You’re thinking of selling goods on Etsy. Upon browsing around the site, you notice lots of people retailing their own designed and printed products, but you have no idea how they’re doing this. Does Etsy have a print on demand service or do you have to take care of the printing on your own?
Etsy itself does not do on-demand printing, but rather, it connects with a service called Printify for this purpose. Art of Where, Printful, and Gooten are a few other platforms that also integrate with Etsy.
If you’re not familiar with the above services, then you’re not going to want to miss this article. In it, we’ll talk more about Etsy integrations so you can finally start selling your printed goods on the site!
What Is Printify?
Since Printify is one of the better-known platforms that offer Etsy integration, we’ll discuss it first. This dropshipping service allows you to get your designs printed on all sorts of custom items, with more than 250 offered. These include:
- Eco-friendly clothing, mugs, and more
- All-over printing (AOP), such as shirts, leggings, jackets, and socks
- Stickers
- Pet goods
- Stationery
- Covers and pillows
- Mugs
- Blankets
- Bathroom décor
- Wall art and other décor
- Sweatshirts and hoodies
- T-shirts and long-sleeved shirts
Here’s a short explainer video on YouTube from Printify themselves:
Printify has three plans for its users. The first is the free plan, which is intended for small or first-time merchant businesses. You get such features as a self-serve help center, merchant support 24/7, manual order creations, the Mockup Generator (more on this shortly), and integrations with many online stores.
You can only have five stores under the free plan, but you’re not restricted by the product design limit.
If your printing business is growing, then you may want to upgrade to Printify’s Premium plan. For $29 a month, you can run 10 different stores and still enjoy unlimited design options. You also gain access to custom order importing, the above features, and a discount of 20 percent off any product you buy to then print and sell.
Once your business booms even further, the Enterprise plan would likely suit you best. Made for those juggling over 10,000 daily orders, this plan does have custom pricing. While you’d certainly pay the most, you also get the largest array of services.
These include branded customer support, your own dedicated account manager, custom API integration, and access to new features before anyone else. The above features are yours to use as well, including that great discount of 20 percent for any Printify products you buy.
How Do You Use Printify for On-Demand Printing for Your Etsy Store?
Okay, so you understand Printify much better now, but how does the dropshipping service help you get printed goods to sell on your Etsy store?
Here’s how it works.
Editing Your Design
First, you select what product you want from the above options, such as a shirt or a pillow. Then, with Printify’s Mockup Generator, you get to see how your design would look on the product. The Mockup Generator also includes embroidery work, wall art, tote bags, mugs, phone cases, and shirts and other garments.
To use the Mockup Generator, you have to follow a separate set of steps. First, choose an item from Printify’s product catalog. Then you need to pick a print provider who has your product in its appropriate size and color.
Next, you get to tinker with the Mockup Generator itself, which has features like center functions, rotate, zoom, and more. If your design needs a bit more tweaking, you can do that through the Mockup Generator as well, adjusting colors and more. Click Preview when you’re ready to check out the product, inspecting it from up to four angles.
This video shows the process above, so make sure you check it out:
Receiving Your Sample Request
When you’re pleased with what you have, you can request a sample through Printify. This is so you can get a feel for what your product will look like in real life, not just through an Internet image. Should you like the sample, you can then publish it.
Integrating with Etsy
You must have an Etsy account to integrate using Printify. On Etsy’s website, click the Sell on Etsy button. Next, create a shop if you haven’t already. This involves you choosing your shop name, its language, your country of origin, the currency, and other preferences.
After making the all-important decision of what you’ll name your shop, Etsy asks you to include an item in there for sale. For the time being, you can upload a draft product. When you want to stock a real product in your Etsy store, make sure you go back and delete that draft product so no one accidentally buys it.
Next, you have to choose your payment option. These include Android Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Discover Card, American Express, MasterCard, Visa, and other options.
With your store open, hop back onto Printify. Select Manage Stores first, then My Stores. This should display a pop-up asking you which e-commerce sales channel you’d like to connect with. Choose Etsy.
Etsy will ask you for permission to connect it and Printify, so press the Allow Access button. This completes the integration.
Here’s a video showing how it’s done:
What Is Gooten?
Printify is far from your only option for integrating with Etsy. You can also try the order management company Gooten. It has its own API that allows it to support many online stores. It sells these products for printing:
- Pet bandanas
- Dog beds
- Photo prints
- Cards
- Tote bags
- Wall art
- Outdoor décor
- Kitchen items
- Drinkware
- Tech accessories
- Bedroom items
- Living room décor
- Bathroom décor
- Clothing
How do you use Gooten for its Etsy integration? To get started, you once again need an Etsy account and a store. If you don’t already have these, please go back and create your Etsy store first.
You’ll also need to register an account with Gooten, so sign up next. Then, you can stock your Gooten products on your Etsy store the same way you did with Printify.
If you happen to use Shopify or WooCommerce, Gooten integrates with those platforms as well.
Here’s a video of Gooten’s integration with Esty at work:
What Is Printful?
We’ve discussed Printful before on this blog, as they’re one of the more expensive print on demand services around. If you don’t mind that, then you’ll be happy to know Printful integrates with Etsy as well.
They call their setup time “very fast” for integration and recommend this service for beginners and artists. You cannot use an open source with the Printful/Etsy integration, nor do you get live shipping rates or out of stock displays.
When using Printful to send custom printed items to your Etsy shop, they get a cut. For every new item you upload, you pay $0.20 to publish it on Etsy when it’s integrated with Printful. The Printful transaction fee is also five percent.
Here’s a helpful video showcasing the integration on YouTube:
What Is Art of Where?
If you’re not familiar, Art of Where is a dropship company designed for artists. They sell a variety of stock, including:
- Fabrics
- Stationery and notebooks
- Pillows and pillowcases
- Prints, including those made of acrylic, wood, and canvas
- Fine art prints
- Tote bags
- Phone cases
- Beanies
- Makeup and pencil cases
- Headbands
- Scarves, including silk scarves
Although Art of Where is maybe not the biggest and best-known service, it integrates with a surprising number of platforms. These include Shopify, Big Cartel, Squarespace, BigCommerce, WooCommerce–and, of course–Etsy.
Integrating with Art of Where is easy. First, log into your account on Art of Where if you’re not already logged in. Then, go to your dashboard, where you can select Click My Etsy Store. Once again, Etsy will have to accept the integration, so give the site permission for Art of Where to connect.
Then go back to your account on Art of Where, head over to Products, and all the goods for sale on your Etsy store will appear here. You can sync new ones anytime by pressing the Sync button, which is bright pink.
Conclusion
Etsy is a major online retailer of goods, with over 2.5 million sellers on the site in 2019, says Statista. If you want to be one of those sellers but you specialize in printed goods, you can use a service like Printify to integrate the two stores. This lets you take your goods from Printify to sell them on Etsy. If you already have an account on Art of Where, Printful, or Gooten, these services all offer Etsy integrations as well.
