . Or

20:22

you can have you could maybe have some

20:24

some people link to

20:26

your actual products and you could

20:28

give them a commission if you wanted to . So

20:30

again , the the options

20:33

on this thing are really endless . Options on this

20:35

thing are really endless . You

20:45

have all kinds of opportunities to not only just do SEO but , you know , work with other people and

20:47

getting backlinks . You know all of these things are going to hopefully boost your

20:49

, the authority of the authority

20:51

score of your website

20:53

, as well as the

20:55

organic rankings for

20:57

not only your products but the different pages

21:00

in Google

21:03

. And then scalability

21:06

is the next one I've got here . It's

21:09

not often that you hear about

21:11

people doing

21:14

, oh , I did 5 million on Etsy

21:16

last year . Now there are people out there that do

21:18

, but

21:24

you hear many more Shopify stories like that . I did 5 million

21:26

on Shopify selling wall art or

21:28

whatever , selling

21:30

socks , personalized socks . That's

21:36

a real thing . So scalability

21:38

, in my opinion , is much

21:41

more possible if

21:43

you will . As far as like scaling your

21:45

numbers on a Shopify

21:48

site or your own website , it's

21:51

also more customizable

21:53

to help you get

21:55

to that scalability with those plugins

21:57

I mentioned earlier . There's a lot

22:00

of things you can do to

22:02

build social

22:06

credit if you will like social

22:08

media and different things like that that

22:10

you're probably not going to be able to

22:13

have access to the tools to be able

22:15

to do on Etsy , you

22:17

know . And then targeted marketing that you're

22:20

able to do with your own site

22:22

, such as email marketing and things

22:24

like that , can raise the lifetime value of

22:26

each customer when they

22:28

come , because you can remarket to

22:30

them and hopefully have them buy again

22:33

. And it's

22:35

not a lot of times you hear raving

22:38

fans talk about an Etsy

22:41

store , but

22:43

you hear them talk about

22:46

brands that have their own website

22:48

. They may not even know that it's a Shopify store

22:50

, they don't necessarily care

22:52

, but they're really excited

22:55

about that particular brand

22:57

and what it represents and how

22:59

they're integrated with that in their lifestyle

23:02

. And that is a real thing

23:04

that you just don't see on

23:06

Etsy and shop and

23:08

Amazon and Walmart and things like

23:10

that . Because those sites

23:13

are , they think of the

23:15

site itself . They think , oh , I'm buying from

23:17

Etsy , I'm buying from Amazon , I'm buying from

23:19

Walmart . They don't think that I'm buying from

23:21

your brand unless you

23:24

have your own website , and so that

23:26

, right there , the

23:29

ability to create raving fans

23:31

is a huge , huge pro

23:34

for Shopify . And

23:36

then finally , here in the pros column

23:38

, is the profit margins . You know you don't have to

23:40

pay the 15% to Amazon

23:43

, or the 6% , plus the listing fee

23:45

, plus the plus , the plus , the plus , the plus , the . You

23:48

get all of it . You know it all comes to

23:50

you , you

23:52

know . So you , you might , you might

23:54

consider filing taxes and

23:56

I'll leave that to you . But , um

23:59

, they talk about nexus in your

24:01

state and if you're selling in a certain

24:03

state and you make a sale in that state , yes

24:05

, you should pay sales tax . Um , there's

24:08

a whole . There's other people

24:10

that are way more qualified to talk about that , but aside

24:13

from that , you know , the rest of the money's

24:15

yours . You

24:19

don't have to pay Etsy or Amazon or anybody else because it's your site

24:22

, it's your property . So the

24:24

potential for those higher profit

24:26

margins really

24:29

is there . That's a pretty big pro

24:31

as well . All right , let's get into the cons

24:33

of selling on Shopify

24:35

or your own website . The

24:39

first one is the obvious . One is traffic generation

24:41

. You will have to

24:43

invest in marketing , both paid

24:45

and free . Like social

24:47

media , you'll

24:50

probably want to do some SEO optimization

24:53

In other words , each page

24:55

or pay somebody

24:57

to do that . So you're going

24:59

to need to have a higher understanding

25:02

of how to get people

25:04

to your site , both paid ways

25:06

to market it as well as organic

25:09

ways to boost your rank in the search engines

25:11

. And if you don't want to learn that , you're

25:14

going to probably need to pay somebody to

25:16

do some of that for you . Otherwise

25:19

, no one's going to come to your site . So traffic

25:22

generation is a con on

25:24

Shopify and

25:26

or your own website , unless you already have

25:28

a big following . I

25:30

mean , if you're listening to this and your name

25:32

is Will Ferrell and you're a really funny comedian

25:35

, you probably won't have a problem

25:37

getting people to come to your site . And

25:40

also hi , will , why are you listening

25:42

? But if you're not , if

25:44

that's not your name and you're just the

25:46

average Joe that nobody knows

25:48

, you're going to have to figure out the

25:50

traffic part to get

25:52

any sales at all . Another

25:54

con is the upfront costs . Like I just

25:57

said , um , you're going to have some

25:59

initial setup costs , including , you know

26:01

, like a domain name , uh , web

26:03

hosting . If you're not doing it with Shopify

26:05

, you'll have to host that WordPress

26:07

account or whatever . Um . On Shopify

26:09

, you have subscription fees . You know you get like

26:11

three months free , but then after

26:13

that , uh , or for a dollar , I think

26:16

, um and then after that , I

26:19

think the lowest plan or

26:21

one of the lowest plans that really makes sense

26:23

is probably like $30 a month . And

26:26

then , obviously , like I said , hiring people

26:30

to help you market , people to help you rank

26:32

organically , hiring designers

26:35

or developers

26:37

for the site , part of it , and making

26:39

it look the right way and all of those

26:41

things , if you don't want to do that . So there's

26:43

some upfront costs to selling on Shopify . Another

26:45

one is your technical knowledge . I kind of alluded

26:48

to that earlier , but it does require

26:50

a certain level of technical knowledge or

26:53

the need to hire

26:55

somebody with that expertise , to

27:01

hire somebody with that expertise , which takes us back to the upfront cost . Another thing to consider

27:03

as a con is maintenance , ongoing maintenance

27:06

and updates to keep the site secure and functional

27:08

. So , like um plugins

27:12

and things like that , they're constantly

27:14

rolling out new updates

27:17

for those things sometimes . Sometimes

27:19

they'll work for a really long time , sometimes

27:22

they won't . Sometimes Shopify

27:26

or WordPress or somebody will change something

27:28

and something else will break

27:30

, and so there is a

27:32

maintenance aspect to it . Now , a lot of times

27:34

you can get somebody on Fiverr to go

27:37

in and jump in and figure it out if you trust

27:39

that person or a buddy or

27:41

you might have the expertise yourself , but

27:44

it is something that you need to consider

27:46

. You need to maintain this site

27:48

and so do you have the technical

27:50

expertise to do that , or do you have

27:52

the money to pay somebody to do that

27:54

, to

28:03

do that ? And then finally , in the con section is customer trust . Building trust

28:05

with new customers can be challenging without an established reputation

28:08

of a known marketplace , because

28:10

if

28:12

you're selling on Etsy , you're

28:14

kind of like standing on their

28:17

shoulders and people trust Etsy

28:19

. They don't know you

28:21

and so if

28:23

you don't have Etsy kind of in your corner

28:26

, will they still trust you ? That's the question

28:28

Now . I think , as culture

28:31

has shifted to more of an e-commerce culture

28:34

, while

28:37

trust is still important , I think there's a lot more

28:39

trust in the marketplace . If somebody finds

28:41

something online , it's not

28:43

as hard for them to buy it . However

28:46

, in order for somebody to become

28:49

a raving fan , they really are going

28:51

to have to trust you , and that can take

28:53

some time without

28:56

standing on the shoulders of a platform

28:58

like Amazon , walmart , etsy

29:01

, which already have tons

29:03

and tons of customer

29:05

loyalty and trust . Even

29:08

if they hate them , they still know

29:10

them and they trust that they're

29:12

either going to get their stuff or they're

29:14

going to get a refund and they're

29:16

fine with that , all right . So

29:19

let's jump into the pros

29:21

of selling on Etsy and

29:23

let's see what I've got here A couple built

29:27

in traffic , of course . That's the first

29:29

one . You have access

29:31

to Etsy's massive , massive

29:34

, established of

29:36

established customer base , people

29:38

who have bought before on the

29:40

platform and it . It

29:42

reduces your need for a lot

29:45

of your marketing . Now I would still recommend

29:47

doing marketing because you

29:49

, because it's

29:51

a good idea , it's good

29:53

to create awareness and you

29:55

know , if you , especially if you want to start with

29:58

your brand with the idea of eventually

30:00

taking it to Shopify , then

30:02

start building your email list today

30:04

. You know the best time to start your email

30:07

list is 20 years ago and

30:09

the next best time is today . So make

30:12

sure that that is like on

30:14

your radar and very high

30:16

up on the priority list , because

30:18

even if you are selling on Etsy

30:20

and you haven't gone the Shopify route , it's

30:22

still very important and you can start collecting

30:25

emails via social media , via

30:27

the , even the Etsy checkout

30:30

page and your description

30:32

. You can have a link there and

30:34

then you can also follow up with each sale

30:36

with a thank you for buying

30:39

. Please sign up to my

30:41

list . If you do , I'll give you a

30:43

blank , you know . Give them some type

30:45

of a lead magnet there and you'll

30:48

start building your list . And then , when you do jump to

30:50

Shopify , you have people to tell

30:52

and yeah

30:54

, so there's that . The next

30:56

one is ease of use it's

30:59

. It really is a simple setup process

31:01

to start a , an

31:03

Etsy store . It's not hard at all and

31:06

it's a very user friendly interface . It's

31:08

. It's perfect for somebody who's never

31:10

done any e commerce and you know you

31:12

want to try it . It really is

31:14

simple . It's very simple

31:16

to put up a product

31:18

. They really have done a really good job

31:21

of walking you through it . It's actually my opinion

31:23

it's the most simple of all

31:25

of the e-commerce platforms , except

31:28

for I guess I guess

31:30

I take that back Merch by Amazon or Amazon

31:32

Mer . Amazon merch on demand is probably easier if

31:34

you are in that program , but

31:37

you know you have a lot of limitations there as

31:39

far as how many products you can upload when you

31:41

start and etc

31:43

. Etc . Etc . For kind

31:46

of the big three that I always called big three

31:48

Etsy , amazon

31:51

, seller Central and Walmart Etsy

31:53

is definitely the most user

31:55

friendly um of those three

31:57

, so it is pretty easy . If you're a beginner might

32:00

be , might be good to

32:02

check it out . Um

32:04

, like I was mentioning earlier , community and

32:06

trust at Etsy has established

32:08

a reputation and even

32:10

a community of of people that um

32:13

know , like and trust

32:15

Etsy , and

32:17

it's funny that we say that because they're

32:20

not buying from Etsy . They're buying on Etsy's platform

32:22

from you and me , and yet Etsy

32:25

gets the credit . But

32:27

that is a plus , that is a feather in your cap

32:29

, just like I was saying about the difference between

32:31

Shopify and Etsy . You

32:34

have them in your corner and people know like

32:36

well they at least trust them , if

32:39

they know them and they trust them . They may or may

32:41

not like them , but for

32:45

our purposes that really is a big

32:47

pro . It's

32:49

also cost effective . So you have

32:52

a lower upfront cost . You don't

32:54

have to pay for developers and you don't have to pay for developers

32:56

and you know you don't have to pay for hosting . You don't

32:58

have to pay really for much

33:00

of anything . There's really no fees for setting

33:02

up a store . You only have to pay

33:04

that 20 cents per

33:07

active listing fee . You know when

33:09

it goes live and then you get four months

33:11

of it being live and then you can do whatever

33:13

you want with it during that time . You can a sale , you

33:15

can promote it on social media , whatever

33:17

you want to do , and then you you

33:19

would have to renew it again in four

33:21

months . But uh , you

33:24

know , for most people that's a lot less

33:26

than what you would spend if you were doing a shopify

33:29

store and you had to pay for the domain and

33:31

the hosting and you know , and the uh

33:33

, the marketing , all of that marketing stuff that

33:35

you know to get the traffic there , et cetera , et cetera

33:37

. So it is cost-effective

33:39

. Um , as

33:41

a pro , uh , it also has a

33:44

very focused audience at

33:46

sea , has a demographic

33:48

, and to me , this is really

33:50

, really unique , or this is interesting

33:52

. If you take advantage of this , if you are

33:54

selling on Etsy , you

33:58

can try to sell , you

34:00

know , t-shirts that

34:03

have monster trucks on them , but

34:06

I don't know that you're going to be that successful

34:08

, because Etsy's

34:11

demographic is not people that are

34:13

going to , for the most part , is not people that are going to , for the most part , is not people

34:15

that are going to wear monster truck t-shirts

34:17

. Okay , and so , when you

34:20

think about the type of person

34:22

, the type of audience that Etsy

34:24

has already created and , yes , this

34:26

is stereotyping people and

34:29

it's not 100% across the board

34:31

, of course , what I mean ? We're talking

34:33

about millions of people . They're not all the board , of course

34:36

. I mean we're talking about millions of people . They're not all the same . However , there

34:38

is a tendency for these people to

34:40

enjoy looking for unique

34:43

items , for personalized items , for

34:45

handmade items , for vintage items

34:47

, things of that nature be

34:57

beneficial for you as you think through your product selection . That's a big , big pro

34:59

. You don't have that with your own website because nobody knows you . You don't

35:01

have an audience , probably again , unless you're

35:04

Will Ferrell . So , um , all

35:06

right . So let's jump into the cons of Etsy

35:08

. And uh , wow

35:10

, 35 minutes . I'm talking a lot , all

35:13

right . Cons of of Etsy First

35:16

of all , the the marketplace fees

35:19

can add up um over

35:22

time . Uh

35:24

, you know your listing fee and when you sell something

35:26

, um , you do have to pay a

35:28

percentage of that sale as well as

35:30

a new listing

35:32

fee because that item sold

35:34

. And now you have to restock it , even

35:37

though it's a print on demand item and it doesn't matter . But that's

35:39

another way that Etsy gets , uh

35:42

, that's how they get paid . And so those

35:44

, those uh processing

35:46

fees , um over

35:48

time can well , well , just immediately

35:50

I guess it's not over time they just reduce your profit

35:53

margin . You make less If

35:55

you sell . You know , one thing for $20

35:57

on your Shopify store and one thing for $20

35:59

on your Etsy store . You're going to make less on

36:01

Etsy . Now

36:04

, that's if , obviously

36:07

, you still have to advertise and so you're going

36:09

to have other costs on face

36:11

, on , you know , facebook market , uh

36:14

, or Facebook ads and Instagram

36:16

ads for your Shopify store that you don't necessarily

36:18

have to do for your Etsy

36:21

store Although I would argue that

36:23

you can and Etsy

36:25

likes it when you drive traffic externally to

36:27

their website and probably boosts you in the algorithm

36:30

, but that's for

36:32

another episode . But

36:34

my point here is that

36:36

you know on

36:39

the whole one , if you you know kind of apples

36:41

to apples the your

36:44

profit margin on a product , taking

36:47

away all the advertising , is going to

36:49

be more or it's going to be less on

36:51

Etsy . So that is definitely a con

36:54

. All

36:59

right , sorry , I had to yell

37:02

at a dog that was barking upstairs so

37:04

I had to pause that . Let's

37:07

go with our next con . Another

37:10

the con here is limited

37:13

site customization . You have less

37:15

control over the way your

37:17

site looks . Basically , I mean , if somebody's coming

37:20

to Etsy or to your store , it's

37:22

still Etsy , it doesn't really look that

37:24

different , and I mentioned that as

37:26

a pro for Shopify

37:28

. But yeah , so compared

37:31

to your own site , there's

37:33

just less customization that

37:36

you can actually do . So the next one would

37:38

be competition . There's tons

37:41

of people selling on Etsy . There's high

37:43

competition and , like I said before , if

37:45

they don't like your product , they can just go back to the search

37:47

bar and keep searching until they find something

37:49

that they do , and so

37:52

that can make it challenging

37:54

to stand out . That's why we

37:56

talk about great , great

37:58

, great listing photos . You know

38:00

great mock-ups , really

38:03

trying to stand out with your images . You

38:05

know , the first thing that they see

38:07

when they do the search is

38:09

your thumbnail . How does that look ? Do

38:11

you have it really far back in the image

38:13

? So ? So it's hard to read the text if there's text

38:15

on it , or see the design or whatever , or

38:18

you know what I'm saying . So , like

38:20

that is a very important piece of the puzzle here

38:23

, and so all of these different things you

38:26

need to do to try to stand

38:28

out because there is so much competition

38:30

, which is definitely a con . The

38:32

other thing that you have to worry about with

38:34

Etsy , that you don't have to worry about with Shopify

38:36

, is like policy changes . As

38:39

a Amazon seller for 10

38:42

years now , I can tell

38:44

you that they have changed

38:46

the way they treat

38:48

sellers more times

38:51

than I have changed my socks in

38:54

the last . You know , since I started on

38:56

Amazon , the

39:00

wind changes and they change a policy

39:02

. There's so many different policies . It's

39:04

the same thing on Etsy and Walmart

39:06

, maybe it's different or maybe it's less

39:08

, but it's probably not . So

39:11

you always have to pay

39:14

attention to that thing and you're subject to those

39:16

policies and changes

39:18

, and so you might not even know something changed

39:20

and all of a sudden you get dinged and

39:23

your store gets shut down and you

39:25

had no idea you even did anything wrong , just

39:35

don't know . I have talked to so many people over the years who have had their Amazon accounts

39:37

suspended for one thing or another because they didn't realize that they were

39:39

violating a policy , and

39:42

there's also been kind of

39:44

false positives as far as Amazon's

39:46

concerned and they've suspended people

39:48

. So has Etsy . Etsy is known for

39:50

suspending new accounts and

39:53

and it just happens , you know and we

39:55

are kind of at their whim and we can

39:57

try to do the things that

39:59

are necessary to not

40:01

get suspended , but occasionally you

40:04

just can't control a

40:06

platform that isn't yours at the end of

40:08

the day . So policy changes

40:10

, big con , because it can lead

40:12

to suspension . It can lead to a lot

40:15

of bad things for you because

40:18

you're basically renting that internet

40:20

real estate versus owning it

40:22

, like with your own

40:25

site , like Shopify or

40:27

WordPress . And the last

40:29

con I'm going to talk about is brand

40:33

identity , and this really is

40:35

kind of similar to you

40:38

know your customization options with the

40:41

way it looks . But it's harder to

40:43

establish a brand identity when you're

40:45

piggybacking on

40:47

Etsy or Amazon . You

40:50

might put that picture

40:52

in your listing photos that

40:55

has your brand logo on it or whatever

40:57

, and try to talk about it . Maybe you have a watermark

40:59

and all of that stuff . But

41:01

customers are . They

41:04

really do associate the purchases with

41:06

Etsy or with Amazon versus

41:09

with you , where on Shopify

41:11

they would associate

41:13

it with whatever the name of

41:15

the store is . That's at the top of the Google

41:20

bar . There it

41:22

just makes sense . So it's more

41:24

difficult to establish a brand identity

41:27

. You can do it , and a lot of people

41:29

have , and it really can be a launching

41:31

off point for , like I mentioned before

41:33

, to doing Shopify

41:35

later . So okay , so

41:39

where should you begin ? Well

41:41

, as you probably figured out by

41:43

now , it depends . That's

41:47

the answer . You've listened this long and the answer is

41:49

well , it depends . It

41:52

really does depend on what your business

41:54

goals are . It

41:56

depends on how

41:58

many resources you have . How much money

42:01

do you have to spend on this thing ? How

42:03

much time do you have to spend

42:05

on this thing ? You can spend

42:07

money , you can spend time one or

42:09

the other . You're going to do one or the

42:11

other , and so how much of

42:13

that do you have ? That's a big

42:15

determining factor . And then , what's

42:17

your level of experience with

42:21

websites , with e-commerce

42:23

, with print-on-demand , with business

42:25

? All of those

42:28

things should come

42:30

into your decision . What

42:33

level are you at in print-on-demand

42:36

? As an aside , just go

42:38

to episode 172 to figure

42:40

out what level you're at . It's a great episode

42:42

. We talk about the four different stages of a print-on-demand

42:45

business and you can find yourself

42:47

in one of those four , and we also talk about how

42:50

you can move to the next stage . So

42:52

check out episode 172 . All

42:54

right , back to our regular , regularly scheduled program

42:57

. So it it all depends

42:59

on where you're at with your

43:01

goals . You're , like I said , your , your

43:03

resources , your financial resources , your time

43:05

resources and then your

43:08

experience , your technical know-how . All

43:10

of those things will factor

43:13

into this decision . If you

43:15

prefer having full control

43:17

and you're willing to

43:19

to invest in

43:22

marketing , learn marketing

43:24

, uh . Invest in

43:26

site maintenance um , you

43:28

know , making sure everything's up , um

43:30

. And then selling on your

43:32

own , you know that might be your

43:34

best option . If and then selling on your own , that

43:36

might be your best option . If you want a simpler setup , you're a little bit nervous

43:38

about this , you're a little gun shy , you're

43:41

not 100% sure if this is something

43:43

that you want to be doing long term . That's

43:47

kind of a problem in and of itself , because

43:49

this isn't going to be an overnight thing anyway

43:52

, but I digress . But

43:54

if you want something that's a little bit simpler

43:57

, has a little bit easier

43:59

user

44:02

interface , you know kind of , and then also

44:04

it has even a ready-made customer

44:06

base that you can take advantage of , etsy

44:10

could be , you know , more suitable . I

44:12

typically tell people that Etsy is

44:14

probably the easiest to get started . But

44:17

the danger in telling people that it's easy is

44:20

that they think it's going to be . They

44:23

think it's going to be easy . What

44:27

do you mean , travis ? I guess

44:29

I shouldn't tell people it's easy , because it's not like

44:31

creating a listing is simple

44:33

on Etsy . Creating a listing

44:35

is simple , but being

44:38

consistent over time

44:40

, doing the things that are going to grow

44:42

your Etsy business

44:45

or your Amazon business or your print on demand

44:47

business , or your Shopify business

44:49

, for that matter , is not

44:52

easy . It's hard and

44:54

it will take a long time . It will take

44:56

time to create customers

44:58

and either create

45:00

customers or have so many things out there

45:02

that you're found everywhere . To

45:05

put them in all these different places is

45:07

not easy . So

45:10

the idea is simple , but

45:13

the execution is not easy and

45:15

it is challenging and you will get

45:17

frustrated and you will get tired of creating

45:19

listings . That's one of the reasons

45:21

we talk about , you

45:24

know , using hiring virtual assistants to do the

45:26

things that you don't want to do and so you can focus

45:28

on the things that you do want to do , so

45:31

you can stay motivated to do those

45:33

things . If you're not motivated

45:35

to do those things , it's going to be a long road

45:37

. So I think that's

45:39

about it for this episode . I got to

45:41

get this downloaded and then uploaded , and

45:44

then you know all the descriptions

45:47

and titles and all that stuff put up there

45:49

, get it up on YouTube , get it out to you guys

45:51

. So I think we're

45:53

going to end it there and

45:56

yeah , so

45:58

if you are new

46:00

, go ahead and head over to our Facebook

46:02

group Facebook , I'm

46:04

sorry . Print on demand . Castcom slash

46:06

Facebook . Join our Facebook group . We'd

46:09

love to hang out with you over there and

46:11

then , if you want to leave a message

46:13

, like Kate did . You can go to our speak

46:15

pipe at speak pipe dot . Speak pipecom

46:18

. Slash print on demand cast . Excuse

46:22

me , and I

46:24

really think that's it . I'm

46:26

, if you know , sign up to our VIP list . You

46:28

probably heard the advertisements

46:31

before and after for those , so I

46:33

think that's about it . I'm going to

46:35

sign off now if I

46:37

can find the final little

46:39

bumper thing or a little outro thing , but

46:42

I really appreciate you guys being with me

46:44

for episode 201

46:47

of the Print On Demand

46:49

cast and for Josiah , I'm

46:52

Travis and we'll see you next

46:54

time Right here

46:56

on the print on demand cast

46:58

. See ya , that's

47:03

the wrong one , so why don't we do this one instead

47:05

?

47:08

Hey babe , thanks for listening to this week's

47:10

episode of the print on demand cast . We

47:12

hope you enjoyed the totally tubular show

47:14

. If you've got a question or a suggestion for

47:16

the show , send Travis and Josiah an email

47:19

at info at printondemandcastcom

47:22

. Want to be wicked nice ? Take

47:24

a minute to rate and review the show on iTunes

47:26

or wherever you get your podcasts , and

47:28

don't forget to subscribe now so you don't

47:30

miss next week's episode . See you next

47:32

time , for sure .