Print on Demand Masterclass

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PRINT ON DEMAND MASTERCLASS

606 Words | 2 Min 30 Sec Read

Print-on-demand is nothing new; it's a cheap and effective way to start your own clothing line. You don’t need to buy any inventory or deal with any handling of products, but you still reap the rewards.

Instead of buyin a bunch of inventory and shipping it out per sale, print on demand allows you to only buy inventory when someone has already purchased it - which for you basically means no upfront cost.

In this Kaizen Sunday edition, we are going to explore a case study of a company that has re-invented the print-on-demand wheel using the power of TikTok alone.

This is SillyCityco, a clothing line that blew up entirely on TikTok through the most simple viral marketing techniques.

Their product is simple: t-shirts & sweaters with silly catchphrases on them designed to target a young audience that they can resonate with, really pushing the ‘cute’ message.

At a glance, you would think ‘cool, just a good idea’ but when you take a look at their sales, you would instead think ‘cool, just an insane idea’.

So how in the world would a simple concept like this generate 15,000+ sales, presumably in the last 3 months alone?

That's right, Tiktok.

They posted their first video at the end of December 2023 (perfectly timed for Christmas sales) and since then have generated well over 28,700,000+ views on 11 videos alone!

And they weren't even videos; they were carousel photos; take a look.

This is the kind of content that generated SillyCityCo well over 28 million views in 3 months and presumably generated the bulk of those 15,000 sales.

How much money did they make?

Although we can’t be 100% sure, if you take a look at companies like Printify, they can buy a printed basic t-shirt for $9.33 with $2–4 shipping, and they sell it on their website for $25, which leaves them with an average profit of $11 per t-shirt.

Now if you multiply that by 15,000, that's $165,000 in the last 3 months alone (estimated).

Regardless of whether that's higher or lower, it's still not a bad return for having to do nothing but post a few photos to TikTok.

What's the takeaway?

The takeaway is that SillyCityCo didn’t re-invent the wheel here; they took a service that already works (print on demand) and approached it with a unique twist that incorporated all of the right viral factors to turn the business into an instant success.

90% of the comments on their posts are people tagging other people to share something relatable and therefore massively increases the amount of eyeballs to their Etsy store.

GET STARTED

1) Unique concept.

Firstly, you need a unique concept. Something that has a lot of viral potential is going to blow your business up. SillyCityCo took advantage of a specific audience type and played on emotion to sell their products.

If you want to do something similar, you need to dive into a specific demographic. You could do this through a popular TV show or a sub-category of die-hard fans. It’s your job to rack your brain on this one.

2) Marketing plan of attack.

How are you going to get your products into the eyes of millions of people? Are you going to use the same method as SillyCityCo? Plan it out and strategize.

3) Learn how to use print on demand.

Learn how to use the platform, set up your account, and create your storefront so that when orders come in, you’re ready for them.

4) Incorporate the community.

If you want repeat customers then you need to make sure that you take advantage of community.

LET US HELP YOU OUT ⤵️

If you have a problem you’ve recently faced or a question you think needs a clear answer, send us an email at [email protected] and in next week's edition, we will feature it anonymously, giving you the best advice we can!

See you next week!