I recently took on a challenge: Could I create a new stream of passive income in just six months by opening a Shopify store, taking basic clip art from Canva, and selling it on print-on-demand products? A lot of people said, “No way!” They argued that Shopify is too crowded for a new store to succeed. Challenge accepted!
Five weeks ago, I started a brand new store in my free time. Initially, it was bringing in about $50 a week, but guess what? The sales just kept growing. Now, it’s making $500 to $1,000 a week passively.
And guess what else? The products I’m selling are super simple. Here’s the secret sauce: I use what I call the “Emotional Fun” Concept.
I pick basic clip art from Canva that I think will be easy to sell, then upload it onto print-on-demand products and list them on my Shopify store for a profit. Simple, right? Let me walk you through the process.
First things first, you need to pick a popular product to sell. I know it sounds basic, but it’s crucial. You have to sell something people want to buy. So, head over to a print-on-demand app like Printify.
It’s a website with tons of blank products you can resell. Pick one, upload a picture, and you can sell it on Etsy or Shopify.
Some people worry that Etsy is too competitive, so I’ll show you how to do it on Shopify. Each time someone buys your product, Printify’s print shop prints your picture onto the product, packages it up, and ships it to the customer.
Meanwhile, you keep the difference as profit. Super passive, right? I just had to put the product up on Shopify, use my free organic marketing approach to get as many visitors as possible without spending a dime, and that’s pretty much it.
To find products that sell like hotcakes, just open up Printify’s Bestsellers page. These products are popular and in high demand. T-shirts, in particular, are the top-selling print-on-demand product of all time. So, let’s use that as our example product for this video.
Now that we’ve got a super popular product, we need to use the “Emotional Fun” Concept to find unsaturated product ideas. Wondering how? Well, here’s how I did it:
Alright, so I’m here on Etsy, and I thought, why not look for something popular like funny dog T-shirts? When you search on Etsy, it shows you products that customers have recently bought. Your goal here is to find a popular product that uses simple graphics.
Don’t worry; it’s easy to spot popular products. Etsy literally tells you if something’s a hit. Check out this T-shirt with simple text that tugs at the heartstrings of dog lovers. It’s making good sales and has recent reviews, which means there’s still interest from dog lovers.
Now, I love dogs, but even I can see that this T-shirt idea is funny and clever. Here’s where many people trying to make money online go wrong – they copy. Look at how many people have copied this exact same T-shirt on Etsy.
Think about it. If you’re starting a new store, copying a popular T-shirt is not a smart move because of all those reviews. Would you rather buy from a store with thousands of positive reviews or one with none? Obviously, you’d go for the store with the reviews.
Instead of copying, I used what I call the “emotional fun” concept to come up with a new product idea that no one else was selling. After finding a clever idea that worked with basic text in a perfect niche where emotions play a role, I checked similar designs on Etsy. I found the top 5 funny dog T-shirt designs that performed well.
Here’s the kicker: I took those designs, went to Chat GPT, and asked it to generate 10 quotes with the same funny concept. Now, I’ve got unique, funny quotes that can be added to T-shirts, setting my products apart from the crowd.
Alright, now that we’ve got our awesome quotes ready, there’s still a hurdle to overcome – the risk of our design being easily copied. While we can’t stop people from copying designs, we can add a unique touch by incorporating clip arts, and for this, we’re turning to Canva.
Hop on over to Canva, head to the “Elements” section, and search for “dog paws.” You’ll find a treasure trove of pre-designed elements that you can blend with your quotes to create a unique design. Pick any design that catches your eye.
Once selected, go to the text section, choose “Add a heading,” and play around with different fonts until you find the perfect match. Mix and match until you’ve got something that not only looks great but also grabs the shopper’s attention.
Now, let’s make sure it’s print-ready. When printing images on products, you want top-notch quality. Here are the export settings I use: Click on Share, then Download. Pump up the image size to the max, make the background transparent, select PNG, and save it.
Repeat this process for your various quotes, and voila! You have a collection of designs ready to be marketed and sold to the right audience.
Next up, head to Printify. Navigate to T-shirts, choose one of their best-sellers, add the designs you crafted in Canva, make sure to drag your design to the top, hit preview, and you should have something like this.
The next and final part is creating our Shopify website. Go to Shopify and click on start free trial. You can get 3 days free trial and first month for only $1.
Let’s start with the simplest task—naming your store. Use the name you’ve chosen, click save, and you’ll notice that the default Shopify domain they provide isn’t ideal. If you’re unfamiliar with a domain, it’s the link people click on to visit your store.
