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Have you ever had a great idea for a t-shirt or bumper sticker and had absolutely no way to produce them – much less, sell them? Maybe you’ve got a great design idea for a chair or table, but have no idea how to do any woodworking. Or you might have a book that you’ve written, but don’t know how to get it published much less placed in book stores?
Ten years ago, if you wanted to create and sell a bumper sticker, you would have a huge task ahead of you. First you would have to find a manufacturer and print hundreds of them out of your own pocket, then you would need to find some place to sell them. This would probably mean visiting local stores or calling distributor and trying to get them to take you seriously. Or you could go the old fashioned route and sell them out of the trunk of your car.
Times have changed as you are well aware of, and I’d like to draw your attention to four sites that are changing the way the average person can do business.
- First check out CafePress or Zazzle.
At either one of these sites you can design and create your own products, and then sell them right on their website through your own personal storefront, or you could sell using direct links placed on your website. You can literally sell to thousands if not millions of customers without ever having to touch a piece of inventory.
Some of the products you can create and sell using CafePress or Zazzle include:
- T-Shirts
- Greeting Cards
- Bags
- Gift Certificates
- Stickers
- Buttons
- CD’s
- Hats
- Your imagination is truly the limit, and best of all you really don’t have to pay anything to sign up, create, and sell your products.
- If you are more the literary type and prefer books to bumper stickers, then check out Lulu.
- Finally, if you are a little more ambitious, or know your stuff when it comes to 3D modeling and design, you can check out Ponoko.
Check out this Sweet Earnontheside.com T-shirt!, or check out some of the other products available below.
Lulu works the same as CafePress and Zazzle in that you write the book, upload it to Lulu, and then sell it online. You can set your own price, tell them how you want the book bound, and even get your own ISBN for a fee so that you can get distributed by over 60,000 retail locations. Lulu will print and ship orders as they come in, or you can print in bulk and sell them yourself.
Again, Ponoko works the same ways as CafePress, Zazzle, or Lulu, in that you design the products and sell them online through Ponoko’s website. The difference is in what you can create with Ponoko. Ponoko uses laser cutting technology along with 3D designs to create just about anything you can think of. It seriously amazes me to see the things that people have made with this technology. Just check out The Ponoko Showroom for some examples of what can be done.
Designers can use many different materials including wood, plastic, and acrylic to design anything from earrings to furniture, and have the products individually made and shipped to the customer. Prices can range from just a few bucks to several hundred, depending on the size and complexity of the piece.
Ponoko is definitely not for the faint of heart, as you need a pretty good understanding of 3D modeling using programs (like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw). But, if you have the skills and an artistic eye, you might be able to make some decent money designing things.
There is a real revolution going on in terms of manufacturing and selling products. You no longer need to be a major corporation or have a huge inventory to make money selling products. So, start designing and feel free to post your designs in the comment section of this article. I’d love to see them!
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There sure are a lot of PODs (Print On Demand services) available now. I hadn’t heard of Ponoko, sounds like an interesting concept, worth checking out.
In addition to Cafepress and Zazzle, more PODs that I have stuff with are RedBubble (posters, prints, cards), Imagekind (prints and cards), and Printfection (T-Shirts).
I’ve also heard of others like, Greeting Card Universe and Spreadshirt. It seems like every time I look there’s another POD company around. There’s sure to be something of interest for just about anyone with a creative leaning.
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Technology has given us so many ways to start businesses. Like you said once upon a time it took so much preparation and layout to do simple things we take for granted. Great post, thanks Kweezel.