PoD 1.0

PoD is something I’d like to progress, the idea of passive income, something often bandied about on YouTube and similar as easy money that just rolls in without effort. We all know that’s not true of course and most people will tell you that once you actually get into the video further but it is possible to generate income passively if you initially put some work in. The idea being create once, and sell many!

I’ve done some PoD work as previously mentioned and had some limited success. I plan to have another crack at it, this will be a 2 pronged attack. Firstly out and out PoD, create good but not necessarily specific to me or my project PoD designs. These will be based on memes, or crazes, or just old designs I have kicking about and feel they still have appeal or value. The intent to create a more classic ‘passive’ income that just ticks over. The second will be more related to my projects, these will carry my current designs and will be marketed along with my current projects but so I don’t have to carry stock and inventory I’ll ‘offload’ the manufacturing and distribution to a PoD site so they can be ordered ad-hoc

I also need to look at other similar sites to Cafepress, I know of Zazzle and have dabbled with that briefly and there are quite a few T-shirt sites out there but I need to know which are more UK based than US which will mean I have more of an idea what the customers may go for. Also there is Amazon Merch the new big boy on campus. Amazon is certainly something that cannot be ignored, millions of potential customers across several continents. Amazon Merch is currently something you have to apply for and earn your place, they have a tiered structure based on sales, the more you sell the more you can upload and market. I guess this is to make the sellers upload quality items and consider their products carefully before uploading. I’ve noticed with Cafepress that some sellers just swamp the market with variations on a theme in order to squeeze out the others sellers simply by swamping the market with their designs. This dilutes the market and puts off buyers, something Amazon are keen to avoid. I’ve applied for a Merch account and received an invitation but have yet to create a design and upload, I think I’m allowed something like 1 upload per day at the moment so I want to get my designs well thought out, create a theme or similar product line so as to look co-ordinated form the outset. I’ll them customise accordingly later, I presume I can remove downloads I’m not happy with or aren’t selling at a later date but as stated I’ve still to create and upload any design yet so this is all still a bit of a mystery at the moment