Have you started selling printables and no one’s buying? You might be guilty of one of these common printable mistakes that lead to slow or no sales at all.
Selling printables online is very popular, a growing market right now. But there are some things you want to pay attention to before you launch your printable business and once you’ve started. These practices will help you see success in the beginning and maintain that success as your business grows.
One of the biggest reasons your printables may not be selling is the design.
1. Poorly Designed Printables
In your research phase before you launched your store, I bet you came across a wide variety of printables in the same niche, some that looked like they were designed in Paint by your three-year-old.
Some may look like they were created and put up in a hurry. Cutting corners will always show up in the final product. That’s a mistake that you want to avoid. If your printables look like not a lot of thought went into the design, it can deter sales. Even the minimalist shopper who wants something clean and simple, wants to see some design thought and effort put into the final product.
Don’t attempt to sell printables that are of poor quality. This will mean that the design isn’t quite right for what the customer is looking for, or there wasn’t enough time spent on details to make it appealing to customers. If it looks like I can design it myself, I’m not interested.
When you create a printable that can’t stack up to the competition, not only will you lack sales, but you’ll also get a reputation within the printable community as someone who puts out poor quality work.
Take the time to create the printable the right way from the start. If you don’t know how to handle an angle of the design, work on it, and study the methods until you do have the hang of it.
Mastering the craft of creating will pay off in the end. If you reach the point where you think you just can’t create products that are good enough to compete with others in the niche, then outsource the design.
2. Creating Too Many Printables at Once
Another mistake that you want to avoid is making a lot of printables and putting them up for sale when they’re not selling. Printables do sell well when they’re done right and there’s a proven market for them.
But if you notice that you’re putting up printables that are designed right and fit the market, but they’re still not selling, then don’t keep uploading more. Stop and figure out what’s gone wrong so that you stop wasting time.
It’s not a volume issue when things fail to sell. Usually, when something like this happens, it means that the seller didn’t optimize the listing. They didn’t hit the right keywords or create compelling descriptions that convince and convert.
Sometimes a simple product listing tweak will correct the lack of sales issues. Sellers sometimes make the mistake of thinking that just listing a printable on one of the popular selling platforms means the sales will roll in.
Each site has its own algorithms and ways they handle a seller’s keywords. You need to know how tags, keywords, relevancy and frequency matter on each selling site. You also want to make sure your pricing is correct.
3. Not Pricing Printables Correctly
A mistake that many newcomers to printables end up making has to do with pricing.
This goes back to doing your research first. If you create a printable calendar and you price it as $19.99 but most of the comparable printables are $9.99, you’re pricing yourself out of business.
Unless you’re offering additional printables that go along with your product or you have yours set up as a bundle sale, it won’t be able to compete. You also don’t want to underprice yourself either.
If you see that trackers are selling for $3.00 a page and you sell yours for $1.00, then you’re losing money. Make sure that your prices are within range of what everyone else is selling the same or similar products for.
What you must understand about pricing is that people don’t all live the same way financially. So what’s affordable for one person won’t be for the next. While some might not blink at dropping $20 for a printable planner, that might out of reach for someone else.
You don’t want to leave that audience behind. Let your motto be that you have something affordable for everyone. This is what at least half of all your printables should be, unless you want to specifically target a high end audience.
You want to structure your pricing so that you have a pyramid of options. It’s okay to have your high priced printables. But these are items that usually sell once a customer has built a rapport with your business.
These people have tried your products, found them helpful and so they’re back for more. Have middle ground printable prices. These will fit an average budget and should be about 25% of your pricing ratio.
4. Poor Communication and After Sales Service
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when selling printables is having poor customer service. Your customers will share reviews, they will talk online. You want to make sure that they have a good experience with your printables and there are many ways that you can ensure that.
Create a FAQ page for your products. That way, when a customer has a question, they can look it up and get an immediate answer. These are the questions you get over and over. If you’re new, browse a few other FAQ pages to see what others have listed.
Having answers to the most commonly asked questions can save you a lot of time. You may also want to create an email responder file and have that ready in case customers have questions that aren’t covered under the FAQ.
This will also save you a lot of time and enable you to give quick responses. For example, customers might email you wanting to know if you give discounts for multiple orders. If you don’t want to list this info in your FAQ, then have it as an email template you can quickly send out.
5. Poor Organization
Another mistake to avoid is not being organized. As your store grows, this will become even more important. Begin by creating a spreadsheet of ideas for your printables. Have each of these ideas in the appropriate category.
You might think that you can easily keep up with what you plan to make for your printables, but when you have multiple projects, it’s easy to lose track of what you need to work on and when.
This is especially helpful when you’re ready to create sales bundles or offer your printables in other bundles. Keeping everything together helps so you’re not searching for a bunch of individual files when it comes time to upload everything. Knowing where everything is located on your backup systems are also key.
6. Incorrect Sizing
Sizing is a big deal in the printable world. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with the standard sizes of the products you plan to offer. Create for yourself a cheat sheet of all the common sizes used for each product.
You can find out what these sizes are by checking out the sizes that other sellers are using as well doing a quick online search.
These sizes are what most people buy so you want to stick with what works. Don’t make the mistake of uploading something without first doing a quality and size check. Every time you get ready to sell a printable, make sure that you print it out yourself first.
Doing this step will help you see if any text might be outside the margin or if the design looks weird. It’s always better to do this pre-check first rather than having customers complain that your printables don’t look right once they download and print them.
You’ll also want to consider offering multiple sizes for different products. Wall art is a prime example of this. Customers might have different size frames and you’ll appeal to more customers if you offer a variety of sizes. This goes for planners too. Some want letter-size sheets while some prefer smaller planners that fit in a pocketbook.
7. Not Knowing Your Target Audience
Finally, don’t make the mistake of not knowing your market. Don’t create a bunch of random printables ahead of time in the hopes that they’ll sell. Understand who your audience is if you have an established platform. If not, go into this business knowing exactly who you’re targeting so you can create designs that they’ll love.
This exercise will help you to define and find your desired audience.
Good luck with your printables business. If you need more ideas, check out my post that lists some hot categories of printables to consider and some tips on getting them sold.
