[PRO Tips] Use POD model to create passive income: money-making thinking for low-cost E-Commerce

What is POD mode?

Key benefits include:

• Zero inventory, so there is no cost pressure from excess inventory
• No inventory management required, reducing operational complexity
• Customers can customize products
• Low-risk business, no large capital investment required
• A one-time effort that becomes a permanent source of passive income once it’s launched.

How to make money with POD e-commerce model

Take Printful as an example. It is one of the well-known POD platforms. After registering an account, complete the following three steps:

Create a Printful account

The first step is easy. If you don’t have a Printful account, you need to create one. Just go to our page, click Sign up and fill in your info. It’s quick and completely free.

Find your business niche

Before you move on to store and product setup, you should have a good understanding of your business idea and your target audience. You know the old saying: “When you’re selling to everyone, you’re selling to no one.”

Connect your store to Printful

If you don’t have an online store, you’ll need to create one to start selling with us. You can set up your store on an ecommerce platform or an online marketplace. With your Printful account, you have a lot of options to choose from. Recommend use Shopify to connect with Printful, you can check Shopify tutorial by clicking here. Choose the cheapest plan(Not over than 5,000 HKD/yr) with Shopify is okay.

Add products to store

The next thing on your list is adding a product to your store. Choose the Product templates tab again. Pick the product template you want to add to your store and click Add to store. Here you can choose the colors and sizes of the product, add mockups, write your product description, and set your price. 

Set up pricing

Figuring out your product pricing is a real balancing act between two prices—the Printful price and your retail price. The Printful price is what you pay us for product fulfillment. The retail price is what your customers will see and pay you. Now you have to figure out how much profit you’ll want to earn per product and add that on top of the product fulfillment price.

Add payment methods

Another thing you need to set up is payment methods. Here’s what happens when a customer buys from your store:

• Your customer pays you the retail price on your store’s platform
• You pay Printful for fulfillment, shipping, and relevant taxes

The payments are not linked with each other. When your customer places an order in your shop, Printful does not have access to the money your customer pays for the order.

Place a sample order

This step isn’t mandatory, but I’d recommend that you order a sample of your products. Designs you see on the screen may look a little different when printed on fabric, so ordering samples will help you make sure that you’re satisfied with the final result. 

Start marketing

Alright. You’ve got your store, your products, and your payment methods all set up. Now you can start selling. This is where your marketing skills come in. A good marketing strategy will drive customers to your store, so you should think about branding and your social media presence. You can check how our students make the store online by clicking here.

There you have it! Now, go have fun starting your business!