Running a profitable print-on-demand business is 100% possible in 2024. With the right toolkit, you can set up your Printful store in under an hour. You can then focus on generating traffic and maximizing sales.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to pick the best ecommerce platform and integrate it with your Printful account. You’ll also get step-by-step instructions for finding your first customers and turning them into loyal fans.
Can you actually make a profit with Printful?
Yes. You can make a profit with Printful. Research shows that ecommerce sales will grow by 8.8% in 2024. While the big players like Amazon and Alibaba will continue to dominate, 47% of customers prefer to buy from small businesses where possible.
What’s more, Printful works well as a business model, with many successful case studies online. It’s low-cost, easy to run logistically, and offers a high degree of creative freedom, especially for graphic designers.
However, keep in mind that overheads stack up fast. If you want to keep costs stable, a solution like HighLevel gives you all the tools you need for one set monthly price.
This includes email marketing (including high-converting abandoned cart follow-up), SMS marketing, loyalty programs, and much more.
Set up your store in minutes with a HighLevel free trial. We integrate seamlessly with Printful and our platform includes everything you need to run a profitable ecommerce business.
Best stores for Printful
Many stores offer an integration with Printful. The most popular are Shopify, Woocommerce, and Wix.
Here’s a quick overview of the top stores for Printful:
- Shopify: As the most popular platform on the market, Shopify has a large feature set and community of users. Costs add up, however. Often, integrations cost more than the Shopify plan itself.
- WooCommerce: WooCommerce integrates with WordPress easily and is free. That said, if you don’t have technical experience with WordPress, including familiarity with PHP, you’re best avoiding WooCommerce. Managing your store can get complex quickly.
- Wix: Wix is good for beginners but has restrictions on usage that make scaling problematic on everything but the top plan. Extended functionality, such for membership sites, is also limited.
- HighLevel: HighLevel has a full suite of ecommerce tools along with an extensive set of marketing features. You’ll get HighLevel for one set monthly price, so once you’ve set up your store, you can run and scale it without worrying about additional costs.
Best Alternative to Shopify, Woocommerce and Wix for Printful
The main issue with the big ecommerce providers is that they don’t offer full-funnel solutions.
They take care of the ecommerce part. But what about running omnichannel marketing to generate repeat customers? What about scheduling calls with potential vendors? Or preparing invoices? Or running a paid membership club?
You’ll have to pay for additional software in all cases, often for expensive third-party extensions.
Irrespective of whether you’re running a hobby store to supplement your design services or expecting to scale to millions of dollars in sales of custom products, it’s vital to think about the whole picture.
HighLevel solves this problem for you. It gives you everything you need to build and customize a Printful ecommerce store on your own website without any tech experience. And the price remains exactly the same as you scale.
What realy makes HighLevel different, however, is that you’ll get tools for taking care of all aspects of marketing and admin. These include email and SMS marketing, loyalty offers, appointment booking, vendor management, reputation tracking, AI-driven chatbot support for customers, and much, much more. Set up your store in minutes with a HighLevel free trial. We integrate seamlessly with Printful and our platform includes everything you need to run a profitable ecommerce business.
How to set up your store with HighLevel: 3 Steps
HighLevel stores are very easy to create and connect with Printful. You have full control over all aspects of design, product creation, and backend admin, whether you’re selling t-shirt designs or custom mugs.
Follow the steps below to get up and running.
- Start a free trial with HighLevel and set up your first website.
- Build and design your ecommerce store.
- Connect your store to Printful and configure and sync products.
It’s really that simple! And just look at how easy it is to connect them together:
Tips for Creating a Profitable Store for Printiful: 5 steps
By eliminating a large chunk of logistical responsibilities related to inventory management and shipping, Printful frees you up to focus on promoting your products.
Follow the steps below to build a profitable, sustainable ecom store with Printful:
1. Pick a Proven Niche
Before you start selling, it’s important to pick your unique niche. Any market should fit three criteria: high demand, low (but not nonexistent) competition, and make use of your interests and skills.
- Check demand and competition for product-related keywords—for example, “hoodies with butterfly prints” or “Donald Trump mugs”—with tools like Ahref and SEMRush.
- Spy on your competitors to check that products in your niche are already performing well.
- Identify growing trends and high-opportunity niches with Google Trends.
2. Optimize Your Listings for Search Traffic
Google’s organic product listings can be a valuable source of traffic to your site. Set up a Google Merchant account and add your products. You can supplement with paid ads when you feel ready.
Add structured product data and make sure to include the name, brand, model and size of the product in the following areas:
- H1 title
- Product description
- Meta title
- Meta description
The HighLevel site builder makes it easy to add seo to your website through the SEO tab.
3. Market and Remarket
Once your online store is set up, integrated with your Prinful account, and search-optimized, it’s time to start selling.
Your print-on-demand marketing strategy should include the following components:
- Offer a lead magnet: Capture email addresses with a newsletter lead magnet. For example, “20% off your first order when you sign up.” A newsletter also lets you sell directly to customers.
- Send regular broadcasts: Regularly send updates about new products, promotions and offers. Don’t rely exclusively on email. Take advantage of underused customer channels like SMS and WhatsApp.
- Hit multiple socials: A tool like HighLevel’s Social Planner lets you run campaigns across all your socials while minimizing manual input.
- Offer support on your product pages: Include a chat widget on your product pages for customers who have questions. HighLevel’s chat function lets you follow up with SMS along with live chat and email.
- Drive referrals: Offer discount coupons to existing customers for referrals. You might also consider running an affiliate scheme with a tool like Affiliate Manager in HighLevel.
4. Implement a loyalty rewards program and member’s club
Two of the most powerful features for keeping existing customers are loyalty rewards and member clubs.
A loyalty program rewards customers with points for purchases they make. These can then be redeemed for vouchers, discount codes, or specific items.
A membership club is a paid community that typically receives a discount on all purchases and access to exclusive discounts and promotions. It’s one of the best ways to build a loyal brand following while generating additional revenue.
5. A/B Optimize to Increase Conversions
Once you’re generating traffic to your website, you can optimize further with A/B split testing.
A/B testing splits traffic between two pages that fulfill the same purpose. One of these pages has a modification to a key element, such as the Buy Now button or headline text. You can then see which page converts best.
HighLevel has built-in A/B testing tools. Initially, we recommend testing site-wide pages that play an important part in sales, such as your checkout page.
Conclusion: All the Functionality You Need Without Paying Extra
Running an ecommerce business is hard.
Competition is stiff, especially from giants like Amazon. Even if you navigate the dozens of available platforms, you’re still left with the very real risk of quickly increasing costs.
HighLevel solves that problem for you. Not only does it solve the problem of spiraling expenses with one fixed monthly fee. It also gives you everything you need to run a successful store in the hyper-competitive world of modern ecommerce.
Set up your store in minutes with a HighLevel free trial. We integrate seamlessly with Printful and our platform includes everything you need to run a profitable ecommerce business.
