People see print-on-demand success stories everywhere. They see someone takes a brand new store from zero to $5,000 in less than six months. They get excited and hopeful and start their own store, and most of them end up failing.
This begs the question: why do some stores succeed while others fail? Honestly, as harsh as it sounds, I don’t think that it’s random. The difference comes down to avoiding critical mistakes that a lot of beginners make. These are the mistakes that practically guarantee a store will fail.
And so if you want your store to be successful, then you need to know what these mistakes are.
Here are the eight mistakes that could be the difference between building a profitable business and wasting countless hours on a dead-end project.
Mistake 1: Not Creating Designs That Fill a Gap in the Market
The phrase “fill a gap in the market” is very important. It means creating a product that people want but doesn’t yet exist. And honestly, I think it’s one of the most important ways to get people to buy from your store even when you have zero reviews and zero social proof.
Let me show you why with a real example. I found a mug from an Etsy print-on-demand store called Muggy McMuggins. This store is pretty much empty—no reviews, barely any branding, no welcome message, no store banner. It looks incredibly untrustworthy and unprofessional. If they’d put in even a little effort, they could’ve made way more money.
But here’s the thing—despite all those mistakes, Muggy McMuggins still managed to get 20 sales. All for one single mug.
Why? Two reasons. First, it’s a genuinely funny gift. But second—and more importantly—it fills a gap in the market.
I searched Etsy to see if anyone else was selling a mug with this joke. Nobody was. It was the only one.
So despite having an empty, unprofessional store with zero reviews, they still made sales because they created an original product that nobody else was selling. You could only buy it from them.
Mistake 2: Creating Copycat Stores
You’ll see people saying things like, “I uploaded a bunch of designs and nobody bought anything.” And here’s the harsh truth—when you look at these stores, they’re not creating original products that fill a gap. They’re what I call copycat stores.
They’ll come to Etsy, see that dog dad mugs are popular and selling well, then think, “I know, I’ll create my own dog dad mug.” And guess what? That boring, unoriginal design flops. Nobody buys it.
And here’s why: look at how many other dog dad mugs exist on Etsy. There are tons of similar designs, many from stores that already have thousands of reviews.
So I ask you—would you rather buy a dog dad mug from a store with thousands of reviews, or a store with zero reviews? Obviously, you’d pick the established store.
Being a copycat store is a great way to waste tons of time creating unoriginal designs that nobody wants to buy. Meanwhile, a store like Muggy McMuggins gave themselves a huge advantage by creating something original that nobody else had made.
Think about it this way: you’re an Etsy customer looking for a joke gift for your coworker. You find this mug and think, “That’s hilarious, I want it!” But then you check out Muggy McMuggins’ store and hesitate—no reviews, so you’re not sure if you can trust them.
You do a search on Etsy to find an established store selling the same design. But nobody else is. Now you’ve got a dilemma: either buy a different gift from an established store that you don’t like as much, or take a chance on the new store to get the item you loved.
Some customers will pick the first option, but some will take the risk. And when the only way to get what you want is from a new store, that’s a powerful advantage.
Mistake 3: Selling Popular Products Instead of Products Where You Have an Unfair Advantage
One of the most popular print-on-demand niches on Etsy is dogs. There’s this custom phone case that, according to a Etsy research app, has made over $500,000. And that’s just one product in this niche—there are tons of others that have made hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
So naturally, a lot of people see this and think, “I’m going to make a product in this niche so I can make a bunch of money too.”
But here’s the problem: usually, these people don’t actually have dogs themselves, or they own a dog but aren’t super fans. They wouldn’t actually buy a dog-themed blanket or mug for themselves.
In my experience, the most successful sellers often have an unfair advantage: they’re actual customers in their own niche. They can use themselves as a yardstick, asking: “What product would I like to buy but can’t because it doesn’t exist yet?”
It’s honestly the easiest way to come up with original product ideas, and it gives you a hugely unfair advantage.
That’s why you should avoid niches where you’re not a target customer.
Take sports, for example—if you don’t follow any sports, and you tried to start a sports store, I’d be at a disadvantage compared to actual sports fans. They’d just ask themselves, “What tennis-themed t-shirt would I buy?” and boom—they’ve got a good idea.
Even though sports and many other popular niche products can be very profitable, it’s best to stay away from niches where you’re completely ignorant about the topic, especially if you’re just starting out.
Because you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage when it comes to brainstorming original good ideas in it
Mistake 4: Assuming More Expensive Print Providers Are Better
This price-quality bias doesn’t just affect customers—it affects sellers too. Many new sellers assume that more expensive print providers produce better quality, but that’s not always true.
In a recent comparison, two t-shirts were ordered from two different print providers using the printfight app: Fulfill Engine and Monster Digital. The same print image was sent to both.
The results? Fulfill Engine’s t-shirt was much worse. The colors on the Monster Digital shirt were much closer to the image I provided. The ramen bowl looked vibrant, while the Fulfill Engine shirt looked washed out. Monster Digital printed it nearly perfectly.
So it’s a no-brainer—Monster Digital would cost more, right?
Wrong. Fulfill Engine’s t-shirts cost less than Monster Digital’s cost.
Never assume that price equals quality. When choosing print providers, check reviews instead.
Mistake 5: Pricing Your Products Too Low
I see so many new stores make this mistake. They think they need to price their products super low to compete, and as a result, they end up breaking even or even making a loss. It’s absolutely ironic because pricing your products too low can actually hurt your sales, not help them.
In fact, a lot of stores find that they can increase sales simply by raising their prices. And it’s because of something called the price-quality heuristic—a psychological cognitive shortcut most people use when buying products.
Here’s how it works: imagine you’re buying a laptop. One costs $1,000 and another costs $2,000. How do you know which is better quality?
Most people assume the more expensive one is better. It’s not always true, but studies show people use this shortcut consistently.
Two researchers did a psychological pricing study called the denomination effect. They gave participants chocolate to try and told them how much it cost, then asked them to rate the quality and how much they’d pay for it. As expected, the more expensive the chocolate, the better people rated it.
But here’s the twist: the researchers lied. All the chocolate was identical. It was the exact same chocolate sold at the exact same price at the supermarket.
So then how to price products? I recommend looking at your competitors and setting your price somewhere in the middle.
Don’t match or go lower than the low-end competitors—you’ll risk people worrying something’s wrong with your product. But don’t match the high-end either, or people will worry they’re getting ripped off.
Focus on middle-ground pricing. Thanks to the anchoring effect, that’s what most consumers prefer—it’s the sweet spot between not buying a bad product and not getting overcharged.
Mistake 6: Using Paid Ads Before Using Free Traffic and Advertising
There’s a common assumption that paid advertising is the fastest way to grow a print-on-demand store. And while paid traffic and ads can work, they can also be a very expensive way for beginners to lose money quickly.
Consider this: someone took a new store to almost $4,000/month in six months. In that process, they turned $25 of Etsy paid ads into $150 in sales. That’s a success story—but it’s not the whole story.
When analyzing all the sales from that experiment, something interesting emerged: only 38% of the products released actually generated sales. In other words, 62% of the products completely flopped.
When analyzed all the sales in that store—discovered something interesting: all the sales came from just 38% of the products. In other words, 62% of other products completely flopped.
Even more telling: 65% of the store’s sales came from just 25 designs.
This makes sense when you think about it. Big companies like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Legoland do market research and focus groups before releasing anything new. They test product ideas on customers and only release the tiny fraction that passes testing. That’s why big corporations have good success rates.
We smaller businesses can’t afford to spend millions running focus groups, so our equivalent is uploading as many good designs as we can and seeing which ones the market buys and which ones flop.
Unlike big companies, we probably have a higher flop rate, but we save millions of dollars on research.
This is why beginners shouldn’t jump straight into paid ads.
Even experienced sellers can’t always guess exactly which products will be big hits. Since most products statistically will flop, you can end up spending a lot of money running ads for products that were doomed from the start.
Now, if you have a large budget and don’t mind spending on failed ads to find winners, there are plenty of talented beginners making money this way—good for them. But most beginners don’t have the extra cash to comfortably lose on advertising flops.
If that’s you, there’s a free way to do market research: use free marketing and traffic techniques to identify your winners first.
Is this slower? Absolutely. But is it a more financially sustainable way for many people to start? I think so.
Mistake 7: Lacking a Systematic Approach
The reason that 99% of people really never reach their goals is because when their motivation fails and they’re feeling discouraged, they don’t have a system to fall back on.
A good system allows you to sit down and work on your business at different stages of the process, regardless of how you feel about the work.
Which is why the templatized product post system is so powerful. You build out a template, which is an almost finished product that you can slightly modify in multiple ways to get a completely new product.
Large shops have understood for a while that having more listings directly correlates to more sales. Just look at the top seven-figure shops. They all have thousands of listings, making them millions of dollars.
A strong system means that even when you don’t feel like doing something, you can walk through the process and the system will help you knock it out.
But here’s what I see happen all the time: 99% of people who start this business just start throwing stuff at the wall, hoping that something will stick. And you know why they fail? Because only a very, very small percentage of people take the time necessary to build out a great system that allows them to continuously scale their business.
Mistake 8: Expecting Overnight Success
This might be the most common mistake of all. Many people starting a print-on-demand store expect results after just months—or even weeks. But the reality is different.
Stores that become successful typically take about six months to build serious traction. And that’s completely normal and expected.
Building a successful print-on-demand store is a lot like building a snowball. It starts out small, but over time, as a successful store creates winning products that customers love, it grows. Eventually, that snowball becomes a snowman.
So be patient. Success doesn’t happen overnight—it happens through consistent effort and iteration over time.
The print-on-demand space is full of opportunity, but it’s not a shortcut to quick money. The stores that succeed are the ones that avoid these seven critical mistakes. They fill genuine gaps in the market, play to their strengths, price strategically, validate ideas with free traffic first, and most importantly, they’re patient enough to build something real.
That’s the difference between a store that fails and a store that thrives.
Leave a Reply