How to Make a Print on Demand Shop in WordPress (The Easy Way)

Running an online store once meant investing heavily in inventory, storage, and shipping. But with print on demand, that barrier has been removed.

After trying platforms like Printful across our test WordPress site, we’ve seen how easy it is to launch a store without managing physical products.

Print on demand lets you offer custom products by uploading your designs and connecting with a fulfillment service. When someone places an order, the service handles printing, packaging, and shipping for you.

That means you can focus on marketing and support, while the logistics are taken care of.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up a print on demand shop using WordPress—from picking the right platform to integrating it with your site.

What Is Print on Demand and Why Use It?

Print on demand is a manufacturing method where a design is only printed on a product once a customer has ordered it. This is very similar to dropshipping, except the products are custom-made for you.

It can be used for clothing, bags, homeware, and more.

Print on demand isn’t as cost-effective as mass-production manufacturing methods, but it has some big advantages for small businesses and can still be very profitable.

With POD, you don’t pay anything until a customer pays you, making it much easier for small businesses to get started. Additionally, the POD services handle printing, fulfillment, and shipping themselves, so you won’t have to worry about that.

There’s no need to buy inventory upfront, and you don’t need any storage space either. Plus, you can easily experiment with different designs to see which is most popular.

There are a few different print on demand companies out there. In this tutorial, we will be using Printful. It’s well-established and integrates easily with your WordPress site through WooCommerce.

Printful offers printed designs and embroidery for some products, such as baseball caps and backpacks.

You can easily sell custom-branded merchandise, such as t-shirts, hoodies, shorts, hats, backpacks, bracelets, phone cases, keychains, coffee mugs, blankets, and over 249 products.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily create a print on demand shop in WordPress.

Creating a Print on Demand Shop With Printful

To make a print on demand shop, you need to first visit the Printful website.

Here, click the ‘Get Started’ button.

This will take you to a new screen, where you must add your email address, name, and password to create an account.

Once that is done, click the ‘Sign Up’ button to start the process. Printful will then ask you for some details about your business that you can fill in.

You will also get an email with a link that you need to click to confirm your email address.

Next, you will be taken to your dashboard, where you can switch to the ‘Product Templates’ tab from the left column.

Here, click the ‘+ Create Product’ button.

Doing this will open a new prompt, where you can select the type of product you want to create from the left side. For instance, if you want to create a t-shirt for women, you can expand the ‘Women’s clothing’ tab and choose a type of shirt.

This will open some shirt templates on the right. Go ahead and click on the t-shirt that you like.

Printful’s visual builder will now be launched on your screen with a shirt preview on the right and settings in the left column.

You can start by choosing a size and color for your shirt. After that, click the ‘Upload or drop your design here’ button to add your brand logo or a simple clipart to your shirt.

This will open a popup, where you have to click the ‘Upload new file’ button.

You can now upload an image of your choice from your computer.

After adding an element, you can also change its size and position, crop the image, add patterns, and remove the background.

Then, you can click the ‘Back’, ‘Inside Label’, or ‘Outside Label’ options and repeat the process to add other clipart to your t-shirt.

After that, switch to the ‘Text’ tab from the left side of the screen.

You can now type your company name or a quote you want added to the clothing item.

You can change the text color, graphics, font, position, outline, and even add shadows using the toolbar at the top.

Once that is done, switch to the ‘Clipart’ tab. From here, you can drag and drop any images that you want to add to your shirt.

Next, click the ‘Save to Templates’ button.

Doing this will direct you to the Printful dashboard, where you can start the process again to create as many shirts, hoodies, and other merchandise as you want.

Once you have done that, you also need to set up a billing method for Printful. Your customers will pay you through your online store for the product, and Printful will charge you the cost of shipping it.

To do this, visit the Billing » Billing methods page from the dashboard on the left and click the ‘Add new billing method’ button.

This will take you to a new page where you must add your billing information, such as name, country, zip code, and phone number, to access billing methods.

After that, scroll down to select a payment method and connect your payment gateway account with Printful. Then, click the ‘Add’ button to store your settings.

You have now successfully created print-on-demand merchandise to sell on your website.

Connecting Printful to Your WordPress Site

The next step is to connect your Printful account to your WordPress website. After that, you also need to install and activate the WooCommerce plugin.

If you haven’t set up your store yet, then you can see our step-by-step guide on how to start your online store.

Once your website is fully set up, visit the WooCommerce » Settings » Advanced page from your WordPress dashboard. Here, click the ‘Legacy API’ link at the top.

This will open some new settings, where you have to check the box next to the ‘Legacy API’ option. Then, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Next, you need to install and activate the Printful Integration for WooCommerce plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the Printful page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Connect’ button.

This will open a new tab, where you have to click the ‘Follow Link’ button. Doing this will open another prompt asking your permission to connect WooCommerce with Printful.

Go ahead and click the ‘Approve’ button.

You will then be asked to confirm your Printful account details.

Once you’ve done that, you will see a message letting you know that your product data is being synchronized. After a minute or so, your WooCommerce store will be linked.

To add products to your store in WordPress, switch to the ‘Product Templates’ tab from the left column in Printful.

Then, click the checkbox for the product that you want to add and click the ‘Add to Store’ button at the top.

Note: You cannot add two or more products to your store at the same time. Each product must be approved first.

Now, a popup will open up, where you must follow Printful’s instructions. You will get to select colors and sizes, view the mockup images, and give your product a name and description.

Finally, you will be taken to the last step, where Printful will automatically suggest prices for you. These are marked up from the price that Printful charges so that you can make a profit on each item.

However, you can still change the prices according to your liking. Once you are done, just click the ‘Submit to Store’ button.

After that, you can repeat the process to add other products to your WooCommerce store.

Next, visit your site to see the added products in action.

You can also edit your Printful products in your WordPress dashboard by going to the Products » All Products page.

Here, click the ‘Edit’ link to make changes to a product using the WooCommerce settings.

With Printful, you can create as many products as you like without paying anything until you get orders.

Here’s our finished online store, with a range of print-on-demand products.

Bonus: Create a Simple T-Shirt Shop in WordPress

If you only want to sell t-shirts in your print on demand shop, then the above method may not be the best option. This is because Printful is designed to sell all kinds of products like bags, badges, mugs, and more.

Alternatively, you can create print on demand t-shirts to boost your brand awareness using SpreadShirt. All you have to do is create an account on the platform and design your shirts.

You can then connect your WordPress website to SpreadShirt and start selling your designs from your site.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to easily create a t-shirt shop in WordPress.

Frequently Answered Questions

Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about print on demand shops.

1. Is Printful the only print on demand service I can use with WordPress?

No, Printful is one of several print on demand services available, but it is a popular choice due to its seamless integration with WordPress and WooCommerce.

Other services like Printify and Spreadshirt also offer similar capabilities and can be integrated with WordPress through plugins or manual setup.

We recommend comparing these services based on product range, pricing, and ease of use to determine which fits your business needs best.

2. How can I ensure my designs are printed in the highest quality?

High-quality prints start with high-resolution images and proper file formats.

Printful provides guidelines on the best file types and dimensions for each product, ensuring your designs maintain their quality when printed.

It’s important to follow these guidelines and use the design tools in Printful to perfect your design placement, colors, and elements like text or clipart before finalizing your product.

3. Can I use print on demand for personalized customer products?

Yes, print on demand services are excellent for offering personalized items.

Many platforms allow you to offer customization options where customers can add names, messages, or choose from different design elements.

Integrating these features in your online store may require some customization of the product page, but it can significantly improve customer satisfaction and increase sales.

We hope this article helped you learn how to make a print on demand shop in WordPress. You may also be interested in our beginner’s guide on how to add your Etsy store in WordPress and our top picks for the best WooCommerce plugins.

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