Why I Shut Down My Print-On-Demand Store After Only Four Months

The shocking truth behind my short-lived print-on-demand store.

Starting a business is no easy feat, and for me, it was even more challenging to shut one down after only four months. I had high hopes for my print-on-demand store. According to the YouTubers, it is the perfect business model — low-risk, low-investment, and potentially high returns.

However, as with most “get really rich” ventures, there is a boatload of unforeseen challenges and obstacles that you won’t find out about until you’re already fully committed.

Since the reason I write is to empower others to find their best path to transformation, I’m going to give you an insider’s perspective on POD. I’ll reveal its challenges, why I abandoned it, and prevalent issues others discuss. I promise I won’t persuade you towards another business model or promote affiliate links. I’m not here to sell you anything; this is purely to help you decide if POD suits your path.

Let’s begin.

The allure of print-on-demand

The idea of starting a print-on-demand store was exciting. With companies like Teespring, Printify, and Gelato claiming that they are making it easier than ever to create and sell custom products, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to turn my creative ideas into a profitable business.

I could make the designs with AI, upload them to a print provider, and let the platform handle everything else — production, shipping, and customer service.

It sounded like a dream come true for any budding entrepreneur.

And I fully admit I jumped in without due diligence. I needed extra income, and it’s never a good idea to make major decisions when you are desperate.

After hours and hours of creating and uploading designs on the store, generating mockups, and making countless social posts, the reality was far from what I had imagined.

The idea of passive income and minimal effort quickly turned into a nightmare of fixing mistakes in the back end, deleting spam messages, and trying to figure out all the ins and outs of running an online store.

The Challenges of POD

Here are the top challenges I faced while running my print-on-demand store:

Standing out in an oversaturated market.

With so many people jumping on the print-on-demand bandwagon, it can be challenging to make new products stand out in the sea of endless competition. Marketing and promoting my store became a full-time job, taking away from the time I could spend on creating new designs (or doing other endeavours that may have been more profitable.)

Making products that meet market demand.

The print-on-demand designs that usually sell are different from those that I would personally choose to buy. Are there really people out there who wear leggings with avocados printed all over them? That said, the designs I was creating aren’t for everyone either.

So this created a dilemma of whether to create designs that made me gag to cater to the larger market or try to find the tiny percentage of people that would appreciate my designs.

It’s really hard to sell products that you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in wearing pants with avocados. Therefore, I won’t be able to convince customers to buy them.

POD comes with its own dictionary.

Trying to learn the terminology of print-on-demand was interesting. For the most part, each print provider has its own version of industry jargon. For example, one company says “all over print,” and another calls it a “patterned print.” This results in confusion and errors in product listings, undermining the store’s consistency and reliability.

Filtering through cold calls and spam.

For the first month, I would get multiple messages a day by email and socials from folks who had found my store and thought the products were incredible but noticed that there were multiple reasons that I wasn’t getting sales. And, of course, they were more than willing to help me (for an undisclosed fee).

I get it that cold calls are a thing, especially from freelancers and Fiverr experts.

Still, it is really frustrating being spammed with these offers, especially if you work full-time and you’re trying to sift through messages because you don’t want to miss one from an actual customer. It also messes with your metrics when a spammer follows your socials and then unfollows you for not using their services.

Mastering back-end operations needs special skills.

Knowing how to work the back end of an online store takes some technical skill. Even a Shopify store (which is very beginner-friendly) requires that you at least understand what code is and how it affects the look of your store.

For example, I once worked with customer service for a whole hour trying to figure out how to change the look of the Shop Now button. It turned out that I couldn’t because the free theme didn’t have that capability written into the code.

You will also have to research apps to use if you want your store to do anything other than what comes with the basic functions of the platform. Apps can run anywhere from $9.99 to $29.99 each month.

Essential contact details for your store.

Your store will need a business phone number, email address, and physical address (if you are going to accept returns). You definitely won’t want to put your personal number and address on your online store.

Therefore, you will need to pay for a service to provide a business number and a PO box for your store. You will also need to register your domain name, as well as your business name, if your country requires it.

Limited control over product quality and shipping times.

As a print-on-demand store owner, you are relying on the production and shipping capabilities of your chosen print provider. This means that if there are any delays or issues with product quality, it reflects poorly on your business.

Especially tough is that we’ve all gotten used to Amazon’s fast delivery. POD takes time to make since it is made to order. You will need to plaster that all over your store and include it in your policies so that people understand that they may not get the product for up to three weeks.

Receiving fraudulent orders.

The print provider usually detects an order that is at high risk of fraud and will notify you. You can then cancel the order and issue a refund, saving the risk of being ripped off.

However, if you don’t have the manual order button checked, you won’t see that warning until after the order has already gone through. You will then need to contact the print provider to cancel the order and refund the customer.

After all that, you need to make a decision: should you contact the customer and request them to use another payment method? Alternatively, you could mark it as fraud, but there’s the risk that they might be a legitimate customer who also happens to be an influencer with five million followers.

Each POD has a different set of specs to follow.

This could be anything from one wanting the design in inches to another in pixels. Some companies will increase the DPIs (dots per inch) for you, while others require that you only upload designs with 300 DPIs.

Good luck trying to figure out how to upscale a design that you created with AI that comes in mug size to the size needed for a blanket. Most of the gurus are going to keep that information a secret.

So, if you are new, what you are left with is a bad product, and you won’t know until you order a sample. The print provider isn’t going to contact you to let you know that your design, which looks beautiful on the screen, is pixelated and blurry when printed. If you have 200 designs and are on a tight budget, ordering multiple samples is going to be hard.

The quality of products from the production companies varied greatly.

There is a lack of consistency from one company to the next, and sometimes even within one company. You could order a sample and be happy with the results, but three months later, the company changed out the machine or the ink, and now your product is garbage.

The constant changes and inability to control what’s happening on the production side lead to dissatisfied customers and negative reviews.

Creating decent mockups is expensive.

If you want to have nice photos of your product, you either have to buy samples and take your own pictures, or you have to rely on a mockup generator. Either way, you have to outlay money and time to promote your product.

Dealing with returns and refunds adds to the workload and decreases profits.

The YouTuber that I was following says that the best practice for small POD companies is to accept returns only if the item arrives damaged or misprinted. If the person doesn’t like the item or orders the wrong size, then there is no refund.

His policy is to have the customer send a photo of the item in question and assess whether the damage or print error is worth a refund. If it is deemed that the customer’s complaint is legitimate, then the business owner must contact the print provider on their behalf. The company may or may not agree to refund the customer or do a reprint.

If not, and assuming that you care about your customers, you will have to refund the customer or pay the print provider to make a new product and ship it to the customer.

I have heard stories of businesses discouraging returns by making the customer ship the item to the small business at their own expense and then scrutinizing whether it’s worth a refund.

If you’re lucky, you might only lose repeat sales from the customer, but this practice may result in damage to your brand.

There are hidden fees that the POD providers do not tell you about.

Most of these companies have websites that splash “100% Free to Use” all across their home page. It isn’t until you have downloaded the app onto your store and started using it that you learn this isn’t completely true.

There are charges associated with processing customer payments, as well as fees applicable when utilizing payment platforms such as PayPal or Stripe to receive your payout.

All of these add up and can eat into your profits. Not only do the companies not mention these fees upfront, but their website makes it look like you will be making easy money.

There is no such thing as easy money.

Decent design software costs money and is a steep learning curve.

If you want to make designs that are worth printing on a product, you can’t just use the free version of Canva. Each design software has licensing rules that you have to follow as well.

And even if you pay for the best creative AI out there, this technology still has a long way to go.

For example, you could make a wonderful design of a horse to print in a blanket, then spend hours trying to figure out how to remove the extra legs the AI added. Or worse, you don’t notice the extra appendages until a customer leaves a review mocking your eight-legged cow.

You can’t just print whatever you want on a t-shirt.

There are trademark laws that you have to be aware of. Getting sued by Taylor Swift is one sure way to eat up any profits you made printing her song lyrics on t-shirts (as well as losing all your possessions).

It would be best if you did a lot of research on trademark and copyright infringement so you can avoid it at all costs. Even an image that looks similar to a trademarked Disney character or a line from a movie script can get you into hot water.

Shipping in Canada is way more expensive than in the USA.

Most of the print providers are US-based companies, with a few having warehouses in multiple countries. However, even if there is a print shop in Canada, the items are still really expensive to ship. Expensive shipping was what confirmed that print-on-demand was not a viable business option for me, and this was the final challenge that caused me to break up with POD.

The Final Straw

After three months of hard work and disappointment, I finally got an order three weeks before Christmas. It was from a friend, but I was still excited to hear the ‘ching’ notification. The excitement was quickly replaced with panic.

The statement for her order indicated that she had paid $47 shipping on a $150 purchase!

Somewhere along the way, I had missed the fact that I was supposed to add the shipping costs to the retail price of each listed item. I felt terrible that my friend was trying to support me, and the shipping was more than half of her items.

Looking into it more, I realized that the main print provider I was using added an unreasonable amount for shipping.

Here’s an example breakdown:

I created cloth napkins with Christmas patterns on them. They come in sets of four.

The cost to make them is $18.97, and the print provider suggests a 20% markup [18.97 x 1.2 = 22.76].

Then, you have to add the cost to ship at $6.99.

The total production cost, therefore, is $29.75 [22.76 + 6.99 = 29.75].

That gives a $3.79 profit [18.97 x 20% = 3.79]

However, what the print providers don’t indicate is that:

1. The processing fees are deducted from the $3.79.
2. Even if the customer buys multiples of the same item and they are shipped in the same box, someone still has to cover the $6.99 for each item. For example, if the customer orders three sets of cloth napkins, you will owe $20.97 in shipping, even if it only costs the company $10 to ship the box.
3. The platform you use will also charge either a monthly fee or will deduct a percentage from each sale. Each app that you use will also follow the same system.

The reality is that by the time you pay for all of the services, you will be making little to no profit. In the end, not only did I feel bad about charging my friend $47 in shipping, but I only profited $10.49 from her $150 order. That was before I deducted the service and app fees, so her order ended up coming out of my pocket.

I had to face the harsh reality that any store I run needs to be more sustainable. Despite my initial excitement and optimism, the numbers showed a different story — minimal sales, high expenses, and zero profit.

It was a tough decision to make, but ultimately, it was necessary to cut my losses and switch the store to a different format.

Lessons Learned

Looking back on this experience, I learned some valuable lessons that I will carry with me in any future business venture:

1. The importance of market research and finding a unique selling point in a crowded market.
2. I need to be careful which YouTubers I watch. I have some favourites that have earned my trust, but if the title contains too many zeros, it’s probably too good to be true.
3. When you are strapped for cash, fear may override the fact that there is no such thing as easy money. Therefore, embarking on a new venture when you’re in panic mode may not be the wisest decision.

Conclusion

Closing down my print-on-demand store was a difficult decision, but it was also a necessary one. While the allure of passive income and minimal effort was enticing, the reality was far from it. I worried that I hadn’t given it enough time, but in the end, the time I was spending on it and the stress it was causing made it not worth the income that it may or may not bring in.

And don’t get me wrong, some people are making money from print-on-demand. Or so they say. Claiming that they made $1000 in sales does not mean that they put $1000 in their pockets. Especially after they deduct the costs that they don’t talk about, such as buying ads and paying fees to the print providers, payment processors, and shipping services.

In any case, I hope this article gave you a realistic view of print-on-demand so you can make an informed decision before jumping in like I did.