How to Dropship Personalized Products: An Ultimate Guide

Let’s embark on a comprehensive guide on how to dropship personalized products. This article covers everything you are looking for, from selecting high-profit margin items to connecting with reliable custom dropshipping suppliers. You will also get the art of designing engaging artwork and personalizing goods. Remember to stay till the end to take inspiration from a successful Shopify dropshipping store specializing in print-on-demand personalization!

Dropship Personalized Products Basics

It is easy to understand this business model even if you are completely new. Here are the basics that help you approach it quickly.

What is Dropshipping Personalized Products?

Dropshipping personalized products follows the same retail business model as regular dropshipping. The differences are you work more closely with your customer and the supplier needs to customize wares before shipping.

How personalized dropshipping works

With this business model, instead of opening a brick-and-mortar store and dealing with physical inventory, you only need to operate a digital one with personalization options. When there is an order, you need to forward the order details to your supplier, who then produces and ships them to the customer.

The most popular method is to connect with print-on-demand services. It eliminates the need for inventory management, providing a hassle-free way to offer made-to-order merch while focusing on growing your business.

💡 You may concern: Product Customization for Dummies: Definition, Benefits, and Examples

Can You Dropship Custom Products to Make Money?

Yes, dropshipping custom products can help you make money. The market will continuously grow at a CAGR of 7.85% from 2023 to 2027. The potential for earnings is promising for some reasons:

• Customized goods cater to unique customer preferences, which often translates to higher product value.
• Customers are willing to pay a premium for personalized items that hold sentimental or exclusive value.
• Dropshipping custom items benefits from less competition in comparison to more traditional markets.
• Long shipping times are generally more acceptable as long as you set clear expectations and maintain open communication.
• Satisfied customers who receive personalized items that meet their expectations are more likely to come back for more or refer your online shop to friends and family.

How to Dropship Personalized Products: 7 Steps to Start

Choosing a profitable niche is the prerequisite for connecting with a supplier, building your online business, creating designs, deciding personalization options, and selecting marketing strategies. Save the most easy-to-practice guideline here as the first move.

Step 1: Select Customizable Dropshipping Products

Among various dropshipping products, the below ideas stand out as having the most potential to generate substantial profits. Not only do they hold enormous needs, but they are also easy to personalize and manufacture, allowing you to regularly update their appearance.

• Apparel/Clothing (20%-50%): t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters, pants, and AOP leggings.
• Homeware & Decor (20%-45%): mugs, minimalist canvas, door mats, and acrylic plaques.
• Pet (20%-40%): beds, bandanas, bowls, blankets, pet shirts, and tags.
• Accessories: phone cases, AOP socks, embroidery hats, and vintage tote bags.
• Jewelry (around 40%): engraved rings and memorial necklaces with photos.
• Others: 3D personalized gifts, stickers, branded merch, or packages.

Step 2: Connect With Custom Dropshipping Suppliers

When working with custom dropshipping suppliers, they will handle the production, printing, and shipping. Consider factors such as product quality, production time, shipping options, and customer service to choose the right partner.

Pay attention to product quality besides production and shipping time

To help you get started, here's a list of the best global print-on-demand companies that provide custom product services.

• Dreamship: fastest production time (1-3 business days) and fast shipping time (2-14 days).
• Gelato: top-notch choice for business following sustainability.
• merchOne: a global company with high-quality and high-profit wares, especially canvases.
• ShineOn: an expert in necklace personalization with multiple materials like gold, silver, stainless steel, etc.
• Printful: 160+ product categories with cutting-edge printing technologies such as DTG, AOP, embroidery, etc.
• Printify: 100+ print partners, best serve the US, Canada, EU, and China markets.
• CustomCat: competitive prices with high-volume discounts for large quantities.

Step 3: Set Up an Online Store With Engaging Product Pages

An online shop is essential, allowing customers to browse and purchase your custom offerings conveniently from anywhere. Here are two ways for creating one:

💡 You may concern: 7 Best Platforms to Sell Custom Products: Features, Pricing & Suitable Sellers

Step 4: Design an Engaging Artwork

Design plays a crucial role in dropshipping personalized products as it helps you to offer unique and attractive items that cater to individual customer preferences. But how do you make a winning design? Here are some practical tips:

• First, it is essential to identify what kind of design you want to create. Do you want to offer personalization for text, images, logos, or a combination of them?
• Next, you need to consider the type and size of the product you are designing for. Different item may have different requirements for the design, such as the print area, resolution, color, and format.
• Then, you need to choose a tool to create your design. There are many tools to create professional-looking designs, for example, Canva and Photoshop.

Photo personalization is easy and high-demand

💡 You may concern: Quick Designing for Print-on-demand Within 3 Steps

Step 5: Personalize Your Dropshipping Items

Depending on how much you want to customize your offers, you can choose from two levels of options: basic and advanced.

• Basic options: color, size, shape, and material variants; normal text or simple photo upload.
• Advanced options: clipart, street/star maps, curved text, photo upload with background removed, etc.

Once you have decided on the options you want to offer, you need to know how to implement them in your store. There are two ways to make it:

Step 6: Promote Your Personalized Items to Get Orders

Now you need to promote your offers to get orders. Keep in mind that, the more target audience you can reach, the more tailor-made orders you can have. Here are some of the most effective ways to market them:

• Utilize social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Tiktok. Maintaining regular posts and managing groups for your niche are working.
• Use email marketing to send abandoned carts, follow-ups, promotional emails, or newsletters to build relationships.
• Collaborate with influencer marketing who match your brand image and values to create user-generated content and reach target buyers quickly.

Step 7: Send the Order Fulfillment to Your Suppliers

After you receive an order, you need to send the order fulfillment information to your supplier. This helps your supplier know what product to customize and ship to buyers. The order fulfillment details should include:

• The product name, SKU, or ID
• The product variant, such as color, size, or style
• The customization details, such as text, image, or design
• The buyer’s name, shipping address, phone, and email
• The shipping method and tracking number (if available)

Depending on how you integrate with your supplier, you can send the order fulfillment information in different ways. For example, you can:

• Use an app or plugin that automatically syncs your orders with your supplier's system.
• Use an email template that contains all the necessary information and send it to your supplier manually.
• Use a spreadsheet (a CSV file) that lists all the orders and upload it to your supplier's portal or website.

It is important to check the custom design of buyers

You should always confirm with your supplier that they have received the essential information and started working on the order. Then, don’t forget to

• Update your customer on the status of their order and provide them with a tracking number (if available).
• Monitor the progress of the order and communicate with your supplier if there are any issues or delays.
• Follow up with your customer after they receive their order and ask for feedback or a review.
• Handle any returns, refunds, or exchanges if necessary.

By following these steps, learning to know how to dropship personalized products is much easier. Then you can ensure a smooth and successful online business.

Dropship Personalized Products Shopify: an Example

If you are looking for an example of a personalized dropshipping store on Shopify, check out the Teeinblue POD Demo Store. It will show you how to start selling personalized print-on-demand goods online. The shop integrates the Teeinblue Product Personalizer app.

When a customer visits this site, they can see your product and customize it according to their liking. They can also see a live preview of how their product will look before they add it to their cart.

An example of dropshipping personalized products online shop (Source)

When a customer places an order, the app will automatically generate a print-ready file and send it to the chosen POD service. The POD service will then print and ship the order directly to the customer. Merchants don't have to do anything else.

To create a store like the demo above, you need to

• Pick a plan and set up a site on Shopify.
• Install Teeinblue Personalizer from the Shopify App Store.
• Connect your website with POD services that the app supports or any providers.
• Personalize print-on-demand goods in the app.
• Publish your products to Shopify and promote them to orders.

Frequently Asked Questions: Custom Products Dropshipping

What Should I Notice When Dropshipping Customized Goods?

When dropshipping customized goods, you should notice the following things:

• Choose a reliable and reputable supplier that can provide high-quality customization and fast fulfillment. You can use apps like Teeinblue for print-on-demand to connect with various top-notch services easily.
• Communicate clearly and frequently with your supplier and customer. You should send the order fulfillment information to your supplier as soon as possible. You should also update your customer on the status of their order.
• Offer exceptional customer service and handle any issues or complaints promptly. It is important to handle any returns, refunds, or exchanges if necessary, and follow your supplier's policies on these matters.

How to Whole Sale Dropship Personalized Products?

The process to wholesale dropship custom products is finding a supplier that offers wholesale prices and personalization, designing, and importing them to your store. The next steps are promoting to wholesale buyers, and sending the orders to your supplier for fulfillment. In comparision with retailing, the target audience is the only difference.

What is the Best Web-to-print Product Personalizer App?

The best choice depends on your needs and preferences, but one of the most popular and powerful app is Teeinblue Product Personalizer. It allows you to create and dropship personalized print-on-demand items on Shopify with ease.

Teeinblue POD Personalizer is also easy to use, fast, and affordable. You can try a 14-day free trial that offers full features before committing. With this software, you can:

• Add unlimited customization options, such as text, photo, star map, street map, clipart, etc.
• Generate high-resolution print-ready files from orders in SVG, PNG, and JPG formats.
• Sell unlimited white-lable goods from 20+ global integrated services in the app or add your own.
• Automate your order fulfillment and send the files to your chosen print-on-demand suppliers.
• Manage a big team and secure business secrets effectively with the team management feature.

Dropshipping personalized things requires some planning, research, and creativity. You need to find a reliable supplier, design artwork, create your store, launch marketing campaign, and send orders to fulfill. You also need to choose the best tools to make your selling process easier and faster. If you need a further discussion about how to dropship personalized products, feel free to leave a comment below or join Teeinblue Global Group. Happy dropshipping!

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