Hi
P.O.D is Print on demand - one the amazing online business models that Stuart Ross discusses in his free workshops
Basically it's where you sell your printed designs or artwork online but someone else does the printing and delivery for you.
This mean you don’t have to pay for and store a load of stock and have to sell it all before you make a profit
And your work can be sold in lots more formats than you could realistically produce at home.
I use a P.O.D company to sell my original photos for example. They can make them available as framed or unframed prints, posters, acrylic or aluminium wall art, canvas’s, mugs, mouse mats ……. the list goes on.
I upload my images to their website, set the level of payment I want and they do the rest.
Trouble is that the customer is paying for their production costs and whatever I want to paid for my own work on top. That means buying one of my pics as a large canvas can be expensive.
Some people appreciate and see the value in having something original on the wall rather than something a million people can buy at Ikea for peanuts. Others would like to but can justify what seems to them a high price.
So I recently conducted an experiment.
I ordered three of my own images as large canvases from a very cheap online printer. I chose my three best selling pics and because I got 3 the postage was free.
This came to £51 - £17 each for 60cm x 40 cm canvas prints.
I then placed them for sale on 20 or so Facebook marketplace groups at a very reasonable price - £35 + postage
One sold immediately.
That’s when I realised the big advantage of P.O.D.
Packing items and arranging couriers to collect or taking them to the post office is a real pain. It's also more expensive that you think.
So although you might get more easy sales this way, they are taking a lot more of your time.
And you really have to place a value on your time - thats’ really the whole point of any kind of online business.
So it makes sense to spend that time learning and then implementing the strategies that will get more people to actually see your wares online.
Again, Stuart’s free workshop outlines those strategies for you and his training courses take you to expert level.
Bests
Dave