4 ms·

Another grey area with POD (print-on-demand) is creating designs for POD products e.g. products like t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, wall prints, etc. There are hun

Another grey area with POD (print-on-demand) is creating designs for POD products e.g. products like t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, wall prints, etc. There are hundreds of online tutorials promising you how to create designs for sale on Etsy - even if you have not a shred of design talent. How? Go to Canva, find a good-looking template and slap on it on as many POD products as possible. Etsy is simply overstuffed with products like this. Many of these sellers are probably making good sales. Does this count as something being 'designed'? Does it even matter? The perception that Etsy is a marketplace mostly of artists and "makers" is one that hasn't been true for a while.

stickfigure 5y ago
That's true but I think this is a relatively small part of the POD market. Some POD marketplaces (not Etsy, but Redbubble and TeePublic) detect stock content and automatically ban accounts. Etsy tends to attract the more sophisticated POD merchants because it's more complicated (separate printer required) and there's a $0.20 listing fee so there's more upfront cost. Most successful POD merchants have thousands or tens of thousands of designs, so the listing fees really add up. The most successful POD merchants have small design teams that produce content every day. That may or may not fit your mental image of an Etsy seller. But the low-effort non-artists who took a guru's "make money fast in POD" online course tend to do very poorly, and don't make up the bulk of Etsy.