Pros and cons
Setting up a POD online store is quick and easy. It doesn’t require significant upfront investment, and you won’t need to keep your own inventory or printing equipment. To add to all that, your supplier takes care of everything from product fulfillment to packing and shipping.
Another major plus for print-on-demand is the fact that you’re able to create original products with your own artwork. With POD, you’re selling something nobody else can—your own art, your brand. This makes it easier to find your niche, build your company’s brand, and increase customer loyalty.
Source: Printful
If you start a POD business, it’s extremely important to find a niche. Here’s why: some of the best-selling print-on-demand products are t-shirts, but the market is already saturated with online businesses that sell t-shirts, many of which can afford to sell t-shirts at a lower price than you.
So you need to give customers a reason to buy from you—if your t-shirts are relevant to a specific niche and audience, they’ll have more value. If you want to learn more about choosing your niche, take a look here.
However, one of the biggest drawbacks with print-on-demand is that you won’t have complete control over product quality. This means it’s crucial to do your research and find a supplier with consistently high-quality products.
You should look for POD providers with low reshipment rates. Printful, for example, has a reshipment rate of just 0.24%—this shows that few orders are reshipped due to mistakes or defects.
Selling digital products
Another great dropshipping alternative is selling digital products. These are products that exist in the digital format only—think ebooks, digital art, music, or online courses.
Customers typically receive digital goods through mail or by downloading, which makes this a good option for those who want to make a passive income without keeping inventory.
Source: Unsplash
Pros and cons
You wouldn’t need to worry about the hassles that come with selling tangible goods—product fulfillment, packaging, or shipping costs. Selling digital goods means lower overhead costs, higher profit margins, and more control over the product than you’d get with dropshipping.
However, there are a few downsides to selling digital products. First off, you’ll need to take precautions to prevent your product from getting stolen and sold at a much lower price. Online piracy is a real issue, and it’s important to do research on how to protect yourself from it.
Another issue you might run into is the abundance of freely available digital content. Why should people pay for your ebook when they can get a ton of other ebooks free of charge? To avoid losing customers to free content, make sure to really work on finding your niche and creating a solid brand.
Marketing and selling DIY products
This one’s pretty self-explanatory, right? Selling handmade goods is one of the oldest forms of commerce, and it’s never going out of style.
There’s really no end to what you can sell—bath bombs, soaps, tote bags, mugs, candles and more. Platforms like Etsy, for example, are completely dedicated to selling DIY products. Before you start your own store, you can browse Etsy for inspiration.
Source: Etsy
Pros and cons
Selling handmade goods is a good dropshipping alternative because you can easily start your own business from home.
Plus, you’ll have complete control over product quality, which helps with providing excellent customer service. This means you’ll have an easier time building customer loyalty than most dropshipping businesses.
But this kind of online store might take more initial investment than dropshipping since you’ll need to pay for all the resources yourself.
Another downside to selling your own products is that you’ll have to take care of everything—packaging, shipping, product returns, and more. This can get overwhelming and costly, especially if there’s market demand for your products and your ecommerce store grows.
Drop servicing
Drop servicing is a bit different from the other business models we’ve talked about before. Drop servicing is a business model where instead of selling, let’s say, custom t-shirts, you sell a service that’s carried out by someone else.
Similar to dropshipping, you’re acting as a middleman between somebody who does online freelancing and the customer.
For example, you sell graphic design services. Once a customer buys the service for $60, you hire an online freelancer to do the work for $40. When the work is complete, you deliver it to the customer, pay the freelance designer, and keep the $20 for yourself.
Source: Unsplash
Pros and cons
A drop servicing business, much like a dropshipping business, is easy to set up and doesn’t take upfront investment. Drop servicing is highly scalable, too—since you’re not the one spending time on these online freelancing tasks, you can basically take on as many clients as you want, without many restraints.
A major downside, however, is that you won’t have control over the end product. If the client is dissatisfied with the result, you’ll have to go back to online freelancers and get it fixed, which might be time and resource-consuming.
Another potential issue is trust—you’ll have to be honest with your clients and make it clear that you’re not the one completing these tasks.
Private labeling
Private labeling, sometimes known as white labeling, is a business model where you buy products from private label manufacturers and sell them under your own company’s brand.
This sets private labeling apart from dropshipping—with dropshipping, you can’t really control much about the branding of your product.
For example, Printful is a white-label company. Once you start your private label brand with Printful products, you control what logo goes on the label or how the packaging is branded. If you want to know more about branding options at Printful, take a look here.
Source: Printful
Pros and cons
Branding increases product value and helps with customer trust and loyalty. Not only does it make your online business look more professional, it also helps you stand out.
Good branding is something not many online store owners have, so private-labeled products can set you apart from other brands.
That being said, selling private-label products isn’t as easy as setting up a dropshipping store. You’ll need to put special care into product sourcing since many private-label manufacturers require a minimum order quantity.
Learn more: Unlocking White Label Business Opportunities
Source: Unsplash
Source: Unsplash
Source: Amazon Associates
Source: Unsplash
