2020 became critical to the economy but a breakthrough for eCommerce. All the established sales canons have disappeared – they were replaced by new tactics of attracting customers. Multi-Programming Solutions figured out how newbies shouldn’t get lost among the many development strategies of a print on demand online store and stay afloat in the coming year.
Rising globalization, digital innovation, and changing consumer habits have catapulted print on demand selling amid seismic shifts. An accelerated retail apocalypse has made the fashion industry even more unpredictable: sustainability, personalization, and authenticity trends have become mainstream.
With a pandemic still raging out of control, it’d be no surprise that digital marketing became the focus of product realization. In the US, the eCommerce fashion industry accounted for 29.5% of retail sales in 2020. That's a pretty good indicator considering that more than 50 major retailers, including H&M, Levi's, and Nike, have experienced a crisis. Nevertheless, according to global forecasts, the market value will reach $ 100 billion this year. So it’s entirely possible to achieve more profit using the best niche strategies. We’ll talk about them further.
1. Collect industry data into a single puzzle
We've already mentioned some of the primary data above, but you’d delve deeper into them: utilize Statista or McKinsey and their available fashion industry reports. The driving forces behind these researches are:
- Possibility of further scaling of business in the global market arena;
- Increase the brand’s online presence;
- Getting the basics for implementing pilot projects;
- Using the power of influencers to promote trending items.
A detailed analysis of statistics will allow you to sell print on demand items successfully. E.g., take the fact that most people's lifestyles have changed over the past year. According to Harvard University, weight gain by 1.5 pounds per month during the quarantine period was a fact. That became a lever for a frantic desire to return to the previous fit, and the demand for sportswear increased accordingly. The schools' closure and hybrid jobs establishment also provoked changes in style – a quarter of Americans chose comfortable home clothes over office suits.
And if the athleisure market size was valued at $ 155.2 billion in 2018, then by 2026, it’ll increase by 6.7% in an average annual equivalent, reaching $ 257.1 billion. So, if your print on demand merch doesn’t implement the relevant products, it’ll most likely lose good income.
How to Define Your Niche Market When Running a Print on Demand Business?
2. Focus on digital!
More and more companies are choosing to use print on demand marketing tools to assess the current state of affairs in the industry, increase potential customers number, reduce the bounce rate and systematize the mass of work processes. E.g., Google Analytics provides data on customer preferences and opportunities to improve ROI.
Apparently, in 2021, entrepreneurs should pay attention to optimizing voice, visual and mobile search, native advertising, and transparency.
Applying a Facebook strategy will help you promote your posts to reach a new audience. The same goes for creating an Instagram business account: clickable links to posts will attract traffic and targeting – existing customers.
Currently, almost a third of the US population uses voice search: it’s expected to grow by 9.7% by the end of this year, equivalent to 122.7 million users. The presence of visual content on the website will affect its ranking and positively impact the driving force of all generations, namely millennials. After all, about 60% of young people prefer visual search to any other technology.
Top print on demand companies often emphasize openness, honesty, and sincerity: it’s essential for consumers that the ordered product arrives at the agreed time, of high quality and intact. Otherwise, it’ll affect the brand's online reputation. The correspondence of products in the photo and reality can affect the subsequent interaction with the brand: about 77% of shoppers prefer customer product images when purchasing online. And it doesn't matter whether it’s a store website, advertising on social networks, or reviews in Google Maps.
As you can see, without point # 1, # 2 is impossible. Your online print on demand business cannot prosper without trend awareness and technical innovation. The fact of the correct definition of the target audience and its segmentation is also essential. Read more about this here. Knowing your target audience will help you:
- Decide where to sell print on demand;
- Choose the right tone, color schemes, and brand values;
- Adapt products to your target audience.
3. Discounts, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday – what could be better?
Online brand awareness is essential for brand development. So, one of its factors is the use of discount codes in various sales channels.
About 93% of shoppers use discount codes. E.g., free shipping drives more sales and revenue: back in 2010, it encouraged online shopping and more customer acquisition. Ten years later, nothing has changed.
BFCM is also an excellent tactic to mitigate the traditionally sluggish printing on-demand online retail in mid-fall…
