"This post might include affiliate links, cause I need to pay my bills."

Now you can enjoy our blogs in the form of Podcasts - Missinginart BlogCast

Last week I talked about POD sites and niches, so this week we’ll focus more on the sites themselves and should you use only one or multiple at the same time.

In my opinion, there isn’t THE BEST POD site because they all have their pros and cons. But in this post, I’ll go through the ones I use, mostly because I’m familiar with them and they bring me sustainable income.

These are Redbubble, Zazzle, TeePublic, DeviantArt, and AmazonKDP (technically it’s not a POD site, but works the same if you ask me).

There are multiple other POD sites out there such as Society6, Spoonflower, Amazon Merch, TeeSpring, CafePress, Etsy, Shopify, Spreadshirt, eBay, Printify and these are just some that I know off. But there are several more out there.

Some POD sites are easy to master and understand but some have a bit of a learning curve to them and not all of them are completely free, such as Etsy, eBay. Some are difficult to master or even enter (to qualify as a designer) like Merch by Amazon.

So, the question remains, should you use/master one POD site or multiple?

I would suggest that you check them all out and then decide with which one you would be the most comfortable to work on. Master that one first, when it comes to posting your designs on, writing titles, descriptions, tags, how the promotion works, and so on. Then try adding one POD site at a time, but also keep in mind that you need to maintain all the shops that you have. Which in the beginning takes a lot of time especially when you’re not that familiar with them.

Having your designs on multiple POD sites has its pros and its cons.

1. The PROS: you get to see what works on which site, you have multiple income streams, you get to spread your art and designs to multiple people.

2. The CONS: it takes a lot of time to set everything up, some sites have an easy uploading system, others not so much, it takes a lot of time before you start seeing results, some sites are already very saturated so it’s hard to make yourself shown, some sites have to approve your art before it’s live (some take up to 5 days).

My suggestion would be to start with one, and after 6 months add one or three POD sites. Make your stores unified if you’re thinking of branding yourself. This means your headers, logo, tagline, etc. need to be the same in all stores. You could sell just stickers on one, just pattern designs in another, just t-shirts on a third one.

Zazzle allows you to open multiple stores under one roof, which saves time and managing efforts. But you are confined under one POD site that already has a specific public. When it comes to Redbubble as far as I’m aware you are allowed only one store, and with TeePublic as well.

When it comes to posting designs on these sites I believe Redbubble, TeePublic, and DeviantArt have the easiest uploading process, you can upload to multiple products at the same time and edit them right on the spot. But they are not editable for the customer except for the background colors.

With Zazzle, you can make editable items. This means you can make the text editable for the customer, so they can add their own names, messages to your existing design. But the downside of Zazzle is that you can’t upload in bulk, well technically you can but the products that are in that bulk upload are not really that good. Therefore, posting the same design on multiple specific items is the best choice but it takes a lot of time. So, be prepared for that.

In the end, it all comes down to your preference. Check them out, browse around and see which POD site attracts you the most, and start with that one. After a while, you’ll get the hang of it.

Now you know your niche and you’ve chosen a POD site to post your designs on. Next is creating designs and listing them. There are some things you need to be aware of before you start posting your designs and that is called HOW TO NOT GET BANNED… Up next week…