Work From Home Job Opportunities – Part 4

Well it’s here guys!  The final installment of my four part series on Work From Home Job Opportunities.  For a refresher, you can check out part one, two and three here.  In our last installment we will discuss my favorite way of earning a living from working at home…a POD (Print On Demand) business.

POD is a system whereby you can get t-shirts and other gift items printed by another company.  These companies  sell your design on tee shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, journals, and much more plus they deal with all the logistics including packaging, shipping, payments and even customer complaints.

Most people don’t have the finances to set up their own t-shirt printing company so these Print On Demands have created a way for people to do so with little or no start-up costs:

1. ArtApart.com – use your own artwork, text or clipart and sell t-shirts; it’s free.
2. Bountee – great way to showcase your original artwork and make some money;  it’s free.
3. Cafepress – use your artwork, graphic designs or clipart on t-shirts, home and office supplies, greeting cards and much more for to sell; you can get a basic shop for free or Premium Shops cost $6.95 at the monthly rate, or as little as $4.99 per month at the yearly rate.
4. CustomDesignPrinted.com – use your own artwork, graphic designs and clipart on a variety of t-shirts and gift items, such as watches and cuff links; for a limited time they are offering free stores.  My understanding is it is more for creating your merchandise to sell yourself (like for online auctions – like Ebay or real life markets, etc.).
5. E-shirt.com – sign-up for your own FREE T-shirt store in seconds.  Upload designs and set your own profits (All FREE).
6. Printfection.com – same as all above.  You upload your designs on a variety of products, create your own store and sell them for a profit; it’s free as well.
7. RedBubble – feature several different products (including t-shirts), but the emphasis is on artwork.  They feature framed and canvas prints so if you are a gifted artist you can sell your art on Redbubble for free and get commissions .  They also have a creative writing area where you can read and share poems and short stories.
8. Shirtcity – open your own shop with your own designs and sell your creations from your own site or blog; for free.
9. Skreened– open up a free account and add your designs to your shop and sell for a commission.  They only have t-shirts but all of them are American Apparel; made in the USA.
10. Spreadshirt – open a free shop to showcase your designs to be sold on a variety of t-shirt products.
11. Zazzle – add your design to many t-shirt products and gifts for sale for a commission.  They are free and instead of a shop you set up a gallery, to showcase your designs.

I personally have a shop at Cafepress where you can Create What’s On Your Mind at CafePress and just started with Printfection and Zazzle.  That’s the other great thing with these POD websites…you can have as many as you want.  In fact, the more shops you have with different Print On Demand companies the better chance your designs have to be seen.  Now don’t get me wrong, selling your designs through a POD website isn’t easy.  You have to create your designs upload them, which is the easy part; then you have to tag them and write descriptions.  It is very important to write good keyword rich content describing your designs for SEO ( search engine optimization ) this is how your designs will be found through the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.  You also have to get traffic to your shops.  Without traffic – no one sees your designs which equals no sales.

The other good thing about PODs is that you don’t need your own website.  You open up your shop within the business you choose, like Cafepress.  So people will find your store by typing in www dot CafePress dot com/YourShopsName.  If you have your own website or want to have your own domain name you can sign up for web hosting at companies like Web Hosting – $6.95/mo! .  This way you can mirror your shop…so your POD shop on say Zazzle will look identical to your domain name.  This way you can add your tees from several Print on Demand shops all together on your own website,  as well as other affiliate programs or services. 

If you have artistic abilities…maybe you paint landscapes in watercolors or you have great computer graphics skills, or maybe you are like me and have creative ideas but no artistic abilities you can do text designs or use clipart.  Check out 1 Million Clip Art Images at Graphics Factory.  

If you are wondering if you can really make money from PODs, I’ll tell you… YES you can.  I am pleased to say I opened Be Shirt Happy up ten months ago and am doing very well.  My goal is to make the equivalent of a full-time income from my shop by the first of next year.  See anyone can create designs and sell them on merchandise.  And each of these PODs are very user friendly.  If I can do it, anyone can do it!

If I left off any PODs let me know and I’ll add them.  Also if you have any questions concerning PODs let me know and I’ll do my best to answer it.  I hope to hear from you!  Enjoy life!!!