Evan Carmichael explains how artists and entrepreneurs can use Zazzle to test designs and validate demand with almost no upfront cost. Start with print-on-demand to build a customer base, then scale winning designs into bulk orders. It won't make you rich, but it cuts inventory risk and proves concepts work.
Chapters
What do I think about Zazzle? So I got a great question from one of my Google+ viewers, William, love you guys, who wrote in to say, "Hello Evan, I would really like to hear your opinion on print-on-demand websites such as Zazzle and Spreadshirt. I see a lot of artists and entrepreneurs using their services. I personally have decided to go down a different path because for me I feel it's not the right way to do business, but I think it would make for an interesting discussion if you can give your thoughts on it." So William, this will be an interesting discussion. Unfortunately in one way, because, you know, unless you want to make a video response, I'd love to see that. But I'm actually a fan of Zazzle, and I'll tell you why. You're not gonna make millions of dollars selling stuff on Zazzle, okay? But that's not the point. The point of Zazzle is to help you get started. This is why you use Zazzle, is to help you launch your business. If you're trying to launch a t-shirt line, okay, so you want to launch a new brand of t-shirts, the way that most entrepreneurs go about it is you have to go and buy t-shirts, right? You have to stock up on inventory. So you create your design and then you have to go and get men's and women's from extra small to 3XL, and you're carrying lots of inventory. If you're waiting for an order to come and then you're gonna go put out that order, right? Like some guy comes and says, "Hey, I like that shirt. I want to buy one." You gotta go print one. That's gonna be super expensive for you. You're not gonna make any money off it. So the way to make money is to sell 1,000 of them, 5,000 of them, 10,000 of them. Make that kind of order because then the cost per shirt comes down. To a price where you can make money. But this is the big but, the big problem is that you don't know which shirt's going to sell or not. And so many people take the little money that they have, right? I'm assuming money is important to you. You don't have a ton of reserves built up. You can't blow this cash. Whatever money you spend has to pay off, right? They blow their money on that first run, that first line, and then it doesn't sell, and you're stuck with all these shirts sitting in your garage. So why I love Zazzle is because it allows you to test out your concept without spending any money on it, right? You may have 20 designs for shirt ideas. Maybe 2 of them will be amazing and the other 18 won't work out, but you don't know until you test. You may think they're all amazing. You gotta see what the market wants too. So Zazzle allows you to put them online, right? You put them online, you may make a dollar a shirt, you may make 50 cents a shirt, it doesn't matter. What you're doing is testing the concept and also building a customer base. So you put them online, you promote them like you would promote your regular shirts, and you see what does well. If you can sell 100 shirts on Zazzle, now you can talk about having justification to go out and create an order. And spend money to buy 1,000 shirts where you can start making some money. But if you can't sell 100 shirts on Zazzle, then why would you go out and order 1,000 shirts? You're gonna lose your money on it. So I love Zazzle for early stage, for proving a concept, for showing that this thing works, that people actually care, that people actually buy your product, and then taking the winning ideas and going out and launching a line with that. That's why I love Zazzle. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, support me by clicking the link in the description. You can leave a comment, let me know what you think, or click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
