9 Creative Ways to Use Custom POD Products in Your Business

Are you struggling to innovate new product ideas & increase your revenue at the same time? Instead of doing meticulous research to figure out what sells & what falls flat, turn to print-on-demand (POD) to help fuel your success. 

Beyond the traditional ecommerce store, there are tons of ways to use POD products in your business without risk. Here’s how to get started.

1) Launch an Online Store for Your Service Business

Increase your business revenue without adding more services that take up valuable time & resources. Instead, launch an online store to support the business you already have. Whether you’re selling ebooks to support your dog-walking business or want to sell physical products, you can tap into the audience you already have to maximize your revenue. 

There are also ways to make the process as automated as possible. Once you come up with a design idea, upload your creations to your CustomCat library & apply them to mugs, hats, tote bags, & more. When your product sells, we fulfill & ship it out on your behalf with a custom label.

Learn how CustomCat works here.

2) Develop Your Own Merchandise

It’s easy to develop your own merchandise to share with customers, new business leads, & your loyal employees. Instead of opting for the usual pen set with your company logo, get creative with your creativity & designs. Next, apply them to CustomCat’s line of color-changing mugs, hoodies, travel-inspired gifts, housewares, bags, & more. You can sell them directly through your business website or use them as in-house incentives to reward your best employees & onboard new customers.

3) Create Custom Products for Customers

If you’re not creating custom products for customers, you’re leaving money on the table. Research shows that 81% of shoppers would be willing to pay more for customized clothing. Whether you want more control over the colors you offer or the designs you offer, you can make it happen with POD & CustomCat. If the customization doesn’t sell how you thought it would, you can remove it from your store & try something else, creating a more flexible way to run your business. 

4) Personalize Your Products & Shopping Experience

Personalizing your products is a similar concept to customizing them with creativity & care. But take it a step further & dig deep into what your customers really want. Here are a few ways you can add more personalization to your products to help boost your sales volume & revenue:

• Customer name
• Favorite quotes
• Suggest niche, highly-targeted products
• Create customized coupon codes for specific audience segments
• Cross-sell items that complement each other

If you’re stuck figuring out how to offer more personalization in your business, you can also ask your customers directly. Send out a survey or poll on what they want to see more of, what they’re tired of seeing, & which stores they think to offer the best online shopping experience.

5) Slash Your Business Overhead

If you’re struggling to squeeze more profit out of your business, you need to take a closer look at your overhead & hidden costs. Slash all of the unnecessary costs you can find, from subscriptions to inventory. Instead of housing all of the products you sell, outsource the entire process from start to finish instead.

CustomCat supercharges your online store so you can focus on running your business instead of working in it. Upload your designs to our library, choose your products, & use our convenient integrations to help automate the process. We’ll take care of production & fulfillment while you enjoy earning without paying for costly overhead.

6) Host a Print-On-Demand Giveaway

Reward your most loyal customers & raise brand awareness by hosting a POD giveaway. But instead of shipping off the same generic products, everyone else is using, make your giveaway unique. Give customers the option to customize or personalize their big win, from hoodies to jackets. Ask them to post their prize & tag you in their post to help share the social media love.

Before you launch your giveaway, turn to the best apps & plugins to help spread the reach. If you use the Shopify platform, a plugin like ViralSweep Giveaway Contests enables you to run sweepstakes to grow your email, SMS list & generate more sales. Or Gleam Competitions helps you drive more traffic to your shop & increase user engagement from your visitors. 

7) Crowdsource Product Ideas

Take a cue from big businesses tapping into user-generated content to promote their business & bolster their brand. They don’t guess what customers want, they ask them. Survey customers & solicit feedback about their favorite ideas, offer their input, or participate in a beta test. They’ll love feeling involved in the process, & you can thank them for their time with free products & discounts.

Beyond gathering fantastic ideas from customers & fans, crowdsourcing can also give your social media a boost. You end up with more engagement & activity, which all social media platforms prioritize whether you’re using Instagram or Twitter.

8) Create Holiday Products & Promos

POD empowers your business to compete with Black Friday & Cyber Monday, & other obscure holidays, like National Taco Day in October. You don’t need to worry about what sells & what won’t. You can upload & promote as many designs as you want with CustomCat. 

If you’re an ecommerce seller, you also know that too much success can actually derail your business. A big sales surge means scrambling for inventory & finding the time to fulfill all of your orders. CustomCat helps you enjoy your success when holiday sales flood in, knowing you don’t have to worry about inventory, demand, or supply chain issues. 

Need holiday ideas for your ecommerce store? Get our calendar here.

9) Test Out Your Best Product Ideas

It’s a straightforward concept, but print-on-demand helps test out your best ideas without the risk involved. Get as creative & off-the-beaten a path as you want & see how it performs with CustomCat. You can swap out product ideas, upload new designs, & try something out on a whim without worrying about producing & carrying the inventory. You end up taking a shortcut & reducing the hassles involved with product creation & audience research without the expense.  

 

What creative ways do you use custom products in your business? Let us know by leaving a comment below!