2. Find your niche/product
Now it’s time to find a specific sticker type to sell to your target audience. Narrowing down your niche allows you to create designs that appeal directly to your customers’ interests.
For example, instead of focusing on animals in general, you can narrow it down to zoo animals, colorful insects, or endangered species. You can also differentiate your designs by sticking to a particular style like watercolor illustrations or cartoon-like characters. Or go for cute animals surrounded by flowers, like Etsy artist KindGardenist offers.
Source: Etsy
By targeting a specific niche, you’ll stand out from other sellers. Plus, when the competition is lower, you can charge higher prices.
Some other niche options to think about include plants, kids, humor, pride, or sports. Need some more inspo? Browse over 40 custom sticker ideas with examples from successful sticker business owners.
Learn how to find a niche market for your sticker business.
3. Choose the most suitable fulfillment option
The next step in our how-to-start-a-sticker-business guide is to choose the production process. You can make the stickers yourself or outsource the work to a sticker printing company. Let’s look at what each fulfillment method entails.
Handmade
Source: Etsy
Making your own stickers means creating the artwork, printing, cutting, and shipping the stickers yourself. This method has a higher upfront cost and is labor-intensive, yet it gives you more control over the production process.
If you want to make money online selling your homemade stickers, you’ll need to invest in equipment. Initial costs include buying a printer, blank sticker sheets, envelopes, and stamps to ship your orders. Inkjet printers can cost between $100 and $1000, while a sticker-cutting machine costs around $250 to $500.
You can also make professional-looking stickers by using sticker paper, which is available at many office supply and craft stores. But making handmade stickers without a printer or sticker-cutting machine leaves little room for growth. There are only so many stickers you can draw and cut per day.
The quality of your stickers will depend on your supplies and printing equipment.
Learn how to digitize your artwork so you can print endless copies of it on stickers or other products.
With POD, you upload your designs, and your POD partner prints, packs, and ships the stickers to your customers. You pay for the stickers only when a customer places an order. This business model doesn’t require any initial costs or involvement in the production process, which allows you to focus more on your designs and marketing your products.
Source: Printful
POD also enables you to keep your offering seasonal without losing profit to excess stock. You can easily switch up the designs in your storefront by adding them to new products. Then, you can make free mockups of your products with Printful’s Mockup Generator.
As for quality, Printful offers durable kiss-cut vinyl stickers with bubble-free application. Check out Printful’s custom stickers for your sticker business.
Which method is right for you?
If you’re willing to invest in equipment and are up for running a small business, think about going the handmade route. If you don’t want to invest upfront and want the freedom to scale your custom sticker business quickly, choose POD.
4. Create a business plan
Even small business owners and solopreneurs can benefit from developing a business plan. This will help you define your company structure, values, and goals.
Follow these steps to create a business plan for your own sticker business.
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Company description. Describe your business in detail: include its name, website, mission statement, and products. Craft a brand story to explain what makes your business unique.
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Choose a business model and register your business. If you’re running a one-person operation, choose sole proprietorship. Contact your local authorities to find out more.
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Market analysis. Conduct thorough research on industry size, expected growth, target market, and competitors. Understanding sticker market trends will help you plan strategically.
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Marketing and sales strategy. Sketch out how you plan to attract and retain customers. Consider your marketing strategy, sales tactics, pricing strategy, and advertising or promotional plans. Learn how to price print-on-demand products strategically to sell.
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Calculate costs and potential income. When starting an online business, calculate profits/losses to ensure healthy profit margins. Consider taxes and design, production, and shipping costs.
And if you plan to start a print-on-demand dropshipping business, you can use your designs on other trending products as well. For example, you could begin as a sticker business and then branch out into hats, mugs, t-shirts, and more.
5. Design a product
Now that you know the foundational steps to starting a sticker business, it’s time for the fun part—designing stickers!
Below are the steps for creating custom stickers from scratch.
Find blank sticker sheets
First, you need a good-quality blank sticker sheet as the basis for your designs. Printful offers three different types of custom kiss-cut stickers:
Remember that the prominent styles out there are kiss-cut stickers and die-cut stickers. Why do we prefer kiss-cut stickers to die-cut stickers? Both can be cut in any shape you want. The difference is that kiss-cut stickers also leave a wide enough border around your design for smooth peeling. Plus, the background adds a layer of protection that keeps the stickers safe when transported.
Discover the differences between kiss-cut and die-cut stickers.
Create your design
Next, you can upload your existing artwork or use Printful’s Design Maker to create a sticker design from scratch. Our Design Maker includes 20,496+ clipart graphics, 791+ fonts, and 668+ colors and patterns. You can easily add text, illustrations, photos, or any other content with just a few clicks.
Source: Printful
Check out this tutorial on how to use Printful’s Design Maker. Find more design details in our guide on how to make and sell stickers online.
You can also create your own sticker designs with free tools like Canva or Inkscape, or paid tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. And if you’re not confident in your design skills, you can always hire a designer to help you out.
Pro tip: Keep all the essential graphics or text within the safe print area to avoid missing design elements on the finished product. Follow Printful’s print file guidelines for best results.
Consider copyright laws
If you plan to use intellectual property in your designs, research copyright laws to determine appropriate usage. Start by reading our guide on copyright and trademark 101. The safest approach is to use images with a CC0 (Creative Commons) license.
15+ free image resources to use in your sticker designs.
Review and mockups
Use Printful’s Mockup Generator to see how your sticker will look when printed, ensuring your design is aligned and attractive. Make any necessary adjustments before finalizing.
Once you’re happy with how your stickers look on screen, it’s time to see how they look in real life.
6. Get sticker samples
Ordering samples is the best way to see and feel how your stickers will look in real life and ensure the final design meets your expectations. This allows you to check the quality and make sure no part of the design is out of the design area.
Source: Reddit
Pro tip: If you’re printing multiple designs on sticker sheets, don’t place your sticker designs too close to each other, as there’s a risk they might overlap.
7. Build an online store
Now that you’re happy with your designs, it’s time to start selling stickers! There are several ways to build your sticker shop. You can choose between creating your own online store or selling on an ecommerce platform or online marketplace. Each option has its pros and cons.
Ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce make building an ecommerce site a breeze. You can easily customize your online store with your branding and features that match your needs. Plus, you’ll gain access to useful tools to scale your business.
Shopify even has themes specifically for sticker shops.
Source: Shopify
A possible downside to ecommerce platforms is that the initial setup is time-consuming. Also, there are potential costs for advanced features like custom reports and analytics. Check out Shopify’s pricing to get an idea.
Online marketplaces
Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy provide immediate visibility for your products with minimal marketing efforts. You gain access to a large existing customer base that’s ready to spend money.
However, online marketplaces usually charge fees for listing products and there are sales commissions. Also, there can be high competition from other sellers, limited branding options, and not much control over the customer experience.
Valuable read: How to Sell Stickers on Amazon: Your Ultimate 8-Step Guide
Custom website
Source: Sticker Planet
Creating your own website provides the highest control over the customer journey and branding. Use tools like WordPress and WooCommerce or website builders like Wix or Squarespace. With their help, you can create a professional-looking site on your own. You can also hire a pro to create a site for you.
Building a website from scratch means independence from third-party platforms and fees. Plus, you can access search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities to attract organic traffic.
The downside is it requires some technical know-how, time, and effort to build and maintain. Also, it can be costly (between $2.75 and $2,000 per month).
All of the abovementioned platforms integrate with Printful to streamline your order fulfillment process and allow for seamless product creation and shipping. Browse the full list of Printful’s integrations here.
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