Print on Demand YouTubers are Lying to You!

there are very big YouTubers out there with millions of subscribers talking to you about print on demand some of them don't do print on demand others do General business stuff and I've been watching some of these videos and I thought it was about time I did a reaction video to someone that I actually look up to a YouTuber that I've watched for a very long time and continue to watch he has made a video about how print on demand is this passive income business and here are the steps in order to succeed but this video that he has made is riddled with misinformation and false claims so I wanted to make a video reacting and and letting people know what to look out for when watching these kind of videos unfortunately it's become quite a popular topic print Onan amongst YouTubers especially ones that are very very big because this is such a a big and growing business model everyone wants to jump on on the bandwagon now I've been making videos about print on demand for over 6 years or 5 years I should say and it's interesting to see people jumping on the bandwagon just to get a couple of views or maybe they're being paid by a large sponsor and we'll find out in this video what Mark's intentions really were but I think it's very important that when watching all of these YouTubers videos you you look at it and realize do they actually have a print on demand business business do they actually practice what they preach I think that's really really important because someone with two over 2 million subscribers well that that gives them a lot of authority and a lot of trust except when they start talking about things that they don't really know much about or maybe they've used AI or maybe they've had someone else write their script it it becomes a bit disingenuous and you can kind of see the gaps in their video um and that's what this video is about I'm going to I'm going to break down this video that Mark Tilbury has made and I'm going to just point out the mistakes and things to look out for but again I just want to add this isn't a video against Mark I I watch his stuff I really like his stuff maybe one day well maybe one day we'll be able to have a conversation together um but this is more just of a this is what you should look out for kind of video I want you to imagine for a moment you're driving a brand new through the sunny streets of Dubai while passive income continuously flows into your bank account okay so this is a great opening scene that he started with here passive income Bugatti driving in Dubai this is not realistic and I I understand what he's doing here he's hooking people into the video which is which is fair we all throw a good hook in there to keep people watching except with print on demand and in any business for that matter hooking people with Bugattis is that that really the way to go I actually worked out the numbers just for a bit of fun and you would need a th000 sales every month for eight straight years at $10 a sale in order to make enough money to be able to afford the buatti I'm not talking about being able to afford everything else in your life or the payments or anything else just to be able to buy a Bugatti and then probably not even be able to drive it so yeah it's it's a th000 sales a month is an incredibly unre realistic aim for a newbie starting print on demand this is coming from someone who hasn't just started a few little internet businesses and sold a few print on demand items I'm An established millionaire businessman that's been running companies for over 35 years okay so he's he's saying here that he hasn't just sold print on demand he's an established business millionaire and I don't I don't disagree I don't deny his claim he is an established business millionaire he has had very successful companies except by saying as well as selling print on demand it's making it sound like one of his many businesses is print on demand and he has made a lot of money from print on demand because you're saying as well as print on demand I'm also an established business millionaire so it's a bit misleading here because if you're going to claim that you are making lots of money with print on demand especially in a world where transparency is so vital share something share share some screenshots share logging into your your your your sales dashboard don't have to share your designs or your Niche or anything but show some some sales as like you know back yourself up a little on demand allows you to pay for your products only after your customers order them these products are then printed with your Unique Designs and deliver directly to your customer well actually the mistake with this area is he's teaching Etsy towards the end of his video uh he's he's telling people to go and sell on Etsy now with Etsy and other print on demand platforms you get a sale so the customer pays you but then you have to go and pay the printing provider whether it's print full Printery gelata whatever it is and only a couple of days later the Etsy actually pay you your money and for new sellers on Etsy it could actually be over a week later before you get your money so you're laying out money for items for over a week and I know this is not a big deal and I always say this is not a big deal but it's important to know that you are going to be laying out money and maybe you should you know use a credit card on your on your printing provider's account like on printify or gelato or whoever you're using just so that you don't end up missing a payment for a a product and then your customer doesn't end up getting it so it's an important factor to consider that no you're not getting paid and then paying for the item you need to pay for the item and then you get paid this side hustle is ideal for someone who doesn't want the hassle of starting a full-time business but wants to ear passive income you can work from your laptop okay my issue with this is print on demand is not passive income I'm so sick of hearing people say print on demand is passive income you can just work on your laptop for 20 minutes a day and you'll have sales rolling in no print on demand takes a huge amount of work it's a lot of consistency you've got to do lots of research you got to create designs constantly it's a very difficult struggle of a business is not just oh I'm going to create a design that says something on it and I'm going to upload it to Etsy and I'm going to be a millionaire overnight it takes a lot of hard work and I've been in this business for 10 years I can tell you it's not passive income this concept of passive income is ridiculous take this shop for example they have the number one listing on Etsy when I search for mug now if I dig into their figures I can actually see that they're generating around $30,000 a month from this store if we assume a 15% margin then they're probably making around 4,500 a month in profit which isn't too bad at all so they are the number one mug listing based on his data right based on this data from Aura and they're doing 30 thou $35,000 a month which based on his numbers he's saying they're making around 4 a half thousand if their profit margin is 15% that's quite far off the 10K he was saying previously about making a month but on top of that I can tell you right now a mug selling for $10.99 is not making 15% profit margin once you calculate all the Etsy fees the product fees the shipping fees if anything at that price you're probably making nearer 5% maybe 10% profit margin if you're lucky so for a product that is uh for a store that is doing $305,000 to be bringing back $2,000 that's actually not very good now I've sold some wall art before using gelato honestly I so he says he sold some wall art with gelato but proceeds not to show us his wall art sales but just his wall art products on his gelato account again if you're going to say that you've done something always always back it up I understand he's got millions of subscribers so he's got a lot of history there and people trust and believe him but that's where you that's where it becomes dangerous you know you build this this huge element of trust and then what you can just say whatever you want and people will believe you no I still think that you have to show an element of proof honestly I really like gelato because they have production facilities in over 32 countries there's the Clincher this entire video that he has made is a sponsored video for gelato now I have worked with gelato in the past and I'm going to get onto this a little bit later um but they have been known to conduct dodgy marketing practices on YouTube with creators there's a reason why I stopped working with them so this seller has sold in the region of 1,300 of these t-shirts bringing in revenue of $ 43,6 128 when you take shipping into account now with a 30% profit margin that would be around $113,000 in profit from this One Design so this is the problem again he's basing everything in all these stores with a 30% profit margin but anyone who's done print on demand will know you don't make a 30% profit margin on Etsy when you're selling a product for how much was it it was for £16 80 you don't make a 30% profit margin on that let's actually work out those numbers so after doing the calculations you're actually making nearer 20% profit margin and that's not taking into account uh taxes and all of those kind of things so on A6 80 sale we're here in the UK and he's giving a UK example your profit is £388 which is very different to what he has calculated and this is what annoys me someone will watch this video and think that they can make 13,000 he's saying dollars but everything's in pounds make £ 13,000 from a listing when you're charging £680 that is not realistic at all it's pretty easy to get these mocked up on canva and it's also a free tool which is even better now his concept of creating designs using other people's creating elements of other peoples and building your own unique thing a lot of people teach that it's yeah I I I I I I see where he's going with it it makes sense however this is the bit that um I found slightly confusing so he says two things here the first one is he is showing this design chop it like it's hot it is an atrocious design there the colors are awful and the placement is awful and it will never ever get any sales um I don't know if he is just you know using this as an example and it's quick and he doesn't he doesn't actually think it's a good design himself and he probably doesn't um but if you're going to give an example and use an example then at least make it really good and then the second issue is he said cana is free well let's just let's just watch a little bit longer and you'll see what I mean then I just have to click here to download the image without a background right you see what he's done there and this is a bit that annoys me little Details Matter in business and he has just gone and said cana is free and then proceeded to say download it click transparent background and then click download well to click transparent background on canva you actually have to be paying for canva it's not free so so that is going to cost you $10 a month $10 £10 a month and that is to use the transparent background feature he clearly has a paid Cana account so maybe maybe you know benefit of the doubt he doesn't even realize that it's a paid feature even though next to the transparent background there is a crown there which shows it's a pro or paid feature it's just it's little things like that where someone will be misled even if it's a small thing it still adds up and makes a big difference most YouTubers recommend the absolute cheapest sites and to be honest I've got a real issue with this do they now this is well okay some YouTubers do just recommend the cheapest whereas others do a little bit more research test and only recommend what they think is the best and it's actually kind of ironic because later on in the video you'll see what he recommends and no one who does print on demand would ever ever recommend what Mark is recommending I tested out the gelato website for myself recently and I've got to say I was super impressed the experience was seamless with both the product quality and the printing quality being excellent just look at how great this poster came out having been in this business myself now for quite a few years I understand that he's recommending gelato because they are paying him to recommend gelato and but I've tested over 50 different companies gelato have been one of the ones that I have tested quite a few times and they're not a bad company but I wouldn't say they're as good as he is saying are they the best no definitely not um why like I why don't I promote them anymore well there's a few reasons why I don't promote them one of them is they wanted me to say things that simply weren't true so that they looked better than they actually were and at that point I was like no I'm not going to say these things so let's not work together anymore um and it's funny because now I see gelato working with really big creators and these creators don't do print on demand they've never done print on demand before and they're being sponsored by gelato and they're probably being given a script by gelato as well yeah it's not the best look I'm then going to pick T-shirts I think we should be fine with the heavyweight unisex crew neck t-shirts as I can see that's their best seller and to be honest gelato has a very high standard of quality any anyway it's nearly $2 cheaper than the other more premium options it's it's ironic how he picks the Gilden 5000 we just spoke about this earlier about him saying how YouTubers just recommend the cheapest one and he doesn't like that yet he has gone and just recommended the cheapest product the Gilden 5000 which any print on demand seller knows is heavy it's scratchy it's an uncomfortable t-shirt it's not good quality and it's just just it's no good it brings in the most refunds the design comes off the most frequently with it it's a bad quality product and anyone who's doing print on demand and has been doing print on demand for a long time that gets consistent sales would not use the Gilden 5,000 they would probably use the Gilden 64,000 or the Bella canvas 3001 something like that and the difference in cost is is what it's it's 30 30 cents different in cost yeah for 30 cents different I would use the Gilden 64,000 rather than the Gilden 5000 I just I find it funny how he's literally saying YouTubers just recommend the cheapest ones and he's gone and literally done that H so yeah if you are doing print on demand or want to do print on demand please don't use the Gilden 5000 you'll be inundated with bad customer reviews and refunds and it is a terrible product okay so I'm going to start with the Y option and size large another rookie mistake here he's designing on a white T-shirt as his main color T-shirt now white is a popular t-shirt for just regular clothing that you go and buy in a shop but when it comes to print on demand white isn't that popular in fact white is the least popular out of you know major colors like black blue green uh pink white is very rarely used and one major reason for that is when you have a design it either works on white or black sometimes it works on both but it's less frequent that it works on both and you're going to see here he's tried to put his design on both and it just looks terrible um and I would say this me saying that white isn't a very popular color it's coming from someone who has sold thousands and thousands and thousands of t-shirts and there's a lot of data to back that up so if you could pick between designing for a black T-shirt or designing for a white t-shirt always designed for a black T-shirt if you're interested in using them and you want to get 50% off your first order then feel free to sign up with the link and there you have it one giant sponsored ad from gelato it really wouldn't surprise me if gelato gave him the script for this video or at least the talking points because there's a lot here that doesn't really match up with running an actual print on demand business like I said earlier there's a reason why I don't work with them anymore their sponsorship tax itics weren't exactly that ethical and I wasn't happy with that once you've got all your designs uploaded in their different colors and sizes I'm sure this quick time lapse that he's done here creating these designs is just an example and he doesn't actually think that these would sell because I mean come on that red design on a neon blue t-shirt or bright green t-shirt that doesn't look good and the fact that the design is Tiny in the in the center of the chest it hasn't used any any of the the rule of thirds or hasn't conformed to any sort of placement rules or anything like that when it comes to design I I feel like he he's just using it as an example like I I don't think he he actually thinks that this design would sell I've got a real problem with how most YouTube channels approach this question with one answer he has another real problem with most YouTube channels again ironic that he isn't including himself in that let's hear this one then either say Etsy or Shopify but it really isn't that simple so yes they do say Etsy or Shopify and then they would elaborate and explain why they don't just say sell on Etsy and leave you to it they'll give you a little bit of a tutorial um the reason why they say Etsy or Shopify is because Etsy is one of the most popular platforms out there and Shopify is the best platform for creating your own business your own brand your own website so yes it makes sense to recommend those two platforms if we look at the figures from February 2023 we can see that Etsy had 46.6 million visitors that's by far the most out of every print on demand Marketplace so this really really annoyed me here because he's talking about the search based on seash in the millions so yes Etsy does get 460 million visitors and he also said based on February of 2023 this video just came out which leads me to believe he shot this video what nearly a year ago that's a long time why would you be using data from February of 2023 either way it's besides the point he's showing here 460 million visitors to Etsy and he's not wrong Etsy gets a huge amount of traffic it's one of the most popular but it's not the most popular he's missed out don't know why he's missed out the biggest one he's got a question mark next to merch by Amazon why does he have a question mark there Amazon gets billions billions of visitors every single month now I know not all of those visitors are going to buy print on demand products but the same goes for Etsy not all products on Etsy are print on demand there's a lot a lot of handmade stuff on on Etsy so those 460 million visitors they're not all for print on demand so why if he's doing it with Etsy and he's saying all of these visitors are put on demand why isn't he doing the same thing for Amazon but it isn't all sunshine and rainbows lots of people highp print on demand on Etsy but more people fail than succeed that's just the harsh truth finally some truth here lots of people hype up Etsy lots of people say how much easier it is say it's sunshine and rainbows and like Mark is saying finally it's not it's harder than it seems I recommend you post a thousand listings on Etsy this was please oh please don't post a thousand listings on Etsy that that is an insane amount of listings on Etsy it should not take you 1,000 listings to get some sales if it's taking you that many then most of your listings are probably quite bad and you should work on your designs maybe somehow send them to people and get them validated somehow but it should not take you a th000 listings that would cost you $200 every 4 months to keep those listings going as it 20 cents a listing and on top of that to create a th000 listings for a passive income business well a thousand Lings would take you months to create think of etsy a bit like a testing ground where you can cast as many fishing lines as possible into the ocean and when you start catching some big fish you know it's time to take the next step his strategy of using Etsy to form a basis around what design sell before moving over to Shopify is actually quite a solid idea I would get on board with that it makes sense to put your stuff on Etsy first see what gets sales and then know what to build your Shopify store around however the only downside which he isn't saying is it could take quite a few months to go to to start getting ranked on Etsy and to start getting sales on Etsy before you get to build your Shopify store the difference is if you go straight to Shopify you can run traffic if you can afford to of course you can run traffic straight to these different listings and validate them almost immediately you can see it for design will get sales from day one rather than waiting 3 months so whilst I do like his idea for most people it's not the only strategy um and it's definitely a very slow strategy but it's important to remember anyone can sell at break even or even a loss I have a feeling a lot of these print on demand gurus and drop shippers actually do this they just make a loss on their products and then Flex their revenue figures on YouTube to young and impressionable people so I actually really like that he's covering this um it's a very important aspect of this business when you're watching other YouTube except I find it a little ironic as he said he gets sales but he's shown absolutely nothing he started out the video with a batti so that's not really leaving a very good impression for Young Minds when they want to get into this business so whilst I do agree a lot of gurus lie about their figures they don't even have shops at all I hate to say it Mark but I think you might be fitting in that category just a little because well you haven't really shown that you've been doing print on demand at all look all in all this video was quite a good video he had a lot of strong points it was helpful to say the least it's definitely lacking when it comes to print on demand there's a lot more that you need to know it's not this easy as even though he makes it sound easy it's way harder he missed out the entire element on how to create designs and he showed one of his designs which we can all agree isn't exactly a good design so whilst I really like Mark's videos I've watched his previous videos I'll continue to watch his future videos I think he's a great YouTuber and he comes out with some banging content I have to say with this one in particular I really wish he would have consulted an expert and I also wish he didn't just go for the money grab which was gelato paying him for a sponsorship because I think you should really stick to your guns you know Integrity is so important in this business and just allowing yourself to be paid by a company to say whatever they want you to say that's not a very good look and it me you just lose a lot of trust with it so yes I'll still continue to watch Mark but also I've lost quite a lot of respect there because I don't like that he was able to make this video happily and not feel at all guilty about misleading people in certain areas like I said overall this video you know it was a helpful video however I think there are far more helpful videos from actual professional print on demand sellers who are making money with their business

Channel: Shimmy Morris

Views: 53,127

Keywords: teespring, print on demand, selling t-shirts, t-shirt business, teespring money, make money on teespring, make money print on demand, facebook, instagram, merch business, pod, print on demand teespring, facebook ads for beginners, facebook ads 2020, teespring marketing, teespring design, i quit print on demand, i got a normal job, my job pays me, how much my job pays me, is print on demand worth it, i quit, giving up with online selling, is selling online worth it

Id: HgirQd_nhB0

Length: 25min 6sec (1506 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 22 2024