Shopify and Teespring are both big brothers in the online business industry, but there are some reasons that we BSS think Shopify might have a slight advantage on the market.
If your everyday job is to create profit from the online business platform, especially print-on-demand (POD) products, then you must have heard of Shopify and Teespring. It is a booming market for POD worldwide because it generates big profit with less burden on the owner than the previous approaches.
If you consider between the two, this article will walk you through all the details of how both platforms work, their strengths, and why we think Shopify is the better option for your POD online business.
Along with Shopify vs Teespring comparison, here are related topics you might interest in:
But first, let’s take a quick look at our comparison table below for general ideas:
Contents
- 1 Shopify vs Teespring: Important criteria to consider
- 2 What are Print-on-demand (POD) products?
- 3 What are Shopify and Teespring?
- 4 Shopify vs Teespring: How do you set up a store on both platforms?
- 5 Limitations of Teespring for POD business
- 5.1 It is a hugely competitive market on Teespring that you need to get over
- 5.2 Long shipping time
- 5.3 You need a minimum amount of products to be printed
- 5.4 You don’t have the database for your business since Teespring controls everything.
- 5.5 Teespring doesn’t build a community, so you can’t share your ideas and tips.
- 5.6 It might not be a good way to build a sustainable business on Teespring since you don’t participate in every step.
- 6 Why use Shopify for POD business
- 6.1 Shopify offers a professional display that is compatible with all devices
- 6.2 Using the Shopify app store to make every step easier
- 6.3 Using the database and Shopify features to convert to sales
- 6.4 Joining Shopify means you are entitled to a big community and endless customer support.
- 6.5 Pay a monthly fee but what you get is a bigger picture
- 7 Shopify vs Teespring: What is better
Shopify vs Teespring: Important criteria to consider
| Criteria | Shopify | Teespring |
|---|---|---|
| Years of operation | Over 14 years | Over 9 years |
| Available POD products to sell | Unlimited choice of products | Over 50 types of products |
| Pricing plan | 14 day free trial with a monthly plan from $29 | Free to use |
| How to design POD products | Numerous choices of available design apps (free and paid) on the Shopify app store | Basic design tools on the Teespring platform |
| The minimum amount required for products to be printed | No | Yes |
| Orders tracking | There is an “Orders” section so you can manage orders detail and track the unfinished orders. | Teespring will take over from orders process |
| Mobile friendly | Very good | Good |
| Control of customer data | Full control | None |
| Marketing support | Use of analytics, discounts code, customers data for marketing strategies | Self-marketing on social media and other sites |
| Apps for business development | Wide range of apps on the Shopify app store | Not available |
| Customer support and community | Get access to Shopify Community for support and 24/7 customer support | 24/7 customer support |
| Potential to expand business | Very good | Little potential |
What are Print-on-demand (POD) products?
If you are not familiar with the concept, Print on demand is a process where you work with a supplier to customize white-label products (like T-shirts or tote bags) with your designs to sell them on a per-order basis under your brand.
You don’t need to keep any inventory by this method since the product will be manufactured only after the order is placed. Everything after the sale, from printing to shipping, is handled by your supplier.
What are Shopify and Teespring?
Teespring
Teespring is a free platform that allows you to profit by designing your own products to sell online with no upfront cost or risk.
You only need to come up with a design for your product and find customers. Once an order is placed, Teespring will take care of the printing, shipping, and collecting money for you. You make profits by earning the difference between the base cost and your selling price.
You can sell over 50 kinds of POD products with Teespring, from T-shirts, canvas, hoodies to mugs, etc.…
To put it simply, your job is to design the products and take care of marketing.
Shopify
Shopify works a bit differently. It is an e-commerce platform that allows you to create your own business with a website or store, choose products to sell, manage orders, payment, and customers’ databases.
Shopify gives you the freedom to sell anything you want on your site, from physical products to intangible services.
By accessing the homepage front end and the business back end, Shopify gives you the power to control your business, design it your way, and join the big community of various products.
This article will only focus on the POD products section on Shopify to compare with Teespring.
Shopify vs Teespring: How do you set up a store on both platforms?
Teespring
After choosing the products you want to sell, you can set up a Teespring store and develop the ideal design to make your products stand out.
Teespring has developed the tools inside the platform that helps you with designing the products.
After designing, you can upload your products to the Teespring store to start selling. When customers order, Teespring will take care of printing the products and shipping them to customers.
You can start promoting products on other platforms like Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram… to get people to come to your site and start buying.
Shopify
When you have designed products, you need to create an account and set up a Shopify store. You can choose a free theme on your library to start designing your home page however you want.
Your store will look a bit like this:
To design your products, Shopify offers a range of apps on the Shopify app store with different add-in features such as Printful, Printify, etc.… You can choose a suitable app for your creative style.
After finishing your design, you are entitled to also other specified apps for printing the products, setting up payment, and marketing,… Each app will have its advantage in helping you make your products stand out.
To sum up, while using Shopify, you are your own boss. You will be in charge of everything, from designing to talking to customers and tracking orders details, etc.… More work for you, but we will explain why it will be a better choice in the long run in the next section.
Limitations of Teespring for POD business
It is a hugely competitive market on Teespring that you need to get over
Teespring offers free service for life for everyone, so imagine while you are starting your business, a lot of other people might have the same idea.
After discovering the base cost, even after your customers can do the same thing and earn profit by following the easy steps, why not? Then you might lose a potential customer and have one more competitor.
The only solution for your business is to create exceptional products to compete with millions of similar products out there in the Teespring community.
Long shipping time
The standard shipping time on Teespring is around 14 days after you place your order, not to mention the printing time after an order is placed. Do you want to wait that long for a T-shirt to be delivered?
This can reduce customer’s interest while they can choose other platforms with faster shipping services.
You need a minimum amount of products to be printed
When viewing a product, customers will see the sign “Need XX more products to print” if the product hasn’t reached the minimum amount to be printed yet.
This will make the customers less interested in buying the product because they will have to wait for others to get in line and make your business look weak since it seems like you’re not getting enough traffic.
You don’t have the database for your business since Teespring controls everything.
It might seem easy in the first place since you need to find customers and then wait for your profit to come, but Teespring will collect all the customers’ data because they will take care of orders.
In this online world, data is everything! You can use it for marketing campaigns, customer service, develop your brand’s name, and many more things that you can think of in the future. Getting no access to that resource might be something you should think about while growing your business!
On Teespring, each business works individually, and you have to count on the Teespring support team 100% when you have problems with your store.
The customer service of the Teespring team is amazing, but sometimes it’s faster and more convenient if you can search for solutions to the same problems by asking the community. You can even find recommendations from other businesses, exchange ideas so you can develop your business better.
It might not be a good way to build a sustainable business on Teespring since you don’t participate in every step.
You only collect profit after the product is shipped, so there’s a whole process from managing orders, payment to post-delivery service that you don’t know about.
This is an easy way for people to make money, but if you want to expand your business scale in the future, you need to control all related processes, so you know which part needs upgrading and how to grow your business better in the long future.
Why use Shopify for POD business
Shopify offers a professional display that is compatible with all devices
Shopify has developed both a laptop version and an app for smart devices, so people can shop easily, no matter where they are. This is an advantage in modern society when customers are online most of the time.
You can also choose a free or paid theme in the Shopify theme library or design your own theme to make your store look unique and attractive to customers. It’s a good way to develop your brand.
Using the Shopify app store to make every step easier
Joining Shopify means that you will take part in every POD step, from designing, printing, shipping … Shopify already developed an app store with a wide range of free and paid apps to help you with every step of the way.
Looking for ways to develop your business? Shopify app also has the answer for you. You can also find specialized apps for marketing, SEO, sales-boosting, customer service, etc.… Everything results in better profit for your business.
Using the database and Shopify features to convert to sales
This is one huge advantage of using Shopify you should keep in mind. On your store backend, you can access many sections that generate data such as Orders, Customers, Analytics… You can play with it in many ways to make sales better. Here are some of our suggestions:
- Track unfinished orders and send email marketing
Shopify has an “Abandoned checkout” section where it keeps all the information of a customer that hasn’t finished the checkout yet. You can use that to send emails to them or even give them a discount code to encourage finishing the order.
- Send out discount coupons to new and old customers
The “Discounts” section allows you to create discount codes easily for groups or single products that you want, customers will see it on your store, or you can send them notifications to boost sales.
- Using analytics to track customers’ trends so you can brainstorm new sales and marketing campaign
Analytics is a powerful tool that will reveal everything about your sales, such as online conversion rate, top products by unit sold, sales by traffic source, top landing page by sessions, etc.…. By studying these data, you will have an idea about how your business is going and your customers’ behaviors to form new tactics to target the right goals better.
- Set up loyal customers lists
This is easy to do since you have all the customers’ data in your hand, and you can upgrade customer service by doing so.
- Sync your Shopify store with Facebook to boost sales
Shopify teams up with Facebook so you can easily create connections between two platforms. How convenient is that?
Joining Shopify means you are entitled to a big community and endless customer support.
Shopify creates a community so you can ask questions and exchange ideas freely with millions of store owners all over the world. This is a great way to connect with others and give the inspiration to develop your business.
Read more: Shopify vs. Own Website: Which way to build your own website ultimately?
The customer service team is available 24/7; since they have developed a big network worldwide, they will answer your questions in the least amount of time.
Pay a monthly fee but what you get is a bigger picture
Shopify is very generous to offer a 14-day free trial, so you can get to know the site, test your business, and ask as many questions as possible.
After that, depending on your business scale, you can choose to pay from $29/month, but you will get a professional-looking site and competitive advantages over other free platforms.
Shopify vs Teespring: What is better
Based on the brief table that we showed at the beginning of this article and our explanations, you can choose which one to use depending on your business goal.
Teespring is suitable for people with tight budgets and wants to generate short-term income with fewer things to worry about. It would be a good opportunity to start an online business where you don’t know where to begin.
If you want to start a long-term business with a brand development strategy and want to elevate the business in the future, if you have a passion for creating something remarkable and unique, then Shopify is definitely the answer for you.
Whatever the option you choose, the BSS team hopes that we gave you enough insight by this article and wishes you nothing but success!
