How To SUCCESFULLY Sell HIGH PROFIT Items w/ Joe Roberts | Print on Demand Wisdom Podcast #22

We grew that business to about 50,000 a month in Revenue I'd rather sell products that you know make me 20 30 or or $40 or more in in profit you know there's over 400 print on demand suppliers that exist and I'm not sure if people if people know that one day we had a really profitable business and the next day eBay basically shut us down my guest today on printer and wisdom was Joe Robert and he's got a Very interesting unique approach to print and theand which is hopefully to help a lot of you out

we have a focus in this conversation on selling High profit items where to Source them common beginner mistakes as well as how to actually Market your products effectively even without a marketing budget talk to me about your story how did you get started with print on demand I I started I started print on demand back in late uh 2016 um I previously to to pod I had been running an eBay store U my my wife and I were running it together this was before we had children uh we were selling electronic cigarettes um on eBay

we were ordering them you know basically direct from suppliers and then listing them on on eBay shipping everything ourselves we had like a uh like the a second bedroom in our home which ultimately became my daughter's bedroom when she was born as like a little Shipping facility uh where we had like shelving for you know all the inventory and all the boxes we had label makers and all that and we we grew that business to about about 50,000 a month in Revenue um and it was a busy busy business because we were you know shipping

everything oursel um ordering the inventory organizing it putting it in boxes every day and and bringing it to the post office and we um we actually lost that business uh eBay changed their Policies they they stopped allowing electronic cigarettes uh to be sold on on eBay um and you know basically overnight we you know the one day we had a really profitable business and the next day eBay basically shut us down I started to you know basically investigate like how to sell products online um and I and I stumbled across um tons of YouTube videos

uh people talking about Shopify people talking about social media marketing you know this was You know like I said like the summer of 2016 at that point and um this is when like the Drop Shipping boom I guess like was like really taking off um Shopify was you know kind of new I guess or was new to me it felt like it was new at the at the time I forget when Shopify actually came out but um I discovered pod through through that um I'm someone that I've also done graphic design for quite a long

time they started doing graphic design when I was 12 years old And uh when I discovered you know that with print on demand you could work with a supplier you could use your own designs you could sell lots of different products and you never had to manage the inventory like I was used to doing um and with with Shopify you could build your own store and not have to you know be at the mercy of a platform like eBay like I was used to you know being frustrated with it it was kind of like the

perfect um the perfect uh Opportunity um and and like I said this was this was you know pretty new PRI had only been around for about a year Amazon merch was about a year old at that point as well and um doing print on demand on Etsy was was not even really a thing back then um it was pretty much just handmade stuff pod suppliers did not have Integrations with Etsy and and I I I kind of jumped in my my first store was a was a total failure um I was basically creating like tons

of Different t-shirts and mugs with like silly quotes on them about being uh in a relationship like being a husband having a girlfriend having a wife being being a wife that that sort of a thing and I I I I wasted a lot of money on on advertising and and and it was a a visal failure um I ended up it wasn't until like 2017 where I actually began to have some success I had pivoted to a more a more Niche store um I I had created a store uh B basically for people that Were

like in recovery from from drugs and alcohol and I had been uh you know spending time getting the store together and and and that was my first successful store um I I was running you know ads on social media with that store I was using influencers I was you know ordering samples and and um you know running running a running a store I ran it for about a year um I ended up selling it on the Shopify store exchange I'm not sure if you're familiar with what that even Is they they shut it down a

few years ago it was a really awesome place where you could like it was a it was a Marketplace for for Shopify stores where you could list a store yeah it was that was shut down yep they I don't know why they shut it down but they if you go to it on uh their site it says that it's been discontinued and there's other places where you can you know sell an online store um that exists like third party you know places but um the the the Shopify one was really cool because it was very

trustworthy right you were selling a store that was hosted on Shopify and and they handled all the transfers of the store and and all of that and and uh I sold that store um in uh like early 2018 and and um I guess uh the rest is sort of history I mean that was a while ago but I've had had a lot of stores since then I've sold a total of three Stores um that kind of became my you know not not my go-to strategy But you know like I said the stopify store exchange was

an easy way to sell a store and I you know kind of was in a little bit of a phase um where I was building out a store and and getting it successful in some sense and then and then and then selling it and opening a opening a new one um currently you know we're in 2024 it's been about eight years I I have two stores I'm I'm still on Shopify I'm still you know big on you know high-profit products which I'm sure We'll talk about through this video today and and um social media marketing

and all of that and and uh it's been a a wild ride for for sure definitely sounds like it yeah that must have been crazy going back to the beginning like losing that business kind of I'm guessing happened like overnight y i I used to spend know my my mornings um like drinking coffee and uh going through the eBay mobile and like looking at sales notifications and instead of Seeing sales notifications that morning I was seeing notifications listing deactivated listing deactivated listing deactivated and and uh I also had an email stating some policy changes and

uh basically they they didn't like ban the eBay store they just deactivated the listings and made it clear that if I publish them again that would be in violation and so so yeah we overnight lost lost that business I had like thousands of dollars in merchandise um That I you know basically ended up throwing away um because I didn't really know what to do with electronic cigarettes I wasn't going to like bring them into you know some brick and morar vape shop or something like that and and try to smoke them all yourself yeah exactly

and and uh yeah it was it was um it was devastating but at the same time it it you know basically birthed my you know me discovering print on print on Dem man you know so on the hindsight You're probably not not sad about it anymore like oh you're glad that made you do the shift definitely yeah definitely no more inventory taking up an entire room in your house yeah especially once my daughter was born I'm sure we would have had to find a different spot for for the shipping room you know well you touched

on it a little bit there with high-profit items talk to me about the T-shirt trap as you like to call it yeah man yeah I mean ultimately People can sell whatever they want um I I you know make videos from time to time where you know like the title will say don't sell t-shirts and then in the video I lay out like some different reasons that that I think are legitimate things to to think about um about choosing products and you know people get really mad so like first and foremost like anybody can sell anything

they want uh I do not you know wake up Every day mad at people that sell t-shirts or anything like that um but um you know you know ultimately with t-shirts you know first and foremost um they're they're not a high-profit item you know and I know that you know there could be people that maybe debate the actual profitability of it I think when all is said and done all of your fees your your your your expenses managing the business taxes you're you're probably looking at maybe five $10 per Per shirt and you know I

you know have sold shirts like I said my first my first store ever sold shirts and um after that I was kind of tired of like if I wanted to make $1,000 doll in profit I would need to sell you know 200 shirts if I was making $5 in profit per shirt um so you know first and foremost with high-profit items like you can make more profits and less time right like you can achieve more profits with less sales right Less sales also means less Customer service potentially and um I'd rather sell products that you

know make me 20 30 or or 40 or more in in profit and and and and those do exist like print on demand is massive now there are you know just in printify alone there's like over a thousand products that are that are available and and I'm sure we'll jump into you know some products at at some point but you know products profitability is you know definitely the first thing around you know my reasoning For avoiding what I call the T-shirt trap which is which is what you asked about the te the T-shirt trap is

ba based on you know how how competitive print on demand is right like print print on demand is one of the most popular ways to make money online if you look at the Google trend for print on demand it has just been skyrocketing year after year um I think you know if you look at you know just like user bases on a you know a platform Like Etsy um back in you know 2019 there was less than two million sellers on Etsy I think we're like approaching 10 million right now um and and the the

the major advice that is really out there around shirts is is for people to choose low competition niches in order to stand out right not not in every case right of course you could have a great design and a high competition Niche but um there there's a lot of people that are that are stuck trying to find the latest Trend the latest low competition Niche um and that's what I call the T-shirt trapped is you get trapped in that phase of like constantly trying to you know do something new to to you know to stand

out and you know personally I think low competition niches are low competition for a reason there's potentially not that much demand maybe they don't have a lot of you know long-term potential either um that kind of goes to like some of the different trends that that that Emerge and and um you ultimately too like I'm someone that sells products on Shopify um I don't sell on a Marketplace like Amazon or red bubble or or or Etsy and you know when you're when you're and we'll I'm sure we'll talk more about differences between the two at

some point later but you know when you're building a Shopify store like you're building a brand You're Building like something that should do something very specific and and there's a completely Different mindset that you almost need to have when it comes to curating your product line right like so for for example like let's say your Niche is baking right like let's say you love baking and you're someone that bakes bread you bake cupcakes you make cakes you bring you know tons of different things to the different holiday parties you go to and you love baking

like I don't think a great Shopify store is like baking T-shirts.com where you have 138 baking t-shirts that have cupcakes with smiley faces on it and like silly puns about baking like like instead like why not build a really cool brand that sells merchandise for people that love baking but instead of choosing shirts you choose some low competition items like print on demand cutting boards or kitchen decor items there is literally dozens of kitchen decor items out there you could get into personalization as Well you could sell print on demand aprons and and really create

a Cool brand um first right like can establish yourself as like a a a cool store for people that love baking and then if you wanted to have some t-shirt designs on there you you could um but they shouldn't be the star of the baking themed standing Standalone store you know like that's I guess the the big distinction is is what are you trying to build for your Niche you know and how is It unique um how are you building something specific um if that if that makes sense it does make sense and I like

the fact that you point out it's not that you're demonizing t-shirts there's nothing wrong with them it's just that there's obviously cons there is downsides to selling T-shirts just like there's downsides to selling High products High uh profit items as well probably in some cases everything has their pros and cons and just sharing What works for you which is totally legitimate like I mainly talk about t-shirts and low competition niches because that's working for me um so it's not like one is terrible idea and one is the only idea you should follow one thing that

I also remember from your recent video about this that I really liked is the idea that if someone is scrolling through social media for example and they see an ad for a t-shirt about their Niche I think you said it's Like a funny gym t-shirt yeah yeah they might like it they might might laugh at it but they don't necessarily need another t-shirt they've probably got 30 already or 40 or whatever um whereas if you show them something unique like your example with a was a custom sign for a gym where you can like change

the name and everything like a metal sign that's probably an item that most people don't have yet whether they have like a home gym or um or some place in the house Where they can hang that up um so it kind of it I guess it grabs more attention and it has more of that urgency like I actually need this thing it's it's it's Unique to me to my interest where a t-shirt like yeah it might be cool it might be funny but you already have a lot of t-shirts it's not there's not a lot

a lot of need for that yeah yeah to totally um I always talk about you know and again there's a there's a definite distinction between Like how you're selling print on demand items if you're someone that's listing products on on Amazon for example or wherever compared to like building your own store and then like you said you know selling on social media whether it's through ads influencers or or just posting like there's a your customer is doing something very different when they see your item right when you're selling on social media it's an impulse purchase

right because they're not shopping They're you know scrolling around looking at memes or you know pictures of their family's vacation they're not shopping right and in a lot of cases yes people buy T-shirts but there there's they they you know just like it's a fact that they're rather low in profit they they have a rather low perceived value right so that you know idea that it's a great product for impulse purchases only only goes so far you know depending on the niche and the and the design that You're that you're selling and and the specific

example you were talking about is kind of the same thing as like the baking example I gave right where instead of creating a baking T-shirt with like a you know a cupcake design and maybe it's a great design maybe you're a great artist and it's you know just a funny design about baking you know you'll get a lot of likes maybe and people tagging their friends but you know maybe the personalized apron with a Really cool baking design on it would be better at you know generating the impulse purchase was you know basically the argument

I was making in that in that video yeah it's a good argument and one more thing I want to ask there is you mention we talked a lot about Shopify Stores um do you also see uh like good opportunity to sell these sort of items on Etsy and how would you kind of compare the the two there yeah I mean just full disclaimer like I've not Really sold on Etsy um so I don't I'm not an expert so if there's someone watching and you are an expert or Philip you know I know you've sold on

Etsy so like at the end of the day I don't know that my advice about you know this is is perfect but um etsy's a place where you know it's it's like I mentioned with you know selling on social media people are not shopping on social media the exact opposite is true on Etsy they are shopping right so if you're if you're Selling you know a product that no one is searching for on Etsy even if it's a great item for your Niche and even if it might do really well in a social media environment

with like impulse purchases and things like that if no one's really searching for it on on Etsy then it's probably not going to ever become like a bestseller for you and there's definitely a lot of print on demand items out there that I would imagine don't get a lot of searches um on on Etsy um obviously some of the ones I just talked about aprons and cutting boards like those could totally be I would assume you know High intent items on or high highly searched for items on on Etsy but um you you start going

through print on demand supplier cataloges and you see all that's out there I'd imagine a very vast majority of those items are not typically searched for you know so I think it would come down to is is the item you're Choosing a good fit for your Niche if you were getting listed on Etsy and then secondly like are people actually searching for that um because if they're not you're probably not going to make sales you know how should people choose a product then for their Niche because that's obviously a big part of this this idea

you have any like research tips or anything you do before you set on a specific item I always kind of joke uh and I say there's no perfect way to like Press a button and get a product idea right like just like when you're creating designs like you can do research you can look at different things but at the end of the day like you have to think um and and a lot of times when it comes to choosing a product what I what try to do is I choose based on the niche right I

think about the customer what makes sense for them like what type of Niche are you selling to um are there are there any Specific ways that someone in that Niche is already using products in their life in some way that exists via a print on demand supplier for example like if your Niche is gaming like don't do print on demand shower curtains that's kind of random for the gaming Niche like instead like think about yeah true oh no I'm just kidding I I used to be a big gamer back in the day and and think

I pride pride myself on on hygiene but I know I know you're just Kidding um but like instead of a shower curtain like think about all of the of the and if someone's watching and you're not aware of these like go into a print on man supplier and look at just how many products would exist that someone could use in their in their game room for example whether it's stuff for the wall whether it's things on the desk uh whether whether it's you know even a PR a doormat right that's in their game room or

something personalized maybe it Says Philips Game Room established whenever you know um and create yourself a store that really caters to Gamers and lets them create their dream game room you know and then if you wanted to at some point have like t-shirt designs in there that then you could but um if you're going after you know more unique items and more high-profit things like think about your Niche right I gave the you know the baking example with the ring boards the aprons the kitchen decor You know another one maybe your Niche is like people

that are sports moms baseball moms football moms like what types of things do they already buy for game day that are available through print on demand suppliers like a a tumbler that just says something about being a baseball mom or maybe you personalize it to get more profit where they have the child's last name and jersey number on it or some sort of a you know print print on demand apparel Is so much bigger than t-shirts now too like there is just tons of really awesome all over print items you can do all over print

t-shirts that look like a sports Jersey for example and sell custom jerseys there actually are like within printify print on demand baseball jerseys that you could create for that mom um you could create blankets for game day and shoes for game day and it like I like I said it really comes down to thinking about your Niche and there's Not a perfect way to explain that just like when it comes to you know teaching someone to you know make a great design like you have to think and and you know depending on your Niche like

what makes sense for them how do they already showcase things about their Niche um one other you know thing I hope this isn't confusing to anybody but I I kind of think of niche as sometimes like um some sometimes you have like a niche that's really proud like a like a bragging type Of Niche not not bragging in a negative way but like a really proud Niche like a that maybe would like to have products that other people see right so I talked about like the sports Mom all of those examples like people are seeing

those that's a proud Niche but like what if the niche is people that love to read books like I don't know that that's actually like a proud Niche it's more of like a humble Niche right and the way that I think of that is like why not Create things that are just kind of like in the house that people don't really see a lot not that proud nichas couldn't have home decor but like products for the reading room for example um maybe comfy apparel like print onto man pajamas or slippers or blankets and pillows and

things like that right so you know that's that's something else you can think of is like is the niche really bragging or is it more humble would you see it on a bumper sticker or Would you see it on a little sign in your grandmother's bathroom as a little Decor piece you know that's really good point I never thought thought about it from that angle one that I heard of recently is custom shaped pillows where you can literally have them like shaped as an animal or something like that yeah there we go you Lally got

them in the background so that's kind of a unique product as well um yeah really cool ideas there where you've done a lot of Tests haven't you with uh different products and and uh unboxing them like wearing them stuff like that yeah where in your opinion can you Source some of the best what are some of the best print on demand companies yeah I've um you know you mentioned unboxings and things like that that's that's really been like you know one of the one of the key parts of what I what I try to do

on YouTube is like show products that people don't really know exist um and I've I've got You know literally hundreds of print on demand samples um it drives it drives my wife crazy because in our in our basement right on the other side of this wall um I've got just this pile of samples um it started with just a couple of storage bins and now they're like overflowing and some of it's on the floor and and uh and and and I've reviewed lots of samples and made lots of videos and there's and there's also you

know there's over 400 print on Demand suppliers that exist and I'm not sure if people if people know that like if you go into the Shopify App Store and you type in print on demand there will be over 400 results um and and I have not used all 400 so um you ask for the best I'm going to give you my top four uh they are they are not necessarily meant to be the only four if there's a supplier that someone watching likes like I'm sure they create great products but the the four that I've

had the most Success with and the most experience with would be first and foremost printify I'm sure everybody here watching has seen printify before um who's that I'm I'm sure the majority of people maybe have only gone as far as like their t-shirt hoodie tank top and mug categories like I would say get your hands dirty a little bit and like start clicking through their catalog they have over a thousand items in there they they ship products from all over the world Everything from really unique all over printed apparel like some of the ones I

mentioned earlier and home toore stuff and accessories and products for the for pets and products for your car as well they have like print on demand license plates and U seat covers headrest covers uh they have those Auto sun shades that you put in the dashboard of your car as well on a really hot day um another supplier would be ta- launch t- launch has been around for a really long time They have like all of your you know really staple type items hoodies t-shirts tanks things like that but they also have a lot of

really unique stuff they have an entire line of like sports balls everything from baseballs to volleyballs and golf balls that you can put print on Dem man designs on they have one of the one of the most dynamic drink wear lines that I've seen lots of different styles of like stainless seel engraver engraved Tumblers in terms of blankets and wall decor I think they're I think they're you definitely a good supplier as well um subliminator is a print on demand company out of China uh they're they're currently only available um on Shopify so if someone's

watching and you're you know selling somewhere besides Shopify subliminator would not be one you could you could use um and I'm 99% sure that their that their Etsy integration is not ready yet so if so if it is I apologize But uh subliminator is based in China they they are they are a company though that is headquartered in the Netherlands their their Factory is in China and they really specialize in like all over print apparel meaning you're you're familiar with all over print right yeah of course um if anybody watching yeah yeah exactly if anybody's

watching and they and you're not think about it like like a regular t-shirt or a hoodie like your design is right here all over print your Design is everywhere you you control every pixel of that product everything from a you know print on demand pair of leggings or an all over printed shirt or an all over printed hoodie subliminator has a a lot of really unique all over print print stuff button down short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts that are button down they've got an entire line of different sports jerseys and they just launched

shoes recently uh it's a really really cool supplier um And then and then fourthly would be a print on the main company called shineon now they they used to really only do print on demand jewelry everything from bracelet and and necklaces and dog tags and you know necklaces with a with a cross on them and they they have print on demand watches as well both where you can print on the bottom of the watch with like an engraving but also on the face of the watch like where they where you're actually telling the time cool

They also launched um a lot of really cool home decor items for the wall different blankets they have leather journals now as well that are like engravable they they have a facility in the United States and then another one um in the EU somewhere as well so depending on where you're selling you can you know kind of you know pick and choose where it's shipping from which is which is cool so those would be my I guess my top four um that I've that I've Had a lot of experience with there's a lot of products

there that I've never really heard of or see myself even on Printery but Amazon merch is my main focus and there you're like completely limited aren't you sure um but yeah those sound like very very uh cool products and printify just um it's not it's not something I've looked too much much into but um I'm pretty sure they they either just launched or in the process of launching their their Amazon Integration Amazon s a central with PR with pright yeah that's nice yeah they they've been behind on that haven't they printful had that for ages

I think yeah I think think so that's exciting for anyone who wants to try that out the all overprint as well um that's probably a good one to charge like a premium on because you literally printing on the entire product right rather than having like a small area um so I could imagine some of those um whatever it is like a Jersey or like an all over print t-shirt is probably a lot more expensive than people are a lot more open to to paying a lot of money for that than just a normal print right

yeah I um recently um made made some videos showing uh some some stores that are are selling in like some really competitive niches um but they're doing like all over printed T-shirts all over printed hoodies and and and you're right they can sell those at a higher price like personally I've Sold all of printed hoodies really well at like $59 so which if you're doing like a a regular hoodie you're probably not selling that hoodie for 59 um maybe if your design was like you know a full-on illustration and you were like super talented maybe

but like that's probably a a stretch so you know you're right the second thing about all of a print is you can do something a lot more unique with your design um not that you need to create this design that's like Super busy and like over the top or anything but just like just the simple fact of like creating a all over printed hoodie for example you can print on every single Pixel of that hoodie which means your your hood could have a design on it it could also just be a solid color like one

when I've done hoodies what I try to do is have like a base color on the front and the back and then your sleeve your front pocket and your hood all sort of match to just kind of Create a cool hoodie let's say you're in the hunting Niche for example your sleeves your hood your front pocket could all be camouflage and then the front and the back could be black and then you have like a traditional t-shirt graphic right here but you've now created a really cool hoodie because the sleeves the hood and the front

pocket are camo right and so the you have a huge amount of Freedom with the with the with the design so that way you can Create something cooler but then like you said those products will sell for for more because there's you know it's ultimately a more unique hoodie really opens the possibility I think for Creative people to to go all out with one thing that just came to mind for me is Halloween costume designs which yeah on Amazon merch they do really well but you're very restricted with the print area right if you did

B those on over print and entire costume that would be a Lot cooler and probably see a lot more interest as well I would guess yeah one of the um Concepts that I had this was this was back in probably 2019 I think um I I had a store uh doing all over print sweatshirts so they were like long sleeve sweatshirts not hoodies but like a sweatshirt and um they were all over print and and I was making the designs like an like an ugly Christmas sweater right it wasn't actually knitted but the Whole thing

had that knit effect on it this is this is you know if anybody watching just jump on Google type in like ugly Christmas sweater plus Shopify or something like that and you'll likely see tons of sores doing this where you know just just like you said Halloween costumes or like I said the ugly Christmas sweaters like the Oliver print opens so many doors and people do that with like t-shirts and with regular hoodies and regular shirts where they do Like an ugly Christmas style design where it's like it looks like it's stitched but it's just

in the design like with all of a print you can do that on the entire thing um and it it opens a lot of doors for sure so from me past experience of opening multiple Shopify stores building them up um and the phase once you found a few products is it true that you usually have to test for a while to figure out which one actually works the best for y in terms Of like product type like like if if you're trying to decide like oh does cutting boards or does aprons work the best like

like probably not you know um I think you could pivot around a little bit to like figure out what's going to work for your Niche but I would kind of you know I would kind of just say like no matter what you're doing whether it's you know building a Shopify store or selling on Amazon or or selling on Etsy there's I don't know if this is going to Make me unpopular or not philli but you're probably going to fail in some capacity at the beginning yeah right um I would imagine that the products that you

are currently selling on a daily basis were not products that you created on day one right most people I can't guarantee anything but I can almost guarantee that anybody that's making daily print on demand sales the products that they're actually selling were not ones that they created at the beginning Right so there's there's always going to be some sort of testing phase there's always going to be some sort of pivoting phase where you know maybe you do start with cutting boards for your baking Niche but then you know you try an apron design and that

does much better and you you know end up pivoting pivoting to that um I think it's you know you know for for me um like with I I have two stores one of them I just launched in April um it is a product based store it Basically just sells wall decor for a few different niches um and when I started the store I was starting with a with a niche it was a like a coastal themed Niche so like the designs had like lighthouses and sailboats and lobsters and different things in it and I also

did a lot of like farming stuff and when I and when I when I opened I didn't the coastal stuff was kind of a dud and the farming stuff did really well and so I just kind of went All in on the farming stuff right so like there's there's always going to be some some pivoting and sometimes it's between products sometimes it's between niches potentially sometimes it's between just Design Concepts um and and I would say you know anybody that is getting started at the beginning like don't view you know any situation where you have

to like pivot in some way as like a bad thing right because that's probably going to happen no matter what You do now that's exactly what I wanted you to say it's it's normal to fail at the beginning and yeah yeah you might try all over print products now after getting excited from this uh from this podcast but maybe it doesn't work for the niche that you choose you don't know until you tried it right and then you might have to test a different product or maybe eventually have to test a different Niche um and

sometimes yeah that it does Take a few months might even take a few years you never really know it's different for everyone like it took me a year and a half to to see some proper results on Amazon merch um and I think it's probably no different uh for anyone on tropy some people are faster some people are slower one of the analogies I always give is um it's it's like when if if you were someone that you know needed to start working out and eating healthy right you're probably not going to hit Your weight

loss goal in your first 30 days um you might even gain weight in your first 30 days right but the idea is if you can figure out how to work out effectively and eat a good diet that is conducive to weight loss you you will lose weight right and so whether you're and sometimes it takes you a little bit of time to figure that out right and the same thing is true with with with print on demand if you create a great store you choose good products you choose good Niches and you make good designs

they will sell um sometimes it takes you a little bit of time though to figure out how to how to do that and that's and that's okay that's a really good analogy I think because I think a lot of or one big issue about losing weight or changing your diet to lose weight is finding meals that are healthier but that you still enjoy and you just can't do that from day one if you've been eating Rubbish for ages so in that phase where you're trying to work out and find meals and improve your cooking that's

when you're creating a lot of bad meals and it's like easy for you to fall back that's kind of the creating bad t-shirt designs or creating or using the wrong product similarity right and then eventually you find some meals that you really love and then it suddenly becomes easier to lose weight and to stay on a healthy diet and that's when with a Printed demand store like sales start to actually trickle in more often yep exactly the big question uh that I think most people struggle with at least on the Shopify route is how to

drive traffic yeah big question um I I think first and foremost you have to decide like is Shopify right for you you know um and and I think this whole you know like Etsy versus Shopify debate uh is something that maybe 90% of the people that are Talking about it like don't quite understand and and what I mean by that is it's not Shopify versus Etsy uh it is it is business versus business they are they are two completely different businesses even if you're someone on you know Amazon versus Shopify right they're they're two different

businesses and and the the what I always say is that print on demand is the vehicle that we are using to either create an Amazon or an Etsy store or or you know a Shopify Store and they're both going to have completely different strategies that that are that are a part you know of being successful with either of them um and when it comes to you know Shopify I always say that the easy part is getting traffic um and a lot of people think that's the hard part um of you know running a running a

you know a Shopify based business right they always say well yeah I can build the store but I still need to get my traffic right and Um traffic's the easy part the hard part is the same thing as getting sales on Amazon or Etsy which is creating a bestselling design right so if you're someone that has a bestselling design right the traffic is going to be the easy part and then you know I'm not going to guarantee you results but like the hard part is creating is creating the design the easy part is the is

the traffic people are spending on average 145 minutes a day um on social media um Last year there was a Forbes article that I feature in some of my YouTube videos from time to time that over a 100 million people in the United States last year purchased a product at least one product on social media um one out of five sales that are happening on social media are happening on Facebook uh Instagram is is the second most popular social media platform for purchasing things um and in that same article I think it was like 77%

of businesses are Using social media to reach their customers so this is not like when it comes to getting traffic on social media this is not like a secret thing that is like impossible to to figure out um it kind of boils down into three different strategies and the and the first is is is organic I think organic traffic from social media is one of the most overlooked and unrecognized traffic sources um I I talked about the t-shirt store that I That I started at the beginning um I would say 75% of the sales that

I made on that store were were from only organic traffic um I I don't think I've had a store that relied so heavily on organic traffic since um it's always been a part of of what I've done but when you're when you're trying to get traffic from social media the first step is to create create social media pages right like a Facebook page an Instagram page you know there there was someone That I was talking to yesterday that their Niche is really on Twitter a lot so that's where you know they're focusing on a Content

strategy maybe your Niche is on Pinterest like maybe that's where you should focus on a Content strategy but the but the idea is to create an account that people in your Niche want to follow you know as you know square one and this is you know definitely a long-term play it's not like you're going to start your social Media page you're going to post eight times and you're going to have a th followers like there's a good chance you're going to post eight times and you're going to get zero followers but the idea is you

need to start that process and you need to be consistent I have found that the more consistent I am and the and the more I try to upload great content whether it's memes or just something funny or something interesting a fun fact about the niche on on Instagram or something like the the the traffic is there right and so organic is is the first step um I I am also someone that I I love running ads on on Facebook and Instagram um if if you're watching this and as soon as I said ads you panicked

um don't because the the big myth is that you need to have like thousands of dollars to use Facebook and Instagram ads um every ad that I start starts at a dollar a day um budget is not something that is going to Necessarily increase the probability that that you are making sales yes if you have a higher budget you're showing the ad to more people but on an individual level each person still has the same likelihood to buy whether your budget is a dollar or $1,000 right and what's really cool I guess like for me

with Facebook and Instagram ads is when you're a little bit tough to just talk about it and not like show right but like inside of your ads manager you Build an audience and your your audience is who the ad is being shown to and and you can you can Target like some really specific keywords like the the idea that I can run an ad for a dollar and have Facebook show it to people who like Harley-Davidson and then I'm making a hoodie that has a motorcycle themed design on it like that's a really powerful thing

um and it's not as hard as you know some people think and and just like anything there's going to be You know a learning curve at the beginning I would say you know running an ad on social media is not any more difficult than figuring out SEO on a pod Marketplace um if you can put time into researching keywords and tags you can put time into researching building an audience for a $1 Facebook ad for example you know the third traffic source is is influencer marketing um this is something that I've I mentioned that I

started a new store back in April Um this is something that I've um for the for the first time made like the number one traffic source of a store that I've that I've ran um I've used influencers a lot it's never been a focus though like it has been with this store um the the like I've been able like and when I say influencer as well I'm not talking about like anybody watching like celebrities um or like fitness models or people that have a million followers on Tik Tok because They went viral doing a funny

dance like I'm talking about like content creators in your Niche um one of one of the examples I I always give is like if your Niche is gardening there's likely someone on Instagram who has an account where maybe it's like Becky's garden and she is out in her garden every day giving people gardening related tips and maybe she has 32,000 followers right and it would be extremely powerful if you sent her a free sample of your leggings And then she made a video wearing the leggings and told people to go check out your store to

get their own and gave them maybe a 15% discount code like that's what I'm currently doing with with my with my new store that I started in April as a primary traffic Source um what what I've done though is I've taken it a step further where there's different Shopify apps that you can use to manage this you can also just manage it manually but when they promote that Discount code to Their audience if someone uses it they actually earn a commission um on the sale and so I'm now in a position where I have these

people out there that are incentivized once a week to promote my items because they know every time they sell something they they earn a commission on it right and they're monetizing their account through that through that way right and and um that that's I think probably something that a lot of beginners maybe wouldn't Into because it's you talking to a real person and kind of coming up with some sort of a of of an arrangement but it's uh you know for anybody that is looking to build their own brand like influencer marketing is is a

is a major way that you can flood your store with traffic um and the way that I do it is I just send a sample and I set up those commissions and it works quite good it's it's good that you mentioned the affiliate aspect there of giving them like a an affiliate Link that the sales get traed through they get an extra cut so it's more of an incentive rather than just saying oh he's a free sample can you promote my product cuz I'm guessing it's probably also a bit difficult to get a hold of

them sometimes like the bigger the pages get the more messages they'll receive what's like is that like a threshold where you start messaging people it's like 10K followers or something like that yeah yeah I um I basically have the Mindset that anybody that anybody that has like over 100,000 followers might not want to just promote your item for a free sample know there's a there's a high chance that that person is probably already doing something with other brands where maybe it's more worth their time to focus on that than to work with you to promote

the samples so so I typically look for what's called like a micro influencer um I start around like maybe 10,000 followers as a minimum I Would say like around 50,000 is a is a sweet spot um to to work with because those are people that I don't want to make like um like like General assumptions um but you know those are people that are likely a little bit more hungry they're you know really maybe haven't monetized their account in a in a really you know big way yet and um they might be really you know

more likely to be willing to work with you um and to receive your sample and and take The time to promote it without actually getting any any sort of payment upfront um one of my best influencers I started with her um back in April when I started the store and she had like 8,000 followers and she's now up around like 20,000 um so I've kind of I guess grown with her in a way and it's kind of like um it's only going to give me more Roi I've sent her multiple samples at this point because

she does a good job at like showing the products and stuff um But yeah it's definitely like a like a smaller account is is better and when I say small I don't mean like 500 followers I mean like 20,000 or 60,000 or something like that and that can also be done um you know on YouTube as well um I have someone I'm working with one influencer who uh is on is on YouTube they have about 50,000 subscribers they're they're in my Niche I mentioned I was doing like some farming related stuff so they have A

channel that is all about their own Farm um and I sell wall decor for people that are you know interested in farming and I sent them a sample of the wall DEC decor and they hung it on their garden fence and in their videos when they walk by it they tell people that they can go to the link in the description and use their discount code to save money on their own custom sign and it works really well so so um like I said it's a very underutilized traffic source and And um it's it's a

it's a way that you can quite literally get lots of people on your store very quickly it sounds like a great alternative for people that don't want to spend all the energy building their own page because like you said that takes time you might do eight posts and get no followers yep whereas here you're using other people's followers you're giving them an incentive and you kind of shortcut that process but I'm glad you mentioned that The that even works with smaller Pages because when I hear influencer marketing my assumption is you have to pay a

lot of money up front and send free samples but no you're right some of these smaller Pages if they're just recently if they've just recently become big this might be one of their first opportunities to to make money so that's you got strategy and you have to remember they can also grow with time right and there's definitely people out There that you like like I've paid money too for for promotions like like like there are like I've not taken people on these offers but like I've had people tell me that like if you want me

to promote your product I I need $1,000 up front or something and you know that's not ever ever been something that I wanted to do with a with a print on demand item but I but I have paid um several hundred dollars for for a promotion there was a I made a YouTube Video about this recently like selling like um us election based merchandise um back in back in 2020 I I I had um several products that I was doing based on the 2020 election and I was working with politically based social media pages and

and paying them fees up front to have them promote products to you know their their followers um and so there there are going to be accounts out there that do charge a lot and and in some cases it's worth it right because If you have an account where they have you know maybe 120,000 followers or something and they want $300 to promote the product like there's nowhere else in the world that you can spend $300 and and potenti po show the item to 100,000 people that's some of the best marketing Roi that you could potentially

have but but in a lot of cases it's you know maybe not the best use of your time to be spending that much money with multiple people Every single day um if your store if your store is new one thing I want to backtrack to a little bit is the organic traffic if you want to build your own page if some people are still interested in that how do you kind of manage that what's the strategy you mentioned sharing funny images memes how do you go from that to build an audience to actually promoting your

products do you just do posts do you leave a link in the bio like what's yeah Link in the bio um It's really not super complicated I would say what I always try to do is like batch content um so you're not like every single day waking up and thinking like what am I going to post today you know like when I say the word content strategy like that just means like being intentional with your content so first and foremost maybe figure out how many times a day do you want to post um and then

if the answer is twice well then maybe try to go get 14 days of content Which is 28 pieces of content and you know maybe seven of them could be memes about your Niche maybe seven of them could be some sort of viral you know video or image or something that you're kind of like curating on to your to your page um you could also do I I mentioned fun facts like you could go on Google and type in like fun facts about Niche whatever your niches and then create a graphic about that fun fact

and um maybe there's you know another concept I've Used is like on this day type stuff like let's say your nich's sports like go look up something that happened as we're making this video Philip it's August 20th so what happened in sports on August 20th in history and go find something interesting and make a post about that that that thing you know and post it on August 20th give people value right you want them to to give gain some knowledge they learn some facts that they can maybe pass on to others or show Off with

something like that yeah you're you're you're you know you're basically trying to create an account that people in your Niche want to follow um if all you do is post mockups of your products no one wants to follow that and you're likely not going to get any engagement on the social media platform which is mean which means you're not going to grow right if if you're posting on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest or Tik Tok um the only thing that's ever Going to get you to grow is if if is if you get engaged and

and you get engagement when you post things that are that are interesting um I always uh I have I have a a strategy I guess it's I I call it like when I train about it when I teach about it I I call it growth hacks at the beginning um where you can like let's just use Instagram for example go look at like popular pages in your Niche and again this is not meant to be like a long-term strategy or like Some secret strategy when I say it everyone's going to be like really like that's

your that's your advice but if you have zero followers like go find a popular page in your in your Niche and go through the comments people that are commenting on some of their posts and follow those people or like their comments or respond to their comments or even just comment on some of these really popular posts on other Pages if you interact with like a hundred Accounts a day maybe you'll get 15 followers out of it and if you do that for two weeks maybe that's your first 100 or your first 200 follow followers and

the idea is it's a growth hack right so that way you don't have to spend all this time getting zero followers like go do some of that just to get a 100 followers or 200 followers or something like that and then that way when you post maybe you get six likes instead of zero and then your account kind of has a Little bit of a a jump start I guess um in terms of like I think your original question was about like how do you transition from like posting and building an audience to like actually

promoting um the question I get a lot is like how many followers do I need to promote products and I don't think there's a a perfect answer the way that I've always looked at it with my accounts is like if I feel like my account still needs to grow if I feel Like I'm not getting the engagement that I want posting a picture of one of my products will not help me to grow right it really would just give me a quick hit of like dopamine if I made a sale right and it really wouldn't

help the account grow um like if you have 100 followers and every time you post you get two likes posting a product is not really going to probably make your account go go viral at this stage um and so I guess the answer would be you could do Experiments right you could I I would say definitely don't make your account you know only in general post whatever you want but have like an 80 to 80 to 20 ratio right 80% content 20% product posts right and you could start those I guess whenever but um don't

expect you know massive results you know one thing too that you didn't ask about but I I think is valuable um you've heard of like a retargeting ad before where like if you're if you're if you're on a Website and then you go back on Facebook and then you see an ad for the product you were just looking at like that's called a retargeting ad you can actually set those up to do the same thing if someone interacts with your social media page right so let's say you post a meme on Instagram and someone likes

it and that's it you can retarget them with an ad for your actual Merchant IND ice right so it kind of gives um like an additional layer of significance to the Content strategy let's say that you're let's say you post a video and it goes viral and you get 10,000 views right like maybe not super viral but 10,000 views right well that's 10,000 people that you can now retarget with those retargeting ads and you could spend like $2 a day on an ad like that right and so then you're not necessarily posting on the page

but everybody that's interacting with it you know they're members of your Niche because they're Interacting with your Niche based content and then they're seeing a retargeting ad you know for your for your products right so it kind of gives a extra layer um like I said of significance to to doing it it's kind of the difference between a cold lead like a a completely new person that's never seen your content or your page and here you've got maybe not a warm lead but like lukewarm right they've interacted a bit they've seen some of your stuff

um So there's a bigger likelihood I guess of them converting um so that that definitely makes sense I'm glad he pointed that out um in terms of the paid ads though I think one thing that people struggle with a lot at the beginning once I get into that is that they might for example spend like $500 to test some ads but they're not getting any sales or maybe just one or two sales out of that then they're ref frustrated and they they think okay this is not for me or They want to give up do

you have any advice for those people I would say I don't know if this is advice or more of just a observation um we we were talking before we started recording um about about like my Facebook group um I I have a Facebook group there's you know t almost 100,000 people there and and I see a lot of stuff I see a lot of really great stuff but I also see a lot of not so great designs not so great stores and and I Think there's a lot of people that maybe get themselves into the

situation you just talked about where all of a sudden they've spent 500 bucks and have no profits I think that a lot of those at least the cases that I've seen when I like I review stores I have a I make a post today's Tuesday I made it today every every Tuesday I make a post it's called Tuesday store share people share their URLs and I review them in YouTube videos and um in a lot of cases I would Say 90% of them are probably stores that should not be promoting any of their products right

now because they don't have things that I think will F Well right and not that my opinion is everything right it's just it's just my opinion but I think the majority people that find themselves in that situation don't have you know bestselling bestselling products right just like if you're someone that's you know 300 designs deep into Amazon and you've sold One shirt right like you probably don't have a great catalog of designs um that's why I said earlier like no matter you're if you're building a Shopify store or if you're building a Etsy shop or

whatever like the most important part is creating something that someone will pay for um having a winning product which I sort of break down as the perfect combination of a niche a product and a design if you do all three of those things well like bad marketing Will sell great products great marketing won't sell bad products right so um first and foremost if you have spent $500 or if you've heard of someone doing that it would be just like if you opened a restaurant and the food wasn't any good right like you could you could

do all the marketing in the world people come in but they don't order that would be the main advice is like focus on your on your menu right just like if you are focusing on a on a on a um you know on Growing a restaurant and then secondly too like there's no reason to spend $500 especially if sales aren't happening I mentioned you know I start every added a dollar it might be impossible to talk through some of that just in this in this capacity here but um the fact is is that after you

spend a dollar you should you should through through some testing you can have a little bit of a you know inclination about the potential of the product and Then after that I typically will launch a $5 a Day ad if that ad runs for like two or three days with no sale it gets turned off it doesn't run until it gets to $500 um if you had a 100 bucks in your marketing budget you could likely test several different items and and give yourself a really good gut check about what you have before you get

to that point where you've you know I see posts where people will say I spent $2,500 on Ads I had 8,600 people come to my store I didn't get any purchases what am I doing wrong and I and I always respond and I say well it sounds like 8,600 people decided not to buy your product right so your ad worked right your ad got people to the store but when they got there they decided not to buy it right so Focus there um hope that makes sense it does make sense um it's very similar to

something I've talked about recently on my Channel with Amazon Amazon merch um where you're going to have to go through multiple designs and and track the conversion rate if the conversion rate is terrible after some testing budget just kill it like don't marry the product don't marry the design whatever it is if if the customers don't like it it's pointless you have to move on to the next one and test at an affordable budget until you find something that converts well that's when you can kind Of open the floodgates and keep increasing daily budgets or

bids or whatever it may be uh to push that product further if it is converting well and it sounds like that's exactly uh the same or similar on Shopify with Facebook ads yeah I don't I don't know if this ever happens to you but like I I sometimes will have like like like several iterations of the same design where I'll like be consistently and this might be tougher for someone who doesn't Have like a really solid graphic design capability but a lot of times like a design that I'm selling really well I is is not

the same design that it was at the beginning when I first put it on my store meaning I'm constantly not every product but like there's certainly like a situation that I can think of specifically is I was I've done a lot with like the military niche in general um different different branches of the US military even just like not even Branch specific but just veteran specific things um and I very vividly remember and I've told this story before so if anyone's ever heard it excuse me but um the design had like a skull in it

right it was like a veteran themed design it had a skull and that was kind of like the focal point of the design and I was getting tons of traffic from social media I was making some sales but I wasn't like super profitable and I was like what is going on like this design Is awesome I'm getting like really great uh cost per click right like a lot of people are coming to the store but I'm just not converting and I and I decided to switch the skull for an eagle with the mindset that maybe

people don't want to wear a skull right maybe they think it's cool they Window Shop it but a skull is like a very like I guess like um it's a very bold fashion statement I guess you know and so I switched it to an eagle and then that design for that Specific hoodie the only thing that changed was the eagle ultimately be became one of my best sellers ever for the military Niche with with hoodies right so I would say like if you are marketing something and it's or if you're listing it on Amazon and

it's not selling but it maybe is getting some traction like what could you do to the design to make it better um could be a could be a good place to start rather than just throwing it away starting with A new niche or a new product or just a brand new design concept yeah that's a really good point something similar happened to me recently as well with one of my ads that were doing well is I I realized that the AI version of the design did better like I I recreated the original illustrator type design

as an AI design or with the help of AI combination of AI and uh illustrator and also tested that and it converted way Better so then I turned those adds down the old ones and you know focus more on the AI design and then I also applied that strategy to some of my other niches where similar designs were working I like okay I'll take these old designs I'll revamp them with this new style and they probably do better um so yeah interesting are there besides the things that we've already talked about are there some other

beginner mistakes that you commonly see I think the you know One of them we kind of touched on is just like expecting you know print on demand to be like a lottery ticket you know print on demand is definitely not get-rich Quick Print on demand is a is a real business whether you're selling on Amazon Etsy Shopify there are going to be expenses um and at some point you likely will fail uh in some capacity and the key is to not look at that as career ending but to almost expect some sort of failure so

thatly when it when it does Happen you can sort of adjust um and figure out it sounds corny but like try to learn from the failures you know um and then second I think a beginner mistake is like being frantic you know with your with your store I sometimes you know whether it's a YouTube video that someone's commenting on or a Facebook post or I'll receive an email from someone um and they're frantic um about trying to start their print on the men store yesterday right where they Feel like they need to go as quick

as possible to you know get in get into the world of of pod and and you can't do that because again you're you're building a business um I always say print on demand is never going to go out of style and that's not meant to be like a you know that this is like a get-rich quii type of thing but like print on demand is just how we are fulfilling our products we're creating apparel businesses or home decor businesses or Accessory businesses and those are going to exist forever right we're just using print on Dem

man to do it so there's there's no reason to be frantic um I think in terms of like a really concrete mistake that I could see maybe some people making um based on hearing this conversation today about like branching out from t-shirts and again if you want to sell shirts I'm not mad at you you can do you can sell whatever you want but like don't start selling you know Shower curtains and blankets and posters and shoes and leggings and just take all of your t-shirt designs and just start putting them on those products like

you're going to end up with lame shower curtains you're going to end up with lame blankets like you need to design specifically for the product you're creating right like if you're in a doormat for example don't take your T-shirt PNG and put it on a black doormat like actually make a doormat That maybe has a background maybe a border maybe some really thoughtfully arranged graphic elements and text in the in the inside right same thing for a blanket same thing for a shower curtain like don't create a black shower curtain with a white T-shirt PNG

graphic on it right like actually design a nice shower curtain fill your entire space in a in a thoughtful way um I could see that being maybe a specific mistake that someone might make because I've definitely seen Stores like that where they've got 42 different product types and it's all the same design I've I've made s manyar mistakes at the beginning it's everyone go through it I've put t-shirt designs onto blankets and they haven't sold so you have to make the mistakes to learn from them sometimes but that's why we try and point them out

in these videos but yeah I mean it's it's totally true failing is part of the process uh the I sometimes use an acronym for it uh first Attempt in learning um so whenever you fail it is just so that you learn prevent that in future I shouldn't have this constant negative connotation if you fail then that's like you're doomed no this is actually a good thing you're going to level up through that failure so yeah thanks a lot for coming on course was a great conversation lots of good Insight um lots of detail about marketing

getting traffic as well organic traffic which is awesome um and If people want to learn more from you or connect with you where where can they find you yeah I mean again Philip thanks um I I had I had fun I can't even believe like a whole hour has gone by it was really really really awesome so thank you um and then you know if anybody wants to look me up you can just type in Joe Robert on on YouTube um I I try to make two videos a week uh sharing like I mentioned um

really cool products and you know I I've been uh taking People like into my own print on demand store and showing things that I'm working on as well and um we also have a Facebook group for it's called pod ninjas we have almost 100,000 members there not everybody there is on Shopify either there is a lot of etsy and Amazon folks there too so if that if Shopify and social media is not your cup of tea there's probably something there for you too you can look us up on Facebook like I said it's pod ninjas

um and um and Yeah that's really all the only places I'm at though so if you want to find me that's where I am all right and um I'll leave those in the description of course the links to those and anyone who wants to have their shop reviewed as well you mentioned that earlier that's another option um which is cool and yeah thanks a lot for your time it was a fun conversation and yeah hope to have you on again sometime sure love to thanks again