By: Nicole Garisson 

With custom designs and original products in your online store, you will always be different from your competition. Your customers will love your store for its style and brand, and not just individual products. Because of this, custom products are the best way to develop a unique brand of Shopify.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to build your online store and sell custom products:

Build Your Online Store

Shopify really is one of the best platforms that you can use to build your online store. Currently, almost half a million online stores run on Shopify. Additionally, more than 5,300 businesses use the Shopify Plus plan.

All in all, Shopify can easily be dubbed WordPress for eCommerce. Even if you don’t have any previous experience in developing websites, let alone online stores, Shopify allows you to learn on the go and modify the elements on your website with a simple, user-friendly customization tool.

Create Your Design

If your website is done, it’s time to set aside some time to come up with designs for your product (you can also switch between these two steps, but you will likely be more motivated and inspired if you already have a ready-made store where you can feature your designs).

Luckily, you can continue even in this step even if you have no previous designing experience – but of course, skills in creative work will pay off. The web is full of tools that can help you design the exact look for your products that you’re envisioning.

For non-designers, it can be extremely hard to achieve their exact vision by working in design tools. If you’re not experienced, it’s better to use web apps that will provide you with great design resources.

Choose the Products

You might have already imagined the product(s) you want to sell, or you simply designed the visual without the final product in mind. In both cases, this is the point where you will have to decide which designs will be placed on which products. Here are some ideas:

●      T-shirts (shirts are a very popular custom product – it’s an evergreen item so the demand will always be there, but you will also have to tackle the fierce competition)

●      mugs (another classic custom product, it’s a perfect holiday or birthday gift)

●      leggings (in terms of clothes and fashion, leggings are the new hot item in custom design. Why not wear funky, one-of-a-king leggings instead of plain blacks?)

●      baby apparel (there is always a chance for a funny baby bib or bodysuit – be it a baby shower, christening or a little birthday)

●      hats (baseball caps are a classic when it comes to custom design, but you can also play around with trucker hats, beanies…)

●      tote bags (if you want a cheap product that you will be able to sell for a low price and still make a profit, but have a chance to express your creativity to the fullest, a tote bag is a perfect choice)

●      posters and canvases (another classic custom design product, a poster or a canvas print will allow you to let your creativity loose)

Promote Your Store

Just like in all other industries and niches of online commerce, your success will very much depend on how well you promote your online stores, product, and your overall brand.

Lucky for you, custom design products fare very well in the social media world. As they are scrolling through their Facebook or Instagram newsfeeds, users are much more likely to notice a unique, eye-catching product than a product from Alibaba that’s being re-advertised by hundreds of different brands. When it comes to social media, you can also think in the viral direction: is your ad something that a user would share on their page, or at least with their friends?

Visuals go beyond language, but if you want to expand to other countries and cultures, you will first have to modify all the texts on your design. Of course, there are exceptions – some English language texts do great in non-English speaking countries (definitely not the other way around, though).

Consider POD Services

Print on Demand is an efficient way of selling your custom design products without having to spend money on printing, storage, and shipping. Depending on the provider you choose, you will pay a per-item fee for each of the products that you sell. In case you don’t sell anything, you won’t have to pay anything either.

Basically, it’s a risk-free option for custom design stores that are on a shoestring budget. It works like drop-shipping: you get the order, forward it to your print-on-demand supplier, and they do all the work from there. You pick up the profit as the difference between your fee to the POD provider and the price you got from your customer.

Shopify has its own print-on-demand service, but there are also external apps and tools that will allow you to do the same thing. “When choosing a POD provider, take into consideration the geographical location of your target audience and start from there”, says Diana Nadim, a product manager at Studicus.

Expand and Conquer!

Even if you limited your designs to just a handful of products, as your store grows, there will be more opportunities to expand your collections. As your brand progresses, you will start seeing the need both for:

1)     popular designs on new products

2)     new designs on existing, popular products

Unlike some other modes of running an online store, with custom design products, it’s always easy to grow your offer and surprise your customers with something amazing.

Setting up a store that will sell custom products can be a bit harder than building a dropshipping store. It’s all DIY: from the designs, product sourcing, and shipping, but if you’re up for it, you’ll have the opportunity to achieve a much higher profit!