Launch Cart and Printful Start a Free Print On Demand Store
If you are an entrepreneur or influencer looking for a way to start a print on demand store for free, look no further!
Launch Cart and Printful provide a great solution.
In this article, I will show you how to create a print on demand eCommerce store with Launch Cart and Printful.
With these two platforms, you can easily create and manage your online store while utilizing Printul’s print on demand services.
I will cover the key Launch Cart settings you need to configure and how to add your first Printful print on demand product. So let’s get started!
What is print on demand?
Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business model in which a printable product is printed only after an order has been placed by a customer. This eliminates the need for inventory and reduces the risk of unsold products.
Print on demand has risen in popularity in recent times due to the low cost and low barriers to entry.
What are Launch Cart and Printful?
What is Launch Cart?
Launch Cart is a SaaS cloud-based eCommerce platform that allows entrepreneurs and influencers to create their online stores and sell both physical and digital products.
Launch Carts’ mission is to remove the barrier of entry to getting online for influences, entrepreneurs and small businesses. That is why they offer highly functional eCommerce software with a free plan to sell custom merchandise.
What is Printful?
Printful is a print-on-demand company that prints and ships your custom-designed shirts, hats, tote bags, phone cases etc.
You simply upload your artwork and they take care of the rest – from printing to shipping. Printful has a wide range of products and prints in a variety of styles and colors.
Why you should use Launch Cart and Printful?
Launch Cart
There are so many reasons to choose Launch Cart over other eCommerce platforms but two really stand out:
- Launch Cart offers a free plan that enables you to sell products without a monthly charge.
- Launch Cart has conversion boosting functionality built-in and is included in all their plans (including the Launch Cart Free Plan). Many other platforms charge you extra for key items like email capture pop-up, order bumps, upsell and downsell functionality but Launch Cart do not.
Check out my in-depth article on why I choose Launch Cart over Shopify every time to sell custom merchandise.
Launch Cart Example Store
If you’re looking for Launch Cart example store, check out MTBMe.co.uk
Printful
Printful is one of the largest print on demand companies there is making it a great choice if you are starting out. Here are some other reasons to choose them:
- One of the largest and most well-established POD companies out there. They were founded over 9 years ago, which is a long time in POD.
- Very easy to use platform
- They have fulfillment centers across the globe which helps reach your customers quicker
- Printful has a large catalog of products on offer.
How do they work together
Launch Cart has developed an integration to Printful’s print on demand software. In fact, Printful were the first print on demand provider that Launch Cart integrated with.
The integration is well tested and enables products to be pushed from Printful to Launch Cart and orders to go from Launch Cart to Printful automatically.
How to set up a Launch Cart Store
Sign Up to Launch Cart
Go to LaunchCart.com and enter your email address in the box shown below and click the “Create My Store Now” button.
Fill in your details
Enter your details and click the Create Store Now button and click Continue on the next page.
Populate Your Address
Add your address details (this is important as it sets the location of your Launch Cart store. This can be amended later). Or you can click the I’ll Do This Later Button.
How to Integrate with Printful
On the left navigation menu go down to App Store then click Dropshipping. Move your cursor over the Printful logo and an Enable option will appear, as shown below. Click it.
On the next page that is shown, click Sign In, found at the bottom of the page and enter the details of your newly created Printful account.
You are now ready to add your first product.
Adding your first Printful product on Launch Cart
Following the creation of your online store, go to your Printful dashboard and click on Stores on the left menu. You should see something like this in the middle of the page, but with your store name.
Click the Add Product button.
You will be taken to the Printful product catalog where you can choose the product you want to add to your online store. For ease, we have chosen a Gildan 64000 t-shirt, which is my go-to shirt for print on demand (soft, good quality, and cheap & better than B&C 3001).
Drag and drop your design (PNG format, ideally 300dpi) onto where it says Drop Your Design Here. Position your design so it shows as you would like ensuring the design stays within the print area box.
If the product has color variations, click which one/s you want to use and then click Proceed to Mockups.
Scroll down the left-hand side of the page and select the mockups you want to use. These will be the pictures that show in your Launch Cart store once you have published the item.
To keep the file size down of the images, I recommend you choose JPG over PNG by ensuring the radio button is selected. Then click Proceed to Details
Here you enter your product title, which you can update in Launch Cart later, then click Proceed to Pricing.
On the pricing page, you see the Printful Price (cost to you), the Revenue (which is actually your profit), and the Retail Price you want to sell the item for.
The Printful Price may show a range as items may cost more or less depending on where it is fulfilled. Remember that the Printful Price does not include taxes like VAT.
Finally, click Submit to Store and allow some time for the product to be pushed to your online store.
Now, log back into your Launch Cart store and go to Products in the main navigation menu. On the products page, you will see all the products you have in your online store and their status, as shown below.
Click the Pencil symbol to edit your item to update and finalise the listing.
Finalize Your Product
On the Product Info page, you can now:
- Update the Product Name, which is the title of the product
- Update the Product Description
- Set the Product Status to Draft , Inactive or Active
- Add your product to a Category (and create a category if you haven’t any)
- Set the Product Type by entering a name e.g. T-Shirt
- Select whether you want to enable Tax Calculation or not (I recommend you leave this checked).
- Add additional images in the Media section
- Set whether you want the inventory tracked (for Print on Demand items I recommend leaving this unchecked
- Set the Price of the product and enter a Compare At price which when set higher than the selling price shows that the item has been discounted.
- Add any Product Attributes (not required for POD items)
- Finally, you can add SEO related information by checking the Customise Your Products SEO Information box and then filling in the fields that are then displayed.
Click the Save button and on the page, you are taken to, click the Eye symbol, to see what your product looks like in your online store.
Your Online Store Is Ready To Go
In this article, we’ve gone through the main settings to get your online store set up and integrated it with Printful, and pushed your first product.
There is a key functionality that I recommend you check out to increase the probability of a sale and the conversion rate.
These include MailChimp Integration, Email popup, Check Out Page customization, Upsells and Order Bumps ( bump offers ) and Contact us page and there are many others.
Wrap Up
In this article, I’ve shown you how to set up the main settings to get your Launch Cart store up and running and add a Printful product.
Launch Cart is an extremely powerful platform with conversion boosting functionality such as Order Bumps, Upsells and Down Sells, Email Popups, and Mailchimp Integrations that we will cover in a later article as these are must-haves for any serious eCommerce site.
Life Time Deal: Not signed up yet? Get a store for a one-off payment of $39
