print on demand – Splendid Mint

In my previous post, I talked about how I started gaining passive income as an artist on Redbubble. I explored how I was able to fine-tune my shop and boost my sales through trial and error. Let’s dive deeper into this topic as I answer questions from my social media followers.

How did you find out about Redbubble?

I don’t remember, but I definitely started out as a shopper and not an artist. I was probably looking online for some stickers and landed on the site!

What made you decide to try selling your art on there?

I was searching for ways to make money off of my art. I read about print-on-demand services and Redbubble was on a list of popular POD sites. Having previously shopped on Redbubble, I was already somewhat familiar with the site, so I decided to give it a try.

What is your niche? How did you choose it?

I primarily sell Christian designs (like Bible verses, Christian quotes, and cross designs.) I did not start out working in this genre. When I started my shop, I made a huge variety of designs, like monograms, inspirational quotes, random illustrations, abstract art, etc. I ended up narrowing my portfolio down to Christian designs because I enjoyed making them the most, and pretty soon I started attracting a customer base that specifically enjoyed those designs.
I also tried selling botanical patterns for a while. Although I did sell a few, it was clear that people were coming to my shop because they wanted to see my Christian designs. Because of that, I decided to cull my shop stock so that it appeals to the traffic I’m already getting.

How many designs do you have in your shop?

I typically have less than 50. I try not to keep too many up, because I only want customers to see the ones that they are most likely to buy. Too much stock in an online store can mean losing the attention of the customer.

How do you come up with new designs/choose which ones will be in the store?

It’s a combination of following popular trends and letting my own creativity flow! It can be frustrating, because the designs that I like the most are typically the ones that don’t sell. The designs I make by just doodling without any intention of really selling them are the ones that tend to become popular. I sometimes cycle through different designs to gauge how they will sell.

What products do you mostly sell?

I sell a ton of stickers. I also get a handful of sales from t-shirts, tote bags, and tapestries each month.

How often do you have to make new designs?

Redbubble does not require me to make a certain amount of designs, however I like to try to update my shop at least a couple times a month.

What is their product quality like? Have you tried using them for art prints?

Redbubble’s product quality varies based on the item and the type of printing that was used on it. Their t-shirt printing varies from excellent to just okay, depending on the design and how it was printed. Their stickers are thick and durable. I’ve gotten some great items from them, but I really would not recommend their art prints.

What percentage does the artist make from each sale?

I think the default for most products is 20%, but the artist can control the profit margin by adjusting the markup percentage.

Do you know of any sites like Redbubble, where artists could sell their own merchandise?

There are almost a ridiculous amount of sites where artists can use POD services. Some of my favorites are Printful, Society6, and Inprnt. I will have to write a future blog post to talk about these more extensively!

Do you recommend Redbubble? Do you think it would work for me? Do you think my art is good enough?

I absolutely recommend Redbubble for artists seeking to expand their income. It’s easy to start a shop and requires no work to keep running. I also love that Redbubble does all its own advertising, so I never feel like I’m struggling to bring more customers to my shop. I think anyone could make money as an artist on Redbubble, regardless of skill level. It has a vastly diverse product range and customer base, so there’s something on there for everyone! The hardest part is just working past those first few months where you don’t have an audience built yet. Keep working, and you will eventually see results.

Around the beginning of 2021, I started searching for ways to earn passive income with my art. I quickly discovered POD, aka Print-on-Demand, a service offered by various companies who will print your custom design onto the merchandise of your choosing. This means that artists can have their art printed on mugs, t-shirts, tapestries, stickers, greeting cards, etc. and order only as many as they desire to sell. On top of this, many of the companies that provide POD services also provide a service called drop shipping, where they produce, print, and ship the artist’s merchandise directly to the customer.

The combination of POD and drop shipping allow artists to design and sell their art without ever having to keep inventory or deal with postage and packaging. Thanks to this technology, any artist with a computer can successfully grow their art business without having to even leave the house!

This brings us to Redbubble: a POD site I had shopped on, but never really tried to utilize for my business. Part of my passive income adventure meant trying as many POD services as possible to find what worked for me. Redbubble became one of many of my online shops.

While I continue to use several POD sites, Redbubble has become my most dependable source of passive income so far. My Redbubble shop consistently makes around $100-200 per month (more around major holidays) and my sales are only growing. I have learned that this is not the case for most first-year Redbubblers, so… what did I do differently? I’ll be honest, I can’t say I know for sure, but I can share with you some steps I took that helped my shop grow!

I experimented.

When I started out using POD, I tried to upload as many of my original designs as possible. They varied in style and genre: realistic portraits, fantasy illustrations, text designs, floral patterns… I used them all. Anything I had drawn and owned the rights for, I used. Even though I no longer post EVERYTHING, (nor would I recommend doing so) it was beneficial to me at the time. I learned which of my designs were liked, and which ones would be totally ignored. I learned that if I used stock photos/illustrations in any aspect of my art, they were less likely to sell than my original works. I learned that once I had a design that was enjoyed by others, customers would come to my shop looking for other similar designs. I learned that success looks very different depending on the site and artist. On some sites, my book quote designs make my main income; on others, it’s my cutesy house illustrations. Different sites have different audiences with different desires.

Experimenting with my products visually helped me build a more profitable business. Would customers prefer white text on a black background, or black text on a white background? Would they prefer repeating patterns, or pictures with one focal point? I played around with my designs until I was able to pinpoint what customers wanted from me.

I avoided anything copyrighted.

One of the things that makes Redbubble popular is that you can find art that caters to anyone’s individual taste. In the past I’ve bought a vintage floral apron for myself, a medieval notebook for my son, a meme poster for a friend, and even biohazard stickers for my husband – all from Redbubble. The possibilities are endless. The downside of such possibilities is that, while you can create almost anything, you can also easily infringe on something that is already copyrighted. TV shows, books, movies, and pop culture have a high demand for merchandise. (Just think of how many Star Wars or Harry Potter t-shirts you’ve seen.) Fan art will often be more popular than original art, because people are more likely to buy a product when it depicts something they already love. Thus, the temptation for artists to use copyrighted material grows.

The dangers of using copyrighted material, in my opinion, are not worth losing your business. Not only can your shop be closed, but you may also face legal charges in certain circumstances. Research and understand things such as commercial licensing, public domain, and copyright infringement before you start making designs. Even when you download a new font, you need to make sure that the creator of the font will allow you to use it for commercial purposes. There are Redbubble shops that primarily sell things that are not legal for them to sell (such as merchandise from your favorite TV show) and get away with it. That being said, I have encountered many Redbubblers who have lost their shops or had their artwork removed from the site because of copyright issues. In general, I suggest steering clear of any material that legally belongs to someone else, unless you specifically have rights to it.

I found my niche.

Any art-related business you start will have to answer the following questions: To niche, or not to niche? This could be very easy to answer if you start out with a specific business in mind. Maybe you’re out to sell your realistic, ink drawings of ravens. Maybe your passion is making repeating geometric designs. In any case, for a business to be successful, the customer base must be identified. Finding a niche can bring you customers who are looking for products in a specific category.

When I started my Redbubble shop, I did not know how to establish a customer base. All of my work up until that point had been freelancing; I had always found my clients first, and then drawn what they wanted. In this new endeavor, I was producing art and throwing it into the nether of the internet, praying that someone would take notice. I realized when one style of products began getting more “likes” and sales than any of my other works, that customers were going to my shop specifically to find more of what they liked. I started pruning and gearing my portfolio towards that niche, and my sales increased.

That being said, there are quite successful RedBubble shops that do not work within a niche. Every artist must experiment to find what works for them!

I studied.

This is likely what has had the largest impact on my RedBubble sales: I studied as much as I could. I spent time figuring out the best tags to use. I scrutinized popular products to see what made them popular and what sort of designs were trending. I found YouTube videos about product design. I looked at current trends. I learned how to write descriptions that would be caught by search engines. I observed my shop’s traffic through Google Analytics, and gained valuable information about my shop’s audience.

I still have much to learn, and the market is constantly changing – so I have to keep studying. I know that as soon as I stop growing, so will my business.

I quit spending time and energy on marketing.

One of the reasons I recommend RedBubble for artists is that they market for you! Redbubble gets plenty of traffic, and they are great at driving customers to new products and shops. Through targeted advertising, they can even bring you customers who are specifically relevant to your products from third party websites. This means that Redbubble can feature your products in ads on places like Google or Youtube and bring you new customers straight from there – without any work from you!

During my first few months on Redbubble, I tried posting my new products on Pinterest and sharing them with friends and family via Instagram. I noticed that the few sales I was getting at the time came from Redbubble itself. I’ve never gotten a sale from Pinterest, and I’ve had only a handful of friends and family buy from my shop. With my Redbubble audience growing on its own, I decided not to waste my time with marketing. This gave me more time to work on new designs and tweak my shop.

I didn’t give up.

When you try something new, you will often be faced with the temptation to quit when you are not successful right away. In my first few months of selling on RedBubble, I was tempted to give up and move on to something else. I would excitedly post a new design only to have it largely ignored by the masses. Remember how I said I was working on as many online shops as possible? It took me several months to see significant sales in any of them, and in some of them, I still don’t! I used the disappointment and frustration I felt to motivate myself to improve my business and art skills. I only started to see results after I had failed over and over… and over… again.

Ultimately, $1000 is not much to earn in a year. What I really gained was knowledge and experience to build a POD business. RedBubble gave me encouragement in knowing that I can make money from my art (without freelancing) and I can only grow further as an artist!

Tag: print on demand

Finding Success on Redbubble: a Q&A