Consumers enjoy choice in their purchase of a product or service and custom product invite them to engage with a sale even more. With the rise in online retail and mass customization in manufacturing, more businesses across nearly every industry offer elements of customization for their goods and services. Sites such as https://matohash.com offer a huge range of customizable products to add your own personal touch.
Learning about product customization, whether that’s using machine embroidery designs or custom labels to customize your products, and how you can apply it in business can help you in your career, even in a variety of industries or fields. We will now explore what product customization is, give examples of it and discover five benefits for companies to offer customized products or services.
- What is Custom Product?
- Top 10 Trending Custom Products to Sell
- What Are Examples of Customized Products?
- What Items Can I Customize and Sell?
- What Makes an Item Custom?
- How to Design and Sell Custom Products Online
- How to Offer Customizable Products
- How to Set up Custom and Personalized Products on Shopify
- Custom Products For Business
- What Brands Can You Customize?
- What is Customized Design?
- What is Customized Website?
- Printing Custom Products on Demand
- Can I Dropship Custom Products?
- Where to Get Custom Products?
- What is KIK Custom Products?
- What is Custom Made Products?
- How to Buy Custom Products?
- How to Sell Custom Products on Amazon?
- How to Price Custom Products
- Zazzle
- Create Your Own Custom Gifts on Zazzle
- Create Custom Clothing on Zazzle
- Create Custom Accessories on Zazzle
- Create Custom Invitations on Zazzle
What is Custom Product?
Customization of a product is the manufacturing ability to offer a variety of designs or details for one product, made specifically to a buyer’s liking, much in part because of advances in technology and manufacturing production processes.
Read Also: Quick Selling Items on Etsy in 2023
Customization of products means a customer can select features like color, design, functionalities, add-on components or other options to make a more unique item rather than a mass produced one. For example, a shoe company can allow customers to design and order a one-of-a-kind sneakers through their online platform.
Product customization has grown throughout nearly every industry and is often a common element in persuading a buyer to make a purchase.
Top 10 Trending Custom Products to Sell
From custom print t-shirts to all over print blankets, here are 10 of the best products for your new store. Product list:
1. Custom T-Shirts: With Your Design cheap print on demand products to sell from home T-shirts are one of the best products to sell from home, from kids tees to the eco-conscious, there is a t-shirt style for everyone. Check out our design ideas for Custom tshirt, funny t-shirts, 80s t-shirts, fantasy t-shirts, Christmas t-shirts, bachelorette shirts, Halloween t-shirts, and custom cat t-shirts.
2. Custom Hoodies: With Your Design TOP 20 Custom Products to Sell From Home 9 Who doesn’t love a good hoodie, no matter if it’s a lightweight zip-up hoodie or a cozy winter warmer, there is a place in everyone’s closet for a custom hoodie.
3. Custom Phone Cases: How many phones do you see without a case? Custom phone cases are one of the easiest products to sell from home. Get your design and niche right and you could be shipping hundreds of cases before you know it.
4. Custom Mugs: Is there anything better than curling up with a hot cup of cocoa. Available in 2 sizes, perfect to kick start the day with a coffee, or snuggling down to watch a movie.
5. Custom Socks: No one likes boring socks, so this is the perfect chance to add some color and fun into your customer’s underwear draw. Custom socks are one of those fun products to sell from home, plus you can wear the samples.
6. Custom Canvas: Taking pride of place on your customer’s wall is a proud moment, these custom canvases are the perfect way to display your artwork. Available in multiple sizes, your designs will really stand out.
7. Custom Jackets: From 80’s chic to modern minimalism, these custom jackets are the perfect blank for your design statement. The all-over print design is perfect for achieving a custom that can command a good margin.
8. Custom Stickers: Stickers are still cool, they will always be cool in fact. That makes them one of the most popular products to sell from home. Available in square and kiss-cut, as well as three sizes. Make your own stickers.
9. Custom Shoes: If you have harbored dreams of being a shoe designer, here is your chance. Choose from boots to hi-top sneakers and even platform heels, this could be the kick you need to start selling from home.
10. Blankets custom blankets: The world of soft furnishings starts with blankets, duvet covers, and comfort. So what better products to sell from home than these. Snuggle up with your laptop and get inspired.
What Are Examples of Customized Products?
Many industries use product customization to encourage customer sales, the most notably being retail. Some brands primarily focus on customization and others provide it as an element to enhance their offerings and the customer experience.
Here are some example scenarios of product customization:
A furniture manufacturer
A national furniture manufacturer might feature a sectional couch or sofa that has multiple layout configurations to choose from, like having an extended chaise lounge cushion available on the left- or right-hand side. Customers can also pick from a choice of leg styles and sizes, fabrics, colors and cushion shapes to customize the couch to their living space.
A bakery
Small businesses or bakery departments within large grocery or warehouse stores both offer the ability to customize your order, like a birthday cake, for example.
While some cakes are ready-made with a blank area for a personal message, like “Happy Birthday, Brenda,” they bake other cakes made-to-order where a customer can choose the sponge flavor, a filling choice, frosting flavor and color, cake design elements and a personalized message. In this example, a customized cake likely takes longer to prepare and requires an order in advance.
An aircraft manufacturer
Airplane manufacturers now offer the ability for airlines and private companies to customize the layout, seat configuration, seat material or color, kitchen and galley layouts, bathroom placement and more. Standard specifications are starting points along with pre-approved selections or package bundles to build from for both branding and operational standpoints.
For example, an airline might want leather seats, an advanced entertainment system, carpet to match their brand colors and specific bins for overhead luggage storage space. In the cockpit, they may choose certain navigation or communication operation systems.
A lawn care company
A small business owner runs a landscaping company and sells both standard services or customizable offerings. Some customers may choose a seasonal lawn mowing price for standard grass cutting, while others may choose to add hedge trimming, weed whacking, seasonal mulching and pet waste removal.
A mix-and-match package deal that allows a client to customize what they need specifically to their lawn care needs can lead to future business, referrals and additional sign-ups for future services offered.
An automobile maker
An auto manufacturer offers standard features or highly customizable available options, depending on the buyer and their price range. The customization of vehicles has grown, once from basic selections like cloth versus leather seats to advanced technology and features and options like heated seats and steering wheels, cruise control, keyless entry, automatic start and hands free liftgates.
Some higher end auto brands even feature optional add-ons like leather-trimmed air vents, motorized cup holders, granite trim, drowsiness detectors or a perfume dispenser.
What Items Can I Customize and Sell?
Some of the most popular items that are easy to make and sell online include:
- Bath bombs and soaps
- T-shirts
- Handmade apparels
- Sweets
- Pet products
Depending on your skills and market knowledge, you may find other things easier to produce.
You can choose from a rich selection of the following categories:
- Men’s, women’s, and kids’ clothing (jackets, t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, tank tops, long-sleeve tees, bodysuits, etc.)
- Hats (custom print and embroidery on caps and beanies)
- Bags (backpack, laptop sleeve, fanny pack, and tote bags)
- Home & living (embroidered apron, water bottle, spiral notebook, canvas, posters, mugs, and stickers)
- Phone cases (for iPhone and Samsung)
What Makes an Item Custom?
If we produce something according to the customer’s instructions or preferences, it is custom made. We also use the terms tailor made or bespoke with the same meaning. The three terms are part of what we call customization. A custom made good is something we made specifically for somebody, a company, or an organization.
How to Design and Sell Custom Products Online
Want to make money from your designs? Enter, print on demand. A quick and easy way to turn your artwork, illustrations or photographs into custom products that can be sold and dropshipped anywhere in the world, print on demand enables anyone to launch and scale an online business from the comfort of their own home.
1. Sign up to Prodigi
First up, you’ll need to register for a free Prodigi account. After registering, you can order your free sample pack and even get 50% off your first sample order (in case you want to try your hand at a bit of product photography) – simply email your order number to support@prodigi.com, and we’ll refund you.
2. Set up your online store
Next on the checklist is setting up your online store, if you haven’t already. There are lots of ways to integrate with us, depending on which e-commerce platform you plan to set up shop on. Established retailer? Integrate our products directly into your website or app with our powerful print API. Shopify seller?
Automate your orders via our intuitive Shopify app. Etsy, Wix, WooCommerce or Squarespace user? Submit manual or bulk orders straight from your Prodigi dashboard.
3. Pick your products
Now for the exciting part: picking the products you want to sell in your store! And with more than half a million print on demand products to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice – we’re talking canvas, fine art prints, homeware, apparel and more. We even have an eco collection for those looking to sell more sustainably, as well as a range of global products cloned in various locations all over the world to ensure consistency, wherever your customers are.
4. Digitize your designs
For this next step, you’ll need to digitize any hard-copy designs you want to use by scanning them to a computer. Once you’ve converted them to digital images, it’s time to optimize your images files. To start, download the print templates for your chosen custom products and open them in an image editor like Photoshop or InDesign, before following the guidance on the print templates themselves.
5. Create your product mockups
Time to try out your designs on your virtual inventory! Create and download custom product mockups for your store in minutes using our free Mockup Generator, which is loaded with a wide range of blank templates for customising with your now perfectly prepared digital images.
Alternatively, you can try out some other free mockup tools – such as PlaceIt, Smartmockups or Mediamodifier – and, of course, you’re always welcome to use our own photography assets.
6. List your products
Image files prepared? Check. Product mockups generated? Check. You’re officially ready to list your custom products in your store, which includes uploading your product imagery, filling in your product descriptions, setting your product prices and entering your shipping information.
Just so you know, the prices we show on our website are exclusive of VAT, and you’ll also need to cover the cost of shipping your products to your customers. To sum up, though, you can charge as much as you like and keep the difference (the difference being your profit).
7. Sell your products
Once you’ve dressed your virtual shop window, you can go ahead and start selling! And if you’ve not yet mapped out your marketing strategy, then make sure you take a look at our blog posts on how to use paid advertising, social media and email to help boost your sales. Marketing strategy implemented – all that’s left to do is sit back and wait for the orders to come in…
8. Submit your orders
Received an order? Congrats! To send it to Prodigi for printing, packing and shipping, simply log in to your Prodigi dashboard, click ‘Create order’ and follow the on-screen instructions – they’ll take it from there!
How to Offer Customizable Products
Personalized and customized products can help smaller e-commerce businesses stay ahead. Personalization can be simple as packaging a group of items as custom “kit” or providing engraved plates or quality vinyl decals.
Nike offers customized shoes on its website. Shoppers can, on select styles, choose the color of nearly every element and even name the shoe.
Nike even lets customers choose the swoosh color on select shoes!
To be sure, smaller sites are not Nike. But there are many opportunities to provide a similar experience.
Personalize common items. Investing in a quality decal printer (as well as training for the application process) can turn a basic phone case into a work of one’s own art. CaseApp, for example, provides high-end solutions, but most any merchant could produce similar results with minimal investment.
Allowing customers to upload their designs turns the most basic products into works of art, as shown in this example from CaseApp.
Not ready for shoppers to upload their designs? Start small by providing a selection of compelling clipart and fonts for custom creations. Many online sellers do this with good results.
This water bottle on Amazon includes the ability to add a name.
Offer engraving or engraved plate applications. This classic personalization tactic has proved successful for many retailers selling gift items. If you’re not ready to invest in the equipment, consider partnering with a local trophy shop.
Offer kit-building. Bundling accessories as part of the product solves two customer pain points: not realizing an accessory (such as a cable) is necessary and not knowing which accessory to purchase. This is similar to how Apple sells computers. Beyond the internal configuration, shoppers select the mouse and additional software.
Apple presents add-ons to its computer offers as part of the customization process.
Customize accessories. Personalize a handbag, for example, by including the buyer’s initials on a purse charm that you attach before shipping. Similarly, keychains with a buyer’s initial can be attached to backpacks, sporting goods, and zippered coats.
Offer simple monograms. Applying pre-made monograms can also be a winning solution. Some of the latest include adhesive metal letters that will withstand extreme weather and sunlight.
How to Set up Custom and Personalized Products on Shopify
You can make customizable products by entering a line of code in the backend of your store.
You can edit your theme code to collect customization information for products. In this tutorial, we will create a template that has a form for engraving on a product. A form will appear that says “name for engraving.” This way, your customers can have their items engraved. This is just one example of the many custom product options you have on Shopify. For custom product options Shopify, read further.
Best Custom Product Options Shopify
To create customizable Shopify products, go to Online Store. Click on your theme and click Actions. From the dropdown menu, click Duplicate.
Now that you have a duplicate, go to Code Editor.
Click on Actions, and from the dropdown menu, click Edit Code.
Go to the Templates section and click Add a new template. Specify Product template.
Name the template Customizable. Copy and paste the name from the documents. It’s important to copy and paste the name in case of misspellings or unintentional spaces because the name will appear in other pieces of the code throughout the website.
Next, find the line of code that says “section product template.” Use Command F on a Mac or Control F on Windows. Replace it with “product customizable template.”
Scroll down to the Sections section. Click on Add a new section. Copy and paste “product customizable template” from the document. A snippet of code will appear that you don’t need. Select all and delete it. Save it.
Go back to the Sections section. Find “product product template.” Select all by hitting Control or Command A. Select Copy. Go back to the Sections section and select “product customizable template” Select paste.
Custom Product Options
For custom product options Shopify, create custom fields using an external website. The website allows you to create your form and it will show you a preview on the right side. It will also create the code for you so you don’t have to create it from scratch. You can do things like long text, radio buttons, and dropdowns.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we will do a text short, click Required, copy it to the clipboard. Go back into the code and go back to the Sections section to “product customizable template”. Paste the code from the external website into your “r” code. Do a Control/ Command F and put: type=”submit”. This is your Add to Cart button. Paste the code above the button. Always put it either before or after a block. Space it and click Save.
Go to the online store and it will show that the last time it was saved was just now. Because the version’s not live, yet, you can’t switch the product templates. Go to Action and click Publish.
Now you have to change the template. Go to Products and choose the product where you want the engraving. Go to Theme Templates and choose the “product customizable” template. Save. Go into your online store, click the product, and a field saying “Your name for engraving” should be there.
Custom Products For Business
There are three main ways you can create custom-made products for your customers. Let’s break them down one by one.
Design Them Yourselves
You can always try to design the products yourselves. This is necessarily limited to industries where this is feasible – for example, maybe your small business involves making pottery or dishes, so creating custom-made products is already a big part of your business model.
If you create cars, however, custom designs might be a little trickier if there isn’t enough of a financial reward for doing so. You’ll also need to determine whether you have the materials to make the custom designs work or if you need to hire outside help.
When designing your own custom-made products, remember the above-mentioned challenges:
- figure out how to get the information needed to successfully personalize or customize a product
- make sure that the personalization process is painless for your customer
- don’t go forward unless you have the financial or labor resources necessary to do the job
Use a Design Studio
You can alternatively hire a premium design studio to create custom merchandise, gifts, or other products for your brand. One great example is us at Harper + Scott: a New York and Guangzhou-based design and sourcing studio that specializes in providing branded merchandise and premium products.
In our case, you’ll partner with us to provide the basic gist of what you’re going for. High-quality agencies like Harper + Scott then do most of the tough work by coming up with practical and specific ideas and executing on approved plans to create customized products that are perfect for your unique needs.
Design agencies like Harper + Scott offer a streamlined, professional experience that may be more feasible if you have the funding and time for some iteration.
Given that clunky customization efforts can come across as pandering or lower customer engagement, you may wish to go with a professional service just to make sure that your personalization attempts are successful the first time.
Offer Basic Personalization Instead of Deep Customization
But you don’t necessarily need to have tons of time or money in order to offer some basic personalization features for your customers. Rather than creating totally custom products for each individual order, you can offer much more manageable and scalable personalization add-ons for a profit.
For instance, you can customize your products by offering personalized packaging, like gift bags or eco-friendly wrappers. This personalizes customer experiences and can help connect people to your brand even if the wrapping doesn’t call them out by name. This may be a good choice for really small businesses that offer smaller goods, like hand-made trinkets or food items.
You might also consider creating a lot of labels or stickers that can be used for temporary product customization.
With equipment as basic as a printer and some software, you can easily accept customer orders for personalized stickers that can later be placed on products or on packaging prior to shipment. You can even use the same technique for your marketing campaigns (if you produce physical marketing materials, of course).
These customization efforts might seem barebones, and they are when compared to the above two options. But they can also be great ideas for small businesses that don’t have a lot of space for more dedicated or in-depth customization efforts.
Some personalization is arguably better than none, provided you execute it correctly. Again, custom-made products – even those whose customization extends to a simple sticker on the bag – have a greater chance of connecting a customer to your brand for long-term retention than products made by companies who give each customer the exact same thing.
What Brands Can You Customize?
Here are 5 brands driving engagement through customization.
1. Louis Vuitton
The sneaker industry is expected to be worth $95.14billion by 2025, and Louis Vuitton is another luxury brand hoping to tap into that booming market by offering consumers customized sneakers. Consumers will have the option to customize the Run Away sneaker by changing its colour, material and stripes and for an extra personal touch, get their initials printed or hot stamped on the shoe.
2. Fame & Partners
Fame and Partners is a contemporary womenswear brand based in LA trying to combat overproduction in the fashion industry by offering made-to-order garments. Through their Custom Clothing studio, consumers can customize any item by choosing the silhouette, sleeve length or neckline. The brand’s strategy eliminates the need for excess stock, helping to reduce waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill.
3. Function of Beauty
This DTC beauty brand has taken over social media with its Instagrammable hair care line that target Gen Z consumers who are seeking products unique to their needs. Consumers can go online and take a quiz to determine their hair profiles, selecting up to five hair goals, ranging from color protection to curl definition.
They can also choose both the scent and color of their products, creating a customized product from design to function. Each bottle is then formulated using clean ingredients, which are cruelty-free and 100% vegan.
4. Rapha
Cult British brand Rapha is disrupting the cycling market by partnering with Unmade to create a customizable team collection. Customers are given the opportunity to create their own unique jersey designs, including team logos, which are then manufactured into a bespoke product.
Poor user experience and long lead times are usually a set back when it comes to customization, but Unmade’s print solution allows for quick bespoke manufacturing on a smaller scale.
5. Puma
To enhance customer experience in store, Puma has created an exclusive customization studio at its new flagship store in New York. Customers can customize a range of footwear and apparel using paints, patchwork, embroidery, 3D knitting, laser printing and material upcycling. The studio also collaborates with new artists on a bi-weekly basis, with Sue Tsai, BWOOD and Maria Jahnkoy being the most recent.
What is Customized Design?
A custom or customized design is something built to a specific order. A fitting example of custom design is a ‘custom-made wedding gown’ where the dress is created as directed by the bride-to-be. The client usually gives the directions or asks the designer for their suggestion to create something unique. Custom designs can be anything, from dresses and utensils to t-shirts and shoes.
Here are some cool and trendy ways to customize your designs on fabric and show the world your unique style.
Fabric Markers
A simple way to customize apparel is to use a fabric marker. This is a customization that nearly everyone can do. Fabric markers work similarly to regular markers, except that they last on a piece of clothing despite washing. The ink in a fabric marker is designed to dye the fabric permanently. Fabric markers will make your unique design last for years.
Embroidery
Embroidery is a simple yet timeless technique of customizing a design. Even minimal embroidery on a t-shirt can give the design a new dimension. You can pick a pattern from the client’s recommendation, embroider your logo, or incorporate a trendy design. Before you go ahead with embroidering designs, make sure that:
- The needle and thread suit your fabric
- The quality of embroidery lasts on the fabric after a wash or regular use
Pins and Embellishments
Who does not like embellishments? And pins? The popular 90’s trends are back in town to breathe fresh air into customized designs. Put a cool pin on a simple fabric, and it instantly becomes a custom piece. The embellishments and pins can be customized according to your brand identity or outsourced while keeping up with the trends.
What is Customized Website?
When discussing the definition of a custom website, it’s important to note that the word custom, when used to describe something, only means that that thing is modified in some way.
Custom: made or done to order for a particular customer.
Customize: modify (something) to suit a particular individual or task.
What this means – and why it’s important – is because you may define “custom website” one way while your website design agency may define it as something else.
Some website design agencies consider a custom web design to be anything that’s been modified, including a template. Other website design agencies may heavily modify a template built on a platform and call that “custom website design.”
On the other end of the spectrum are those agencies that consider “custom web design” to be completely unique and not built on a platform. Artonic is a completely custom website design agency; we don’t use templates, themes, or platforms to build your website.
Printing Custom Products on Demand
A print on demand business is where you work with a supplier of white-label products (like baseball hats or tote bags) to customize those products and sell them on a per-order basis under your own brand and with your own designs.
With print on demand, you don’t pay for the cost of the product until after you’ve actually sold it, so there’s no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory yourself. As such, it continues to become a popular business model in the world of e-commerce.
Plus with print-on-demand services, everything after the sale, from digital printing to order fulfillment and shipping, is handled by your supplier. A major additional benefit of print on demand is. that once you’ve set everything up, it takes only a few clicks to fulfill an order after you’ve made a sale.
The print-on-demand (POD) industry has grown by 12% over the past several years. Furthermore, The global print on demand market size was estimated at USD 4.91 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 6.17 billion in 2022.
Print-on-demand services offer an easier way to bypass the time, investment, and risk associated with managing inventory, helping you create custom products at a fraction of the cost of manufacturing them on your own.
Can I Dropship Custom Products?
No need for inventory. It’s essentially a hands-off way of providing products to your customers while you handle growing the business. Dropshipping a personalized product is the same process as dropshipping any regular product. The difference is the product is custom-made for your customer specifically.
Personalizing is more hands-on and collaborative than purchasing a product they want from your store. Designing and selling personalized products is super fulfilling in making sure your customers get something that has more value than what the product itself does.
A sentimental value such as cherishing a loved one or remembering something from the past can add so much value to products!
Once you have figured out the process and know your customers, the personalized product niche is precious, and sought to create a dropshipping business!
Where to Get Custom Products?
Whether you’re looking for places to sell your handmade goods or to branch into other marketplaces, there are several great e-commerce sites to help gain you exposure. We’ve got 3 great places to sell your crafts and handmade products online.
Whether you’re a small- or large-scale creator, you’ve probably heard of Etsy. Home to over 1.6 million sellers, Etsy’s creative marketplace is good for artisans who may not have their own website or are more interested in controlling the number of sales they do each month.
With Etsy’s “vacation mode,” sellers also have full control over when and how often customers can purchase from their store.
Artists who already sell on Amazon will have a particularly easy transition to the Handmade platform. For those who don’t already sell on the mega-site, though, there’s still an opportunity to get your products in front of a large audience.
With over 250 million customers worldwide, it’s hard to beat Amazon’s reach. Artists who ultimately choose Handmade Amazon will do so because of the support and platform offered. It’s also worth noting that there is currently an application process for joining; approved merchants hear within 48 hours.
Makers and artisans interested in recurring revenue should definitely check out the subscription commerce model.
If you create new products often (or have a killer inventory), a monthly subscription box is a great way to build a community around your patrons.
Cratejoy’s marketplace is home to over 500,000 subscribers every month and is the only marketplace specifically for subscription boxes.
What is KIK Custom Products?
As one of North America’s largest independent manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (“CPG”), KIK helps a large portfolio of brands and retailers bring their products to life. With leading positions in the multibillion household and personal care, over-the-counter, and pool additives categories, they maintain close relationships with over 70 global
CPG customers and virtually every relevant major North American retailer. They have full-service capabilities covering end-to-end contract manufacturing, including project management, innovation and R&D, sourcing and procurement, blending and compounding, filling and packaging, supply chain and distribution, and quality control. Their manufacturing model is highly flexible and we consistently add value to our customers by leveraging our range of services and expertise.
What is Custom Made Products?
When something is custom-made, it is made to the customer’s specifications. For example, a custom-made garment will cost more than an off-the-rack garment. Our suits are custom-made and the client may require several fittings.
Examples of products that are typically custom manufactured include military devices, aerospace components, medical devices, and architectural elements. In essence, custom manufacturing is crucial for anyone who requires a unique specification that cannot be fulfilled by off-the-shelf products or components.
How to Buy Custom Products?
Customized promotional products are a great way to obtain brand visibility with your ideal clients but it can be hard to decide on high volume/low price versus lower volume/high quality. Here are 5 reasons you should choose high-quality products over cheap junk.
Product quality will be equated to your brand’s quality.
If you give a potential client a product that doesn’t function or breaks quickly, they’ll associate that poor quality item with your company, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Potential clients are more likely to use a product they would buy for themselves.
Your branding is a lot more likely to see the light of day if the product is one the client would buy and use even without your brand name on it and will therefore choose to use out in the “real world.”
An item that lasts will provide brand exposure for a longer period of time.
Quality products remain functioning and in the recipient’s possession longer, increasing the chances of the product fulfilling its ultimate purpose of brand exposure.
A cheap item is much more likely to wind up in the trash.
People are far more likely to throw out something they see as having little value. That means that even if you spent very little on the product, that money was still wasted.
Trashy products make poor ‘Thank You’ gifts and charity donations.
It reflects badly on your brand if your customized products make you look like a cheapskate when your generosity matters most. Using good quality promotional items personalized with your business name is a staple of brand marketing, but it pays to think about the message you’re conveying.
How to Sell Custom Products on Amazon?
Start selling custom products on Amazon by following these steps for how to create a listing for Amazon Custom:
1. Register for Amazon Custom
Start by registering for Amazon Custom. It’s a quick process, as Amazon reviews your application instantly. If you get approved, Amazon will send you an email that includes a link for getting started on Amazon Custom.
Remember, you’ll need to have a Professional Seller account to apply for Amazon Custom.
2. Create a new product in Amazon Seller Central
Once you become an Amazon Custom member, follow these steps:
- Log in to Amazon Seller Central
- Click “Inventory” from the main menu
- Select “Add a Product” from the dropdown menu
- Click “I’m adding a product not sold on Amazon”
Next, you’ll want to classify your product by choosing an appropriate category. It’s vital that you pick an accurate and relevant category for your Amazon Custom product. Shoppers use product categories to narrow their choices.
If your product doesn’t have the right classification, it’ll get filtered out in search results. Once you finish classifying your product, you’ll complete the following sections:
| Product Section | Form Fields |
|---|---|
| Vital Info | Product Name (Required) Manufacturer Brand Name Product ID (Required) |
| Variations | Complete this field if offering a product in different sizes or colors. This form field is separate from product customizations. |
| Offer | Seller SKU Condition (Required) Your price (Required) Fulfillment Channel |
| Images | TIFF, JPEG, GIF, or PNG image |
| Description | Key Product Features Product Description |
| Keywords | Search Terms Target Audience Subject Matter Other Attributes Intended Use |
| More Details* | *Fields dependent on product category |
After you complete the above form fields, click “Save and finish.”
3. Add your custom product’s customization information
With your product created, you can move on to adding its customization information. Just go to the “Manage Inventory” dashboard, which you can access by:
- Choosing “Inventory” from the main menu
- Clicking “Manage Inventory” from the dropdown menu
Once you arrive in the “Manage Inventory” dashboard, find your custom product. In most cases, your custom product will appear at the top of your inventory list. If not, you can search for your product using its title, product ID, or another search term.
After you find your product, click its dropdown menu and select “Add/Edit Customization Information.” Then, complete the following form fields:
| Form Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Surface Name(s) | Enter the name for your product’s surfaces, which users can customize. You can have up to five surfaces. |
| Preview Image | Upload an image of your product surface, which will display when customizing your item. For example, the front of a shirt. |
| Type of customization | Select the type of customization you’re offering, like text, image, or product, and the number of customizations, like two text customizations. |
| Customization Details | Supply information related to the customization, like the customization area’s size and the number of characters allowed for a text customization. |
| Miscellaneous | Your customization type may include other form fields. Text customizations, for example, will specify available fonts and font colors. |
Once you finish, click “Save & Finish.”
4. View your custom product on Amazon
Next, go ahead and view your custom product’s listing on Amazon. You can see your product’s listing via the “Manage Custom Product Listing” dashboard. From the “Manage Inventory” dashboard, click “Custom Products,” which you’ll find below the main menu.
Then, choose your product from the inventory list. On your product listing, you can view details like:
- Product description
- Product images
- Product title
- And more
While you want to review those elements, you also want to check out your product customization options. Click “Customize Now,” which you’ll find on the right-hand side of your listing — the usual spot for the “Add to Cart” button. The pop-up will show your customization surfaces.
In this example, the seller offers two customization surfaces: The front and back of the dog tag. Click and work through your customization surfaces. Ensure your options match what you provide.
If you offer text customization, for instance, and notice a font listed that you don’t use, make a note to update that option. Essentially, you want to test your Amazon Custom products. Testing them now will prevent issues later like if someone orders a dog tag in a color your business doesn’t offer.
If you can, ask everyone in your department or company to take 15 minutes and work through your custom products. Once you finish testing your products and making updates, you can start selling.
How to Price Custom Products
There are three straightforward steps to calculating a sustainable price for your product.
1. Add up your variable costs (per product)
First and foremost, you need to understand all of the costs involved in getting each product out the door. If you order products, you’ll have a straightforward answer as to how much each unit costs you, which is your cost of goods sold.
If you make your products, you’ll need to dig a bit deeper and look at a bundle of your raw materials, labor costs, and overhead costs. How much does that bundle cost, and how many products can you create from it? That will give you a rough estimate of your cost of goods sold per item.
However, you shouldn’t forget the time you spend on your business is valuable, too. To price your time, set an hourly rate you want to earn from your business, and then divide that by how many products you can make in that time. To set a sustainable price, make sure to incorporate the cost of your time as a variable product cost.
Here’s a sample list of costs you might incur on each product.
| Cost of goods sold | $3.25 |
| Production time | $2.00 |
| Packaging | $1.78 |
| Promotional materials | $0.75 |
| Shipping | $4.50 |
| Affiliate commissions | $2.00 |
| Total per-product cost | $14.28 |
In this example, your total per-product cost is $14.28.
Wondering what kind of promotional materials you might need for your products? One of the most common ones in an e-commerce context is marketing materials or additional gifts to level up your e-commerce packaging and unboxing experience.
2. Add a profit margin
Once you’ve got a total number for your variable costs per product sold, it’s time to build profit into your price.
Let’s say you want to earn a 20% profit margin on your products on top of your variable costs. When you’re choosing this percentage, it’s important to remember two things:
- You haven’t included your fixed costs yet, so you will have costs to cover beyond just your variable costs.
- You need to consider the overall market and make sure that your price range still falls within the overall “acceptable” price for your market. If you’re two times the price of all of your competitors, you might find sales become challenging depending on your product category.
Once you’re ready to calculate a price, take your total variable costs and divide them by 1 minus your desired profit margin, expressed as a decimal. For a 20% profit margin, that’s 0.2, so you’d divide your variable costs by 0.8.
In this case, that gives you a base price of $17.85 for your product, which you can round up to $18.
Target price = (Variable cost per product) / (1 – your desired profit margin as a decimal)
3. Don’t forget about fixed costs
Variable costs aren’t your only costs.
Fixed costs are the expenses that you’d pay no matter what, and that stays the same whether you sell 10 products or 1,000 products. They’re an important part of running your business, and the goal is that they’re covered by your product sales as well.
When you’re picking a per-unit price, it can be tricky to figure out how your fixed costs fit in. A simple way to approach this is to take the information about variable costs you’ve already gathered and set them up in this break-even calculator spreadsheet. To edit the spreadsheet, go to File > Make a copy to save a duplicate that’s only accessible by you.
It’s built to look at your fixed costs and your variable costs in one place, and to see how many units you’d need to sell of a single product to break even at your chosen price. These calculations can help you make an informed decision about the balance between covering your fixed costs and setting a manageable and competitive price.
Zazzle
Zazzle is an American online marketplace that allows designers and customers to create their own products with independent manufacturers (clothing, posters, etc.), as well as use images from participating companies. Zazzle has partnered with many brands to amass a collection of digital images from companies like Disney, Warner Brothers and NCAA sports teams. Zazzle claims to have over 300 million unique products listed on the site.
Zazzle was launched from their garage by Robert, Bobby, and Jeffrey Beaver, and went live in 2005. The company received an initial investment of US$16 million in July 2005 from Google investors John Doerr and Ram Shriram, and an additional investment of US$30 million in October 2007.
Create Your Own Custom Gifts on Zazzle
At Zazzle, you can customize any gift! Create your own birthday gifts or Christmas gifts completely from scratch using our amazing and free design tool, adjust template designs or modify existing designs exactly the way you want them.
Firstly, choose a product that matches the person you’re getting the gift for. Next up, choose how you want to personalize it. For example, you can add a funny message to a mug or t-shirt, or upload a sentimental image to a baseball using our design tool. Change background colors, apply filters, add cool effects like mirroring, and once you’re happy with how it looks, you’re good to go!
Create Custom Clothing on Zazzle
Zazzle has you covered from head to toe: it’s possible to design an entire outfit with our custom clothing options. There are t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, leggings, flip-flops, shoes, and even more to discover.
Any product labeled “Create Your Own” is a blank template, ready to be furnished with your design. Click on the t-shirt, hoodie, or pair of socks, and then select “Add Image” or “Add Text.” You will be taken to Zazzle’s design tool, where you can upload photos, insert text boxes, or add a background color.
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The “Guidelines” and “Gridlines” buttons at the top of the screen will also help you to present your design correctly. Of course, if you’d like to use an existing design, created by our outstanding community of Independent Creators, then you can view the rest of our clothing range.
Create Custom Accessories on Zazzle
Accessories are an important part of every outfit: they accentuate certain aspects of your figure, they add character to run-of-the-mill clothing and are generally an inexpensive way to achieve a new look.
Luckily for you, Zazzle.com has its own unique accessory: our world-renowned design tool! This state-of-the-art – and yes, fashionable – piece of software allows you to create your own accessories with just a few clicks!
- Step 1: Normally, we’d advise you to navigate to the custom accessories page, but happily, you’re already there. That being the case, you just need to pick an item to start with; take our custom buttons or custom ties, for instance.
- Step 2: Click on the template – the blank product – and you’ll be taken to the product page. The ‘Add Image’ and ‘Add Text’ buttons are your next stop: they’ll open up the design tool.
- Step 3: This is the fun part: create your own masterpiece! Add colors, backgrounds and filters, or photos of the people you care about.
- Step 4: Click ‘Done’ to finalize your design, and ‘Add to Cart’ to ready your order. Finally, check out by clicking the cart icon in the top-right corner.
Create Custom Invitations on Zazzle
From birthday parties to baby showers to weddings – any invitation can be customized just the way you want it. Imagine your guests’ faces when they open the envelope to a beautiful family photo and sweet script? Making your own invitation is as easy as pie with Zazzle’s simple design tool. So, let’s get the party started and begin creating your invitation now!
To start, simply find a pre-existing design that you like, and then open our free and easy-to-use design tool. Start uploading your own images and replace the text to make it yours. Feeling extra creative? Start from scratch with one of our Create your Own templates, and together we’ll create something truly unique and wonderful!
