Having a successful printables shop doesn’t come easily- no one just hands it to you on a silver platter, you must work it.
But there’s so many pitfalls along the way that no one really tells you about…till today!
Today let’s talk about the 9 deadly mistakes you’re making with your printables business and how you can stop them cold in their tracks!
9 Deadly Mistakes You’re Making with Your Printables Business
There are 9, count ‘em NINE things you can do to improve your sales and get more customers in your printables business. Let’s dive right in to discover them!!! 🙂
1- Your printables are not high quality
Someone you sell to is complaining right now in their head about how they are never going to buy from you again and you’ll never even know it!
Why are they saying that to themselves?
Because they bought printables from you and print them and they come out all blurry.
Not EVERYONE has the fancier printers. Some have printers older than dirt and we, as sellers, have to accommodate to ALL of our precious guests!
That means you need to create such high-quality printables that even someone with a printer from the stone age, can still print it out and it looks beautiful.
How do you do that? You use quality softwares and you save files professionally.
I teach all about that in both my courses:
If you’re not sure which software is right for you, this post will help you decide!
2- You’re building in someone else’s sandbox
Listen, I’ve been around the block or two. I’ve seen several of my friends lose their income in a matter of minutes. It’s HORRIFIC when it happens!
The worst? My good friend, Jen, who I’ve known for like a decade now, lost her $30k/month business in a matter of a few weeks.
Why?
Because she was selling on another site and the site changed its rules, flagged her ad for some unknown reason (total bunk if you ask me) and she was instantly out of business.
All her hard work. All that marketing and building up this empire, only to lose it. 😞 It is gut-wrenching, even now to think about.
Jen is not alone though. I’ve seen several people lose their businesses on Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, etc. and it’s a nightmare.
If you’re building on someone else’s turf, honestly, you’re asking for trouble!!! It’s not stable long term. You have to be on Shopify. It’s your OWN site, with your OWN rules and no one can just take it away from you.
Having your printables store on Shopify is like building on a rock-solid foundation whereas other places is like building on sand. Think about it!!!
3- You’re doing illegal stuff and you don’t know it
There’s so many copyrights out there, how do you know you’re actually doing it in a legal way? Look at what a friend wrote me the other day. She says, “I have become confused by options like Canva….I get concerned about copyright infringement.. I get so consumed in the what is correct and okay to sell that I stop myself from even doing anything with it. I am not sure what to do with that and then I don’t know how to actually move forward.”
It’s true. You never know what you’re doing. Their terms are so hard to figure out without a lawyer and if someone sues you, you’re toast.
Rather, do things the right way from the start and protect yourself. This is also something I go over in depth in my How to Create Printables courses, so you never need to worry about whether you’re complying or not. 🙂
4- You’re not charging what your time is worth
It takes a little while to create printables, put them all together, put them up in your shop, and market them. If you’re selling for $1, it’s not really worth your time unless you have a million subscribers.
If you do, HEEEEY!!! Go for it! 😁
But if you’re like most people, you don’t and you want to charge what you’re worth.
I’ve ran several tests in my shop. Binders at the $27 price point and binders at the $57 price point.
Each time I run a test, the results are the same.
At the $27, I get a couple sales and at the $57, I get maybe one sale in ratio to it. So, it’s a 2:1 ratio (I’m not saying I only get 2 sales). 😝
So in essence, I get double the sales at $27. You might think that’s a good thing and you can definitely do that in your own business but for me, I look at all aspects of things.
Sometimes people email in and need help or maybe someone has an issue. I try to keep my customer service emails down (so that my business runs on autopilot) and that means, for me, it’s better to have one sale at $57 then two sales at $27.
Plus, someone who is willing to pay $57 for a binder (rather than $27), is much more likely to buy a course from me (my course prices are high-end because of so much information in them).
So there’s several different, strategic things that are going into my decision and this way my business can run more passively and I can be ABLE to create MORE products for the shop in the long run.
Again you have to do what’s right for you in this scenario, but for me, charging more has always been something that has worked and anytime I’ve told others to charge a little more for their products too, they’ve made more money.
Now, this does NOT mean ripping people off.
You can’t charge $100 for a binder. You have to be reasonable. NEVER, EVER take advantage! The Bible warns against those who take advantage or charge too much.
But if you are charging $5 for a 50-page printable pack, chances are, you’re charging too little. Charge a fair amount, something that you can pay your bills and is fair to your customers. Don’t devalue yourself and your work. You work hard, you deserve to earn a fair wage! 🙂
5- You’re not researching what really sells
I highly doubt Taco Bell just puts out a new product on their menu out of the blue. No way! They research it. Companies research what they’re doing like crazy.
They ask taste testers, they ask advisors, they’ve done all the research, pulled all the stats.
So you making a product out of left field is not really going to help much. It may work, but it may not.
It’s like shooting arrows in the dark. You want to create products that people will buy. Products that are meeting pain points and helping solve problems. Products that are well researched and well thought out…
Not just random things you thought of and hope and pray it’ll hit the mark. No, do your research! This is your business we’re talking about here. Take it seriously! 🙂
6- You’re stingy and want quick money
There’s nothing wrong with needing to earn quick money, but there’s something wrong with having unrealistic expectations and being stingy with your work.
If God has blessed you with a skill (or you learn it through a program), then you must be willing to share that blessing with the world.
Here’s what I’m getting at: give freebies.
Get them hooked on your stuff. Give a sample. Show them you’re worth investing in.
If you’re not going above and beyond in your business, it will only feel like you’re swimming upstream.
I don’t have to twist anyone’s leg to buy my printables. They come from all over to buy them.
Why?
Because they know they’re good. I’ve built a solid reputation on producing quality work and I’ve given away a LOT of stuff. In fact, every week in my newsletter, I’m releasing a brand new product. You can join the newsletter here and grab some freebies yourself! ❤️
7- It’s not your passion
Is creating printables something you enjoy?
If it’s not, it’s going to feel like W-O-R-K and you won’t want to do it. If you do it, you won’t be as convincing to others to buy your stuff.
You have to be full of passion and zeal. You must be so in love with your OWN work and see it as something you CAN stand behind, fully and completely if you wish to convince others to take a chance on you.
If you’re not getting sales, it might be because you don’t seem excited enought about them yourself!
8- You’re trying to go it alone
Most people don’t have 24 years of experience under their belt, they just don’t, and that’s okay. But unless you been doing this all for a VERY long time, you need help getting started.
It’s pride to think you can just do everything on your own. I can’t do everything on my own either! I need help. I need assistants who plug in my work on my shop, help me streamline my business, proof my blog posts for errors, etc. I’m incredibly grateful for my team. ❤️
You need help too. Whatever your least strong points are, get help on them. If you suck at design, hire a designer to create printables for you. If you enjoy creating them but you’re not good at it, buy a course like mine and learn how to create printables that are great quality and sell like hotcakes.
If you are good at it already, then hire someone to help you input them in your store so you can build faster.
The point is, get help. Don’t try to do it alone (unless you’re willing to build slow). Build as fast as you can and really get there. Because every day your projects are sitting there on your computer collecting dust, you are LOSING MONEY!!!
9- You quit too soon
So many people start with a product or two and sell it on Etsy or something, never get any traction and think that’s the end of it.
“Well, I tried, I must suck and no one’s telling me”, they think.
Bull honkey!
This is YOUR dream, get out there and fight for it. Because the truth is, no one else is going to fight for your dream but you. How bad do you want it? Really? How bad?
It’s impossible to stop the person who won’t quit! There’s something to be said for persistence (Luke 11:5-8).
Use this list as a guide to help you become better at what you do. Go through it and really change up the things you can change so you can get more sales and be more successful in your printables business. I wish you all the best in the world in your endeavors! ❤️
