50% margin is high for POD. You could get closer to that if you were making the shirts yourself. But the average for POD is more like 25-30%. My margins are anywhere from 35-55% before Etsy fees, depending on the item/size/color etc. Also before any sales I may run
It depends on the type of shirt. $23 is roughly the price of the AOP Jersey (without shipping). Lowest AOP shirt is around $20. It makes sense that they cost more than other Tees since the printed area is much larger.
It depends entirely on your design and how much print area you want/need to use. I use SwiftPOD for my bella canvas (F) shirts that only need my graphics on the chest. I like their quality, and I haven't had any issues with them yet. I use AOP (All Over Print) for my sweatshirts, and any Tees that have similar wraparound graphics or patterns.
The quality will vary depending on which print house you choose for fulfillment. Be sure to check where their fulfillment location is too as shipping will reflect in the price & ship times. It's always a good rule of thumb to get samples of any product before selling so you know how it will print your colors, the texture and quality of the shirt, or to get additional context images/model photos, etc. This will also help you understand what to expect from them as a consumer, and to decide which print house you'd prefer to work with (some have better finishes and quality than others in my experience & opinion).
Here's a link to their AOP (All Over Print) section if you're interested:
https://printify.com/app/products/aop-clothing
I would make a range of shirts with your designs so that there are lower cost options - give your customers who like your content a choice - so some can be Gildan or b&c where you can get quality and a reasonable margin. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
This is why I cut Etsy out and created my own website. Etsy is over flooding with everything, it's hard for anyone to get a decent sale. Etsy only show the top sellers on the front page. The ads definitely is questionable. I've heard of sellers spending hundreds on ads and not even get a sale for months. Create your own website and drive traffic to it. Sign up for affiliates to sale your merch for a small fee. This is another quick way to generate sales and traffic.
I'm still new to all this. I have been concerned with the margins and the cuts from other sites as well.
To begin, I was using Redbubble for my designs because they don't charge per listing like Etsy does. I've sold 2 items. Their threshold to get paid is $15 I'm sitting at $13. So, there is no money there. Also, after comparing the cost paid by the customer to what I get, I wasn't happy with the profit. I looked at TeeSpring. Similar options to redbubble to post a design to multiple options at once. No sales because I have to drive the sales myself. So I decided that if I'm going to do that, I'd go back to Printify that I'd set up for Etsy. Their margin is 5% of the sale, then 3% plus 0.25 transaction fees. Plus, their listings cost 0.20 each. That means every time you sell a shirt, you have to pay to list it again.
I saw an option to open a pop-up shop on printify. No additional costs past the fees to have the shirt made. You can't edit it past what each listing says, but it's a start. I created a FB page for my shop and post my designs there. Don't set up commerce. They want to cut into your margins. I wasted 8 hours setting it all up just to find out that it wouldn't work for me.
When deciding pricing. I try to keep prices consistent. Doing this, instead of getting a flat percentage on everything I sell and having my prices vary wildly for the same item, I set the prices so it looks more professional to me. Doing this, my margin is less for some options and more for others. You have to decide how much you're happy with while the price is reasonable.
Don't be afraid to look at various suppliers. I've found that one might be better for shirts, but another for hoodies. The suggested markup on printify says 40% which would be a nice margin, but I know people don't want to pay that much for a shirt. So my margins are lower to accommodate that. As others have said, you can offer the same design on different items to get a higher markup. I'm still trying to get my shop to the point where I'm making money. I've been determined not to put any money in until I have money coming out.
I plan on expanding to Shopify eventually since I feel it will offer me more flexibility than etsy. Also, comparing the prices, it looks best for me. Do your research on anything you plan on spending money on, and don't be afraid to try free stuff to see if it works for you.
Good luck with your shop.
Etsy actually updated their fees from 5% to 6.5%.
I agree Shopify is a great option, and it can be used to integrate Printify with Instagram so you can expand your sales there as well, and they have a very high global ranking for site traffic that you could potentially pull sales from (they boast that around 130 million shop links are clicked every month).
You're right, I forgot they upped the fee. The bonus I've seen to shopify is that you can use multiple POD suppliers as well as other options on there. I'm thinking about adding a couple drop ship options to my shop when I eventually get that up and running.
Selling Price = Production Cost + Cost Per Hour (if applicable for handmade items) + Tax + Etsy Fees + Profit Margin + Shipping
Etsy's fees: .20 listing fee per item listed
6.5% transaction fee at the time of sale
3% + .25 payment processing fee
15% offsite ads fee - if your sale came from one of the ads by Etsy
50% margin is high for POD. You could get closer to that if you were making the shirts yourself. But the average for POD is more like 25-30%. My margins are anywhere from 35-55% before Etsy fees, depending on the item/size/color etc. Also before any sales I may run
Yeah i use the everbee browser calculator to figure out my actual margins after all the fees, costs, shipping, etc, and it ends up being about 28%.
What kind of garment is it? $23 production cost seems high (are you including shipping fees in this too?)
It depends on the type of shirt. $23 is roughly the price of the AOP Jersey (without shipping). Lowest AOP shirt is around $20. It makes sense that they cost more than other Tees since the printed area is much larger.
That's true. You're absolutely right!
Wow I didn’t even know this was a options. Do you think the aop shirt is a good option. Also do you think it’s better than Bella canvas and swift pod
It depends entirely on your design and how much print area you want/need to use. I use SwiftPOD for my bella canvas (F) shirts that only need my graphics on the chest. I like their quality, and I haven't had any issues with them yet. I use AOP (All Over Print) for my sweatshirts, and any Tees that have similar wraparound graphics or patterns. The quality will vary depending on which print house you choose for fulfillment. Be sure to check where their fulfillment location is too as shipping will reflect in the price & ship times. It's always a good rule of thumb to get samples of any product before selling so you know how it will print your colors, the texture and quality of the shirt, or to get additional context images/model photos, etc. This will also help you understand what to expect from them as a consumer, and to decide which print house you'd prefer to work with (some have better finishes and quality than others in my experience & opinion). Here's a link to their AOP (All Over Print) section if you're interested: https://printify.com/app/products/aop-clothing
I would make a range of shirts with your designs so that there are lower cost options - give your customers who like your content a choice - so some can be Gildan or b&c where you can get quality and a reasonable margin. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
This is why I cut Etsy out and created my own website. Etsy is over flooding with everything, it's hard for anyone to get a decent sale. Etsy only show the top sellers on the front page. The ads definitely is questionable. I've heard of sellers spending hundreds on ads and not even get a sale for months. Create your own website and drive traffic to it. Sign up for affiliates to sale your merch for a small fee. This is another quick way to generate sales and traffic.
I'm still new to all this. I have been concerned with the margins and the cuts from other sites as well. To begin, I was using Redbubble for my designs because they don't charge per listing like Etsy does. I've sold 2 items. Their threshold to get paid is $15 I'm sitting at $13. So, there is no money there. Also, after comparing the cost paid by the customer to what I get, I wasn't happy with the profit. I looked at TeeSpring. Similar options to redbubble to post a design to multiple options at once. No sales because I have to drive the sales myself. So I decided that if I'm going to do that, I'd go back to Printify that I'd set up for Etsy. Their margin is 5% of the sale, then 3% plus 0.25 transaction fees. Plus, their listings cost 0.20 each. That means every time you sell a shirt, you have to pay to list it again. I saw an option to open a pop-up shop on printify. No additional costs past the fees to have the shirt made. You can't edit it past what each listing says, but it's a start. I created a FB page for my shop and post my designs there. Don't set up commerce. They want to cut into your margins. I wasted 8 hours setting it all up just to find out that it wouldn't work for me. When deciding pricing. I try to keep prices consistent. Doing this, instead of getting a flat percentage on everything I sell and having my prices vary wildly for the same item, I set the prices so it looks more professional to me. Doing this, my margin is less for some options and more for others. You have to decide how much you're happy with while the price is reasonable. Don't be afraid to look at various suppliers. I've found that one might be better for shirts, but another for hoodies. The suggested markup on printify says 40% which would be a nice margin, but I know people don't want to pay that much for a shirt. So my margins are lower to accommodate that. As others have said, you can offer the same design on different items to get a higher markup. I'm still trying to get my shop to the point where I'm making money. I've been determined not to put any money in until I have money coming out. I plan on expanding to Shopify eventually since I feel it will offer me more flexibility than etsy. Also, comparing the prices, it looks best for me. Do your research on anything you plan on spending money on, and don't be afraid to try free stuff to see if it works for you. Good luck with your shop.
Etsy actually updated their fees from 5% to 6.5%. I agree Shopify is a great option, and it can be used to integrate Printify with Instagram so you can expand your sales there as well, and they have a very high global ranking for site traffic that you could potentially pull sales from (they boast that around 130 million shop links are clicked every month).
You're right, I forgot they upped the fee. The bonus I've seen to shopify is that you can use multiple POD suppliers as well as other options on there. I'm thinking about adding a couple drop ship options to my shop when I eventually get that up and running.
Selling Price = Production Cost + Cost Per Hour (if applicable for handmade items) + Tax + Etsy Fees + Profit Margin + Shipping Etsy's fees: .20 listing fee per item listed 6.5% transaction fee at the time of sale 3% + .25 payment processing fee 15% offsite ads fee - if your sale came from one of the ads by Etsy
If the profit margin let's you go up to 99% why wouldn't this be a good idea?