Summary
For once remove your entrepreneur’s hat and look at the eCommerce space as a customer.
How many times have you been bombarded with products, ads, offers, etc. from multiple eCommerce sites?
Everyone wants to get your attention. And at the end, you are likely to choose a brand that offers you value and that understands your unique requirements.
That’s exactly how your potential customers, too, think. So, what’s the solution to ensure that they choose your brand over others?
Tailoring to their preferences with customization can help you add more value to your offerings, and drive more conversions.
That being said, here’s the ultimate guide to enable product customization in eCommerce. It covers everything from choosing custom products to understanding how you can sell them.
It’s Now or Never. Why This Is the Right Time to Begin with Product Customization in eCommerce
Last year had a remarkable impact on eCommerce. Companies around the world started reworking on their business model to thrive.
Did you know 10 years of eCommerce growth happened in just 90 days?
(Stats Source)
This accelerated growth means that competition in the eCommerce space is heating up.
Customers have a wide choice of who to buy from. And the only way to get their attention is with product customization.
Customization is the ability to offer a variety of designs or details of one product. Customers can choose colors, add elements like text, clip art, upload images, etc. to make their product unique from the rest.
That way, customized products for businesses allows you to provide customers with an opportunity to purchase products tailored to them. That will help potential customers to find value in choosing your brands over others.
This part sheds light on some of the major challenges online store owners face. If you are fed up with these issues and want to take your store to the next level, customization is the answer.
1. Overcome the Struggle to Attract and Convert Visitors
Online shoppers do not shop the same way they used to earlier. They compare products, check Amazon, and analyze different brands.
Further, the latest studies show that customers switch brands at an unprecedented rate. According to McKinsey, Gen Z and high earners are most prone to switching brands.
A report from Insider Intelligence also suggests that within the past year, 71% of consumers globally have changed their brand preferences at least once.
Do you think you struggle to get your potential customer’s attention? Then the solution lies in delivering a remarkable shopping experience.
Ready to overcome the struggle of attracting and converting visitors?
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Don’t miss out on Gen Z and high earners.
2. Get Repeat Business from Loyal Customers
You are likely to agree to the fact that retaining customers is always easier than attracting new ones. Since customers trust your brand, they are likely to purchase again in the future, and also become your ambassadors.
Statistics say that 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers. Additionally, increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25% to 95%.
How do you build a loyal customer base? There is no better way to build customer loyalty than by providing customers with e-commerce customization.
When you agree with their personal preferences, they are bound to stick with your brand in the long run.
3. Charge Premium Prices And Experience Lower Return Rates
Customization is all the rage these days, with nearly half (46 percent) of customers willing to pay more for a personalized product.
My friend, too, paid 20% more for a bag just because it had her name engraved on it. Not only that, businesses that offer customization have reported a 40% decrease in return rates. This means fewer headaches and costs associated with processing returns and restocking.
Plus, successful personalization programs have been shown to result in 20% higher customer satisfaction rates and a 10 to 15% boost in sales conversion rates.
Of course, there are some risks to consider, such as shipping errors or software bugs in the case of digital customization. But with a reliable customization tool and proper management, these risks can be minimized.
4. Deliver a Personalized Experience
There is hardly anything more satisfying to customers than getting a shopping experience catered specifically to them.
Enabling e-commerce customization helps improve shopping experiences. That way, you’ll be able to engage more customers and encourage them to purchase from your brand.
An e-commerce product customization software can help you sell eCommerce custom products online. The tool works like a personal design for each customer on your website.
They get all the control in customizing a product using a pool of features like templates, artwork, image/text effects, background manager, and more.
When it comes to delivering a tailored experience, our tool is unparalleled.
The industry-specialized layouts ensure that no matter what product a user designs, they get a personalized experience that eases e-commerce customization and improves customer satisfaction.
In addition, the intuitive interface of the tool ensures your customers are able to complete customization without any hindrance.
Irrespective of the eCommerce platform your online store is built on, the tool works seamlessly on all platforms. And there is no limit to what all products customers can customize – t-shirts, sweatshirts, books, shoes, trophies, masks, gifts, posters, mugs – you name it!
Click the link below to explore in detail all the features of a customization tool.
The rest of the post talks about the 4 most important steps that will help you know everything about eCommerce custom products and how to enable customization for your store.
It answers important questions as to what are some trending eCommerce custom products, how to sell them online, how to handle print operations, and more. Keep reading!
Step 1: Choose What Custom Products to Sell
One of the biggest challenges for any entrepreneur is to find the best product. If you search the internet, you will find a pool of ideas.
There’s custom activewear, accessories, bags, shirts, and the list is endless. What to choose? What is trending?
You might find yourself aimlessly searching for products but not really being able to figure out what to choose. The aim is to find products that are not only trending but find the best evergreen product.
Look for Smaller Product Categories Within Your Existing Catalog
To begin with, you can focus on your existing product catalog. Try and find a unique aspect to it. Maybe you can consider narrowing a category.
For instance, if you are selling apparel, you can consider niches like t-shirts with pet designs, or custom t-shirts that target those interested in sports, etc.
If you are selling just phone cases, you can dig into specific niches like superhero cases, cases with quotes, personalized cases with a customer’s name, and so on.
Focusing on a niche idea is instrumental in success. It will help you reach a more specific audience, and put your brand in front of people who are actually interested in buying what you sell.
Not just niche ideas, also see how you can solve a potential customer pain point. Nothing makes users happy than brands solving their challenges.
Customer reviews are the best place when it comes to identifying a pain point. Think about the common feedback that your existing customers keep sharing.
List of Some of the Most Popular Custom Products You Can Sell Online
To save you the pain of conducting research, here are a few product categories that will help you make the right choice.
- First is apparel. The most common, popular, (an obvious) thing business owners do is to sell custom t-shirts. This product is evergreen. It is affordable to manufacture, easy to market, and convenient to customize.Popularity also means high competition. And that’s when a niche will help you. There are thousands selling t-shirts but very few selling fandom t-shirts targeted just for millennials.
- Another option of customized products for businesses is personalized gifts and stationery products. Both these categories are a good idea if you want to expand your business to taking B2B bulk orders.For example, you can partner with organizations to sell custom t-shirts or take gift orders from corporations in bulk.
- The third category that you can consider is selling custom accessories. You can go for (a) fashion accessories like necklaces, ties, socks, bags, etc. (b) home accessories like pillowcases, mugs, wall prints, etc. And (c) tech accessories like phone cases, laptop bags, and so on.
Let Customers Customize Your Products
Your customers are demanding customization and enabling that on your online store will help you win the market.
Brands both big and small have started selling customizable products. By allowing shoppers to add a personal touch to their products, you too will be able to deliver a tailored experience.
A Product Design Tool is all you need to attract, engage, and convert customers using customizable products. Irrespective of what eCommerce custom products you sell, our tool works seamlessly with all.
(Customize any product with product design tool)
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Step 2: Designs Are the Heart of Customization. Create Stunning Designs.
No matter what you sell, designs are an important part of a custom products’ business.
They can make or break your business. And therefore, it is important to create designs that your potential customers can relate to.
Since you already know who your target audience is, it becomes easy to create designs. You do not have to be a pro at graphic design.
There are so many places where you can get help in creating the best design.
Where to Find Designs for Custom Products
Just in case you yourself want to take care of the design part, you can get inspiration from different social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy, etc. You can look at your competitors’ promotional posts to check out the kind of designs they have.
(Places like Merch by Amazon is a good source of inspiration for design ideas)
Merch By Amazon is another good place where you can search for cool designs. Along with the design image, you will also be able to see the price, and popularity (based on items sold).
If you need help from professionals, you can hire designers from platforms like Behance, Dribbble, Upwork, etc. Alternatively, when it comes to managing your recruitment process, well-chosen applicant tracking systems can help to find the right designers according to your needs.
Turn Designs into Ready-to-sell Templates
Templates simplify the process of creating customizable products. You have ready designs for customers but there are chances they might want to tweak them a bit.
Maybe they want to change the background color, or add their initials, or upload a custom photo. With templates for a Product Design Tool, shoppers can customize and print your offerings.
Our tool comes with a template manager where you can upload and assign templates to a single or multiple product.
(Add any number of preloaded templates to the tool and let shoppers use them for easy customization)
Based on their requirement, they can customize further and proceed So, whenever a customer opens a product for customization, the pre-loaded templates will be loaded by default. End-users can further edit them and proceed with the purchase.
Secondly, using an artwork manager, allows store owners to set and upload unique artwork from the Design Tool.
That will save customers’ time and efforts to design a product from scratch. With minimum customization, they can get dynamic products.
To get a better understanding of how the tool works, check out our tool’s features.
Step 3: Decide How You Are Going to Enable Product Customization in eCommerce
Integrating e-commerce product customization software in your store is a future-proof way to cater to the demand for e-commerce customization. There are also other ways you can enable customization, like partnering with print-on-demand service providers. Here’s everything you need to know.
1. Partner with Print on Demand Service Provider
If you do not want to take the pain of sourcing products and risky upfront investments, then this is a good option.
Print-on Demand is a well-known business model that makes it possible to sell eCommerce custom products without having to hold inventory.
POD allows you to sell customized products that go to print only after a customer places an order. That reduces financial risks and enables you to experiment with different products.
If you already have an existing store, you can integrate your store to any of the POD platforms like Printful, Printify, etc. Once your store and profile are up, you can start adding designs and products to your shop.
When a customer places an order, your store automatically sends that order to the POD provider. They will then take care of everything including printing, packaging, and shipping.
Boost engagement on your store, and set it apart from others with product customization. Click the link below to know how PrintXpand’ Web to Print Store can help you achieve that!
Equip Your Online Store with Product Design Tool
While print on demand can be the easiest way to sell eCommerce custom products, it comes with its own cons.
The biggest issue with print on demand is lower profit margins. That is because the cost of goods with print on demand is higher as compared to getting it for wholesale.
Secondly, since a POD service provider manages every aspect of order fulfillment, they take a larger percentage of profit, and you get a commission on a product that gets sold.
Start building an online store without the hassle of traditional development. See how our Web to Print Solution can help you!
Expand Your Business with Reseller Model
Another way to sell eCommerce custom products is where you purchase products from manufacturers and retailers and resell them to your customers.
This model eliminates the need of purchasing or storing products in advance. It starts with finding a supplier for your business. You can find suppliers in online directories, ask for referrals, etc.
To set your store from the rest you can enable product customization.
Step 4: Streamline all Your Print Operations for Better Efficiency
There is a lot that goes on to successfully deliver a custom product to an end-customer – artwork proofing, printing, shipping, and so on.
Once a customer places an order, you have to ensure whether the designs are accurate. Is there a resolution issue? Is the text or image within the safe zone for printing?
Then there’s dealing with vendors and printers. There is unnecessary email communication with customers regarding queries. You even have to check if there’s enough stock available.
All these typical processes of fulfilling orders take up time, are prone to error, and hamper customer satisfaction if you do not have a proper system to manage things.
PrintXpand is one such ERP software that will help you automate end-to-end business operations. With PrintXpand, you manage all the processes from a single interface.
That is crucial in achieving business productivity, efficiency, and reducing potential errors that might happen otherwise.
Let’s take the print workflow for instance. The software enables you to manage print orders from all your sales channels. Once you receive orders, you can create custom workflows and jobs for every product.
For example, if you sell custom t-shirts, you can configure the workflow such as print – finishing – packaging – shipping.
You can also create job tickets, approve artwork, manage orders, inventory, shipping, all using ERP software. Moreover, the advanced reporting dashboard provides you with visual charts to track all the activities. Additionally, various marketing dashboards are available to track progress towards objectives and pinpoint areas for enhancement.
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Choose PrintXpand. Choose Growth.
Things may get tricky when it comes to successfully implementing product customization in eCommerce. But with the right support, you can get rest assured.
PrintXpand has everything you need to offer customization using a Product Design Tool. Our tool not only ensures best-in-class features, but its user experience is all you need to make a big difference.
What does the typical process of implementing the e-commerce customization tool look like?
When it comes to enabling customization with PrintXpand, you do not need any previous experience or technical expertise.
At every step, you get our assistance in installing and implementing the tool. After the initial process of integration, our tool becomes a part of your eCommerce store’s admin panel.
Then you can apply configurations like setting design area, printing method, pricing, etc.
(Easily assign configurations as per your requirements)
Once you save all the configurations, they will automatically appear on respective product pages, and voila! customers can begin designing your offerings.
One of the biggest advantages of choosing our tool is the scalability and flexibility you get with it.
Unlike the legacy systems in the market that holds you back, our tool’s capabilities can be increased as and when your business grows.
As per your requirement, you have complete control over the features you want to offer. As you progress, you can enable advanced features for better results.
Moreover, ready ad-ons will enable you to extend the functionality of the tool.
So, what are you still waiting for? Transform your store into a customization hub. Share your business requirements with us and we will give you a personalized product tour.
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