Creating your own online clothing drop shipping store

$ 0
Starting Cost
$ 0 + p/m
Potential Earnings

Side hustle: Clothing Drop Shipping Store

The Mission: Create a drop shipping store for selling your own clothing designs and connect it to a supplier. 

I will guide you step by step from creating accounts, creating products and handling new orders

Requirements

  1. Have access to a mobile phone or computer
  2. 1 – 3 hours out of your day to set up this side hustle
  3. The drive to make your side hustle work

Suggested Marketing Channels

  • TikTok 
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

You will need to create an account on these 3 websites. All 3 websites are completely FREE to sign up with and you can start selling right away.

Canva

Creating your designs, brand logo and other images

Create Canva Account

Gumroad

This is where your online store will be created and hosted

Create Canva Account

Printful

This will be where you can manage your products and orders

Create Canva Account

Let's Start

Step 1 - Designs Preparation

Create your account on canva and create any design you would like to use on a clothing product.

In this tutorial we will use hype district as the brand

Step 2 - Creating your accounts on Printful and Gumroad

Create your accounts on Printful and Gumroad. Complete the initial setup steps that those websites require

Step 3 - Creating your first product on Printful

On your Printful Dashboard you will see the following set up steps. 

Click on “Design your first product“

Step 4 - Creating your first product on Printful

You will now see this screen. 

Click the grey box that says “Create your first product template” 

You will be shown options of different products and categories

Choose your desired product. In this tutorial we will choose a black hoodie

Step 5 - Placing your designs on your product

Upload your design that you’ve made on Canva

Place your design on the product

Continue the create a product process and make sure to select the sizes you want your product available in.

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 6 - Download your product mockups

Once you have created your product click the 3 dots on the product and download the mockups. Save these somewhere so we can reuse them at a later stage.

You can use these for the product images on your gumroad store. 

You can also use these to promote your product on social media by making banners on canva

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 7 - Connect your Printful Account to Gumroad

For this step make sure you have already created an account on Gumroad.

Click the “connect store button” and click the “Choose Platform” button.

Scroll down the list of platforms until you find Gumroad. Click and connect your store. You will be asked to login to your Gumroad account.

Follow the steps and connect your Gumroad account.

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 8 - Creating your product on Gumroad

  1. On your Gumroad dashboard, navigate to products and click “New Product“
  2. Create a title for your product
  3. Select “Physical Good” 

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 9 - Creating your product on Gumroad

  1. Create a Description for your product. In this tutorial we went with “Black hoodie with HypeDistrict Logo“
  2. Set a cover image for your product. This can be your brand logo or a simple image of your choice
  3. Set the thumbnail for your product.

    Choose one of the product mockup images you downloaded earlier from Printful. 

  4. Set your shipping rates. This is dependant on the product you chose on Printful. You can find the shipping prices of the products on Printful
  5. Save and Continue the create a product process on Gumroad. On the content section, you can add more pictures and details of the product
  6. Complete the create a product process and click “Publish Product“

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 9 - Syncing your products between Printful and Gumroad

  1. Head back to Printful. On the left menu click ‘Stores‘ and you will see the your Gumroad store that you connected. 
  2. Click “View Store“
  3. You will see a notification of products that are not synced. If you do not see this, refresh your page. Also make sure that you have already published your product on Gumroad.
  4. Click the ‘1 Not Synced‘ text under the Variant heading on the product.
  5. Choose your product and sync it. 
  6. You will need to do this manually for every product that you add on Gumroad.

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Step 10 - Making a sale on Gumroad and Creating a new order on Printful

  1. When you make a sale on Gumroad of your new product. You will be able to see it on your Gumroad dashboard and you will receive and email. You will be able to see the customers shipping details which they filled in when ordering your product.
  2. Go to your Printful dashboard and click the ‘Orders‘ menu item
  3. You can create a new order for your product. Choose your Gumroad store and click ‘Basic Order‘
  4. Select the product you just sold. 
  5. Enter the Customer name and shipping address from the order on Gumroad and complete the new order process on Printful.
  6. The product will be shipped directly to the customer! 
  7. Congratulations on your first sale!

Tip: You can click the images below to enlarge the size

Congrats! You've set up an online drop shipping store!

Next Steps:

Marketing your store

We suggest social media marketing. 

  1. Set up an Instagram Store
  2. Set up a TikTok Store
  3. Promote on Pinterest

If you had trouble setting up your store and syncing products have a look at the Official Printful tutorial: