3. Time investment
The time investment is minimal for POD store owners. When you outsource the product creation and shipping to a print-on-demand partner, your primary time commitments become coming up with new ideas, designing products, marketing, and building a brand.
In contrast, DIY printing requires significant time for creating designs, managing your store, printing products, maintaining equipment, and handling shipping. It demands more hands-on involvement, making it time-intensive compared to print-on-demand, where the operational workload is outsourced.
4. Control
With print-on-demand, control is limited, especially in inventory management and product development. You have less influence on product quality, production speed, and packaging but enjoy freedom in design and product range.
Self-printing offers complete control, including print quality, materials, packaging, and shipping to your precise specifications. This control allows for thorough personalization and branding but demands extensive management of production, inventory, and stock.
But with control over every aspect of the production process also comes a duty to know how to navigate your printer so it yields the best results. POD companies continuously pour resources into equipment, skilled staff, and the latest technology, ensuring high-quality outputs and efficient operations.
5. Scalability
POD industry excels in scalability with minimal effort. As sales increase, your on-demand provider manages the higher volume without requiring additional resources. This model also adapts seamlessly to fluctuating demand.
Source: Printful
Scaling up in do-it-yourself printing is more challenging. It requires more money to buy supplies, create a larger space, and potentially hire more staff as order volumes grow.
6. Product variety
Print-on-demand gives you unparalleled flexibility in product variety without additional cost. Many artists choose POD because it’s free to expand or change product offerings. This model is ideal for experimenting with diverse designs and products.
Valuable read: Print-on-Demand Product Launch Checklist
DIY poses limitations in product variety. Expanding your range can require additional equipment or materials specific to different products. While it allows for customized production, the effort and cost to diversify are considerably higher in DIY than in print-on-demand, where variety can be achieved with just a few clicks.
7. Shipping times and costs
Because large print-on-demand companies ship a large volume of products, they often have lower shipping rates, so their shipping prices are lower, too. The waiting times vary depending on the provider.
Printing yourself can result in quicker delivery times. However, without the volume discounts that print-on-demand services enjoy, DIY shipping can be more costly, potentially reducing profit margins.
8. Quality consistency
POD offers less control over quality consistency, relying on the standards of the partner company. But, partnering with a trustworthy provider can ensure high-quality results.
DIY printing allows complete oversight of quality, ensuring consistency in every product. Yet you should note that the result depends on the equipment and materials available to the business owner, which may not match the advanced technology used by specialized print-on-demand services.
Source: Printful
9. Customization flexibility
If you’re using POD services, you’re limited to your POD partner’s customization capabilities. Here are Printful’s customization options:
Plus, depending on the selling platform, you can let your customers personalize their products on your store.
While DIY printing offers greater flexibility in customization, introducing new techniques can be resource-intensive. Each customization technique requires its own machinery, leading to significant investment in equipment for each method.
10. Skill and labor intensity
Because a third-party provider handles the technical aspects of printing and shipping, print-on-demand is less skill-demanding and labor-intensive.
This model requires basic design skills but no physical labor or technical print knowledge. To make the designing process easy, Printful has developed a free design tool—the Design Maker. It has an extensive library of design resources like clipart and ready-made designs, hundreds of fonts and background graphics, and tools like background removal.
Source: Printful
Valuable read: 11 Things You Didn’t Know Printful’s Design Maker Could Do
The DIY approach requires a broad skill set and significant time. If you print products yourself, you must manage the entire production process:
As a DIY printing business grows, owners often need additional help to manage the increasing demands of production, shipping, and customer service.
Source: Printful
Source: Unsplash
