Abby B. Are you an artist thinking of ways to dropship art prints? You’ve been making a lot of designs but unsure where to sell them? Dropshipping might just work for you!
If you’re new to dropshipping, you might not know that you can dropship art prints. To be honest, there’s another term for it that many people don’t know of. It’s called print on demand, a process where designs are only printed and shipped when a customer places an order. In other words, you won’t be making any losses if there isn’t a sale!
In this article, I’ll be explaining ways you can dropship art prints and how to do it with print on demand.
*This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission (at no cost to you) if you sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link!
Relevant posts:
- 13+ Print On Demand Art Print Websites
- 11+ POD Fulfillments You Can Use With Etsy
- How To Start Selling Digital Art On Etsy
- 13+ Online Tools For Making Etsy Digital Products
Can I Dropship Art Prints With Etsy?
Anyone can dropship art prints with Etsy via print on demand sites like Printify or Printful. Connect a store to Etsy and import products with your art prints or designs. This includes posters, wall arts, wrapping papers and stickers. Once a customer makes a purchase on Etsy, POD sites will print the products and ship directly to customers, making the process similar to dropshipping.
How To Dropship Art Prints
1. Sign up to a print on demand site
Before doing anything else, you’ll have to sign up to at least one print on demand company that will make your art prints for you. The company will process orders, print products and ship them directly to your customers. Since your business and customer happiness will be relying on them greatly, you’ll want to go with a good POD site! Printify and Printful are two of the best print on demand fulfillment to join.
I’ve included a list of the best print on demand companies to dropship art prints down below (with links)! Read my explanation on three key things to consider when deciding on a POD site to join.
2. Choose a platform to sell on
If you already have a platform to sell on in mind, that’s great! It is one of the things to consider when joining a POD site, as not all offer the same integration. Popular platform integrations include Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace and Wix. Both Printify and Printful cover quite a long list of integrations compared to other sites.
I would recommend starting on Etsy if you’re a total beginner to print on demand and ecommerce. Other ecommerce platforms require a more advanced knowledge in managing sites and bringing in traffic. Etsy is pretty much simplified to make our lives easier!
Read: My list of 8 best selling print on demand niches on Etsy
3. Design the art prints or outsource the process
Now that you have your overall business strategy sorted, it’s time to make the art prints that you will be selling. Some of the tools you can use to design these art prints from scratch include Canva, Snappa, or every professional’s favorite – Photoshop. It’s completely up to your creativity what you’ll be designing as I believe there’s always a market for everything. You just need the right tools to make them.
Or you can draw manually yourself and digitalize them!
Alternatively, you can hire freelancers on Fiverr or Upwork to design for you. There is also an option to purchase the elements that you will use in your designs from other artists. You can find premium artwork for commercial use on 99designs, Creative Fabrica, Shutterstock and Envato Elements. Envato’s commercial license lasts a lifetime!
4. Upload designs to print on demand products
Once your designs are ready, export them in high quality PNG files. For best results, check the size requirements of products before even making the designs. If you’re using Printify or Printful, details such as file size and dimensions are usually provided at the product’s description. This ensures your art prints are printed in high quality and customers are happy with their purchase.
Unsure which product to choose from for your dropship art prints? These are some great options available on Printify:
- Posters
- Wall decals
- Postcards
- Greeting cards
- Canvas
- Magnets
- Stickers
- Notebook
- Journal
- Bookmark
- Ornaments
- Mouse pad
- Banner
- Puzzle
- Calendar
- Rugs
- Tapestries
Uploading designs to products is a super easy process once you’re logged into your dashboard. Just follow the process and ensure the graphic is placed correctly on the product. What you see when uploading is what your customers will get so do it right once only. You can then save the ready product and revisit it later to sync to a store you own.
5. Sync the product to your store with prices
You can only sync a product to your store (Etsy, Shopify etc) once you’ve connected the store to your POD account (Printify, Printful etc). If you’re on Printify, connect your accounts first by going to “Manage Your Stores” then revisit your ready products at “My Products”. Click on the “Unpublished” status to sync them to a chosen store. You’ll then be prompted to edit the product before publishing.
Some things you’ll have to edit before publishing are:
- Mockup image chosen (option to use Placeit)
- Product title
- Product description
- Option to add size table to description
- Selling price and profit margin (standard is 40%)
- Store to sync product to
You can continue to save it as draft or click publish for it to appear on your Etsy or Shopify store.
POD sites like Printify allows for integration with multiple stores at any one time so you can have these products synced to multiple stores as well. Below is a sample I’ve made for a Shopify store and an Etsy store.
6. Add payment method to your account
Once an order comes in through your ecommerce store, Printify or the POD site you signed up to should sync and get notified of the order with purchase details. You’ll have to make payment for the product cost plus shipping cost to your customer’s address before Printify would print the item and ship out. So this is pretty much like dropshipping since you don’t even have to get out of your room to see orders get fulfilled.
To fulfill orders, you’ll have to add a default payment method to your account. Most will require a credit/debit card and Printify lets you add wallet balance from PayPal. In any case, the balance will be deducted first before charging it to your card. Orders can get automatically paid without you needing to manually checkout every time if you switch on automatic fulfillment – suggest doing so if you don’t offer product customization.
Head onto the “Payments” section by clicking the top right green icon.
7. Market your store and attract customers
Now you have everything all set and ready to make sales! I generally suggest others to have at least 100 products in their store to make it look like a real business – because it is. Don’t expect too much before achieving that number. You’ll want your store to be the one stop shop for customers so they get at least 2-3 items in one purchase and continue to come back for more.
If you’re selling on Etsy, here are some things you can do to increase impressions:
- Optimize item for Etsy SEO
- Increase number of products offered every week
- Use Etsy ads for greater traffic
- Offer vouchers to past customers
- Improve main product image
- Slash prices by half to stay competitive
- Include FAQs in product description
- Promote products to Pinterest
Read: My 7 reasons why print on demand on Etsy is a great side hustle
Selling on your own ecommerce store (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace) is much more scalable as the platform is yours to control. However, you’ll have to master social media marketing and paid advertisements (Google, Facebook) to bring in traffic. They are not a marketplace like Etsy or Amazon with a ready database of customers you can easily tap on. So if you’re up for an adventure, consider creating your own branded website!
8. Make consistent sales, scale and unlock discounts
Some POD platforms offer product discounts with higher sales you achieve. This is the case for Printful! Printify does not offer any monthly sales discounts but if you’re making a lot of sales, I recommend getting Printify Premium which lets you save 20% more on product cost. Once you’ve scaled with one POD site and want to dropship art prints from other sites, you can do so using the same one store.
The only tip is to not join so many POD sites that you forget which product comes from which supplier. Like all businesses, it takes some time to get sales, build your list of good reviews and have customers coming back for more. But if you’re in it for the long term, this all should not matter. With consistency, comes great success!
10 Best Dropshipping For Art Prints
Not all print on demand companies offer great products to dropship art prints. Here are some POD sites with the best dropshipping for art prints!
- Printify
- Printful
- Inprnt
- Contrado
- Art Of Where
- Beyond Print
- Finer Works
- Gooten
- Gelato
- The Print Space
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Question: Can I dropship wall art?
Answer: Print on demand lets users dropship wall art such as posters, canvas and decals. Simply upload a design to a POD product and sell the wall art at an ecommerce store. When an order comes in, you’ll have to pay for the product cost plus shipping charges before it can be printed and shipped out by a fulfillment company.
Question: Can I dropship art prints with Shopify?
Answer: Shopify allows users to dropship art prints via print on demand. Sign up to any print on demand site selling art prints that offers integration with Shopify. Upload designs to products then sync them to your Shopify store. Orders will be fulfilled by the POD company without you needing to do anything.
Question: Is Printful good for art prints?
Answer: Printful is great for selling art prints on posters, wall art, decals and phone cases. It has a wide range of products and offers integration with over 20 ecommerce sites. Printful’s printing is high quality with vivid colors matching original design which is important when selling art prints.
Bottom Line
If you’re thinking of building an online business to dropship art prints, print on demand is your way to go! It’s easily set up from the comfort of your own home and is the perfect side hustle for busy people like single moms or introverted individuals.
Here are the 8 steps you should take to dropship art prints today:
- Sign up to a print on demand site
- Choose a platform to sell on
- Design the art prints or outsource the process
- Upload designs to print on demand products
- Sync the product to your store with prices
- Add payment method to your account
- Market your store and attract customers
- Make consistent sales, scale and unlock discounts
Interested in knowing more about print on demand and the types of products you can sell? Check out my product guides – great tips included!
- Tote bags for print on demand
- Tumblers for print on demand
- Phone cases for print on demand
- Posters for print on demand
- Leggings for print on demand
- Jewelry for print on demand
- Candles for print on demand
- Doormats for print on demand
- Hoodies for print on demand
- Pet products for print on demand
- Socks for print on demand
- Pajamas for print on demand
- Blankets for print on demand
- Baby clothes for print on demand
- Wrapping paper for print on demand
- Puzzles for print on demand
- Stickers for print on demand
- Athletic wear for print on demand
- Hats for print on demand
- Journals for print on demand
- Greeting cards for print on demand
- Mugs for print on demand
Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA
