Testing Your Ideas With Print on Demand
Gather data as you launch!
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Testing Your Ideas With Print on Demand (POD)
When I launched my first book, I went all in. I spent thousands of dollars and several failed printing attempts at manufacturing a super complex book. (Don’t get me started on concealed wire-o book bindings 😅). Thankfully, it all worked out. People liked the book and I eventually sold all of them. But it was risky. I didn’t really have a proven concept. I didn’t know if there would be demand. And I had no idea how hard it would be to market my book. (Spoiler alert: It is hard!)
A faster, cheaper way to bring a new product to market, and a way to test your idea, is to print it on demand. I’ve written about print on demand (POD) before if you need a quick overview. It’s where you only have your items printed and shipped as someone places an order. No inventory or bulk orders needed. The best part about this is you can test many different products and designs at once to see which sell and which don’t.
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Using my book as an example, I could have published it to Amazon KDP for a few months to see how sales went. Was I selling enough to warrant a bulk order? Were the reviews positive? Was I getting feedback that something needed to change? I could gather all that data as I was making sales. THEN, I could have turned around and made a more informed decision about buying a small run of books.
This is even more helpful when it comes to products that are design-heavy. Will your customers want the design in blue, green, etc.? Sell them both on demand and see which one does best.
I’m doing this right now with my scarves and I can’t tell you how happy I am that I went this route. This is giving me time to test a new product and design idea. I don’t have 2,000 scarves in my basement. If this design tanks, I can try a new one, or pivot my business model entirely.
Just because you start with print on demand doesn’t mean you have to stick with it.
If you have a product that is selling really well, that might be your clue that it’s time to manufacture it in small runs. You can increase your profit margins and often create a higher quality product this way.