6 Steps to Follow While Setting Up a Phone Case Print Shop in 2019

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6 Steps to Follow While Setting Up a Phone Case
Print Shop in 2019
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• Whats better, an SME or a start-up?
• Its an endless debate. Especially when youre
  starting one. But deep in the crevices of our
  hearts, we all know it. Start-ups are cool.
• They have flexibility and flair that traditional
  businesses cannot offer. Consider, for example, a
  traditional print shop and a niche web-to-print
  start-up.
• The traditional model
• Makes it necessary to have expensive equipment
• Mandates physical outlets
• Needs a workforce to run them

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• On the other hand, a start-up
• Uses the latest supply chain models
• Leverages e-commerce
• Facilitates remote work
• This goes to show that a start-up is a way of
  doing business that aligns with the principles
  and habit patterns of modern society. It is not
  just a promise sought after by 20-somethings. It
  is quite a serious undertaking.
• While the traditional business model may have its
  own merits, it is not accessible to everyone. On
  the other hand, you can start a phone case print
  shop on a shoestring budget, while keeping your
  day job and with the knowledge and assets
  available to you.

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Entrepreneurs around the world have proved this
model time and time again. But we are
fundamentally biased people. There are plenty of
reasonable arguments that one can make to avoid
the idea. Tim Ferriss, in his book, the
four-hour work-week, says People will choose
unhappiness over uncertainty. So, if you want
to get over it and start a phone case printing
business, quit making excuses and jump in. Here
are all the things that you need to consider. 1.
The Product Where do I get the designs? How
do I know if theyll get popular?
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There are countless such questions plaguing the
online print store founder. The answer? You dont
have to know these things. Simply use a mobile
cover design tool to let your customers create
their own designs. This web-to-print store will
attract customers by giving them the freedom to
create the designs that they desire. They can
upload and customize anything from a simple
pattern to a picture of their favorite
character. The phone case printing software is a
great tool that eliminates many dilemmas and
inhibitions that an entrepreneur might have to
start a web-to-print store.
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Types of Phone Cases You can spread phone cases
over a vast spectrum, ranging from cool to
practical. But you cannot possibly have all these
surfaces available for printing. Refer the below
list and choose the ones that will best suit your
clients needs. Slim Cases Slim cases are
cheap, popular, and largely overrated. Still,
your customer is most likely to buy one of these.
They use a silicon gel to add grip and design.
Additionally, you can use them for
print-on-demand.
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Bumper Cases Bumper cases keep going in and out
of fashion. They are essentially sides/borders
that you can put around your phones. The material
used is often harder and shock-resistant. For
those of your customers who prefer minimal
designs and products, this is the case of
choice. Wallet Cases These cases have a flap
that folds over the screen to protect the screen
from scratches, giving it the appearance of a
small notebook. You can even stick some cash or
cards or maybe a parking ticket inside.
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Tough Cases For those of your customers whore
clumsy or even simply over-cautious, you can
offer tough cases, which are tougher than most
cases and undergo drop tests and water resistance
tests. Once that you have finalized the designs,
it naturally follows that we need a printing
solution. In 2019, that solution is print on
demand. Print on demand uses digital printing to
provide one of the items in small batches as and
when required. You can hire a printing shop for
this if you dont want to invest in machinery at
a nascent stage.
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It also reduces the risk in buying inventory. So,
you dont have to worry whether your designs will
sell or not. Just decide on the printing methods
and negotiate the price. Sure, this might
increase the cost per piece but it negates the
overall risk. 2. The Store You mightve guessed,
were not talking about bricks and mortar
here. Your website is your store. A major chunk
of your investment is going to go into your web
store. Whether its an e-commerce platform or an
integrated solution, you must give it due
consideration before purchasing it. For example,
it may sound obvious that you must consider the
costs, but there are a lot of different hidden
costs that you might overlook. This could cost
you more than your estimates. A platform may
depend on third-party apps for certain functions,
adding to what it costs you.
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Next, you are going to need a mobile phone case
design software. This may come integrated with
your store-front or, in case you decide to go for
a separate e-commerce solution, may be available
for purchase. Make sure you get all the best
features that youre going to need. A neat
packaging will be an added advantage. If youre
not that tech savvy and do not wish to invest
your time and money in a developer, it is highly
recommended that you try out a web-to-print
storefront solution. Fair warning though, your
work is far from done. The feature rich platforms
may make it seem easy to establish an online
business. It is quite challenging to run an
online store. Additionally, if youre shipping
your phone cases across the globe, you need to
make sure that your store-front supports multiple
languages.
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3. The Method But what about other risks? If
youre starting a company, you should be prepared
for failure, irrespective of your methodologies.
There are many reasons for that. But you can
trace most of them back to the b-plan. All plans
are perfect in theory. Thats their point. But
whether they will work in the real world or not
is a different question. Out of the disparity in
theoretical models and the real world, emerged
the methodology called The Lean Start-up. The
lean method works through iterations of
build-measure-learn.
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Essentially, it involves building the minimum
marketable version of the product and releasing
it to the real world. After that, we record
quantifiable results and undergo validated
learning. We do this iteratively till we reach
what is known as a product-market fit. This way,
it is easier and faster to build a product that
people love, without as much cash-burn. We can
use a similar process to validate our questions
and beliefs about the venture. The advantage
here is that our decisions are based on empirical
knowledge as opposed to theories. This process is
going to last throughout the website lifecycle.
This will help us in determining which approach
works and which doesnt and taking the right
decision.
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Another approach that you may experiment with is
remote work. According to Basecamp, the
pioneers of remote work, remote shows both
employers and employees how they can work
together, remotely, from any desk, in any place,
anytime, anywhere. The central idea behind this
approach is that companies can find employees who
are best suited irrespective of the geographical
constraints, and vice-versa. Other than that, it
has benefits such as exemption from operational
costs like rent and cost-cutting on a
commute. 4. The Supply-Chain One word
Drop-shipping.
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Drop shipping is the supply chain model where the
business owner doesnt own the inventory.
Instead, he uses his e-commerce store to get
sales orders which he directly forwards to the
supplier/manager for a cut. It is the preferred
form of supply-chain management due to its
transparency and traceability. Manufacturers who
participate in drop-shipping are 18.33 more
profitable than manufacturers who rely on
conventional channels since theyre not as
dependent on the inventory space of
retailers. This is an all-around win-win
situation. The customer is happy because of the
shorter delivery time. The supplier gets better
margins. And you as a merchant
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• Dont have to manage or pay for a warehouse
• Dont have to bear the hassle of packaging and
  shipping the orders
• Dont have to track the inventory for accounting
• Dont have to handle returns
• Dont have to maintain the inventory
• 5. Marketing
• The critical factor and practically the only
  thing you are responsible for as the
  drop-shipping business owner is marketing.
  Maintaining accurate organic results is important
  in the initial stages.
• The cash-burn is low. You can adopt organic
  marketing practices such as SEO, or inbound
  marketing in general, without burning a hole in
  your pocket. You can experiment with different
  marketing channels with minimal risk.

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The most important numbers that you have to keep
a close eye on is of the organic traffic because
organic growth is a good metric to validate your
business model. This knowledge will come in
handy when you get to market your business
actively. If you dont want to get into detail,
there is a simple metric you can use to see where
youre heading with your marketing efforts.
Calculate the Customer acquisition cost.
Calculate the customer lifetime value. If the
CACltCLV, your marketing budget is justifiable.
There are of course, several other metrics that
you must consider while evaluating the overall
financial projections and analysis. But to this
day, the best kind of marketing is the word of
mouth between the satisfied customer and the
people in his circle. This has become even more
relevant in the internet age, where reviews are
public.
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Beyond that, you must promote your product
digitally. You can do this in a passive monthly
budget or in short sprints whenever theres a
festive season or when a promising design comes
out. 6. What Next? The logical next step for
you would be either to scale or to diversify.
There is no limit. Your business will grow into
the boundaries of your vision. Let us summarize
the first phase of activities in a step-by-step
roadmap before we briefly discuss the immediate
next step.
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Web store Ideally, if you are going to invest in
a web store for a digital printing business, it
is advisable to go all in and invest in a full
functioning e-commerce web-to-print web store. A
web store that can showcase multiple products
with a proper payment gateway. Moreover, an
e-commerce web store is easily scalable as you
can turn a phone case printing business into a
full-fledged online printing business with
products like mugs, t-shirts, shoes, etc. After
you have deployed a well-thought e-commerce web
store keeping in the user experience in mind, the
next step would be to look for compatible
web-to-print software.
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Deploy web-to-print As mentioned above, the next
obvious step is to equip your web storefront with
compatible web-to-print software. Now, this might
be the step where you might feel overwhelmed with
all the choices and options available. And with
so many choices, comes the fear of doubt. What if
you chose the wrong option? Well, you cant do
wrong if you keep the website platform in mind
while making this selection. Just make sure that
the product designer tool (web-to-print tool) you
choose integrates with the e-commerce
platform. But with these two steps, you have
only set up the front-end of your business. The
next two steps are the crucial ones where you
will be setting up the backend process which
will, in the long run, affect the customer
experience and quality of your service.
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Use print on demand If you have read till here,
then I would assume that you want to go with the
start-up option where there will be very less
cash to invest. And printing machines and buying
inventory isnt exactly cheap. And the space to
accommodate and operate these machines will go
against the startup nature of your business. So,
in such cases, print on demand is the best and
viable option for you. Test the market by
distributing some samples around the market. Take
decisions based on the data you receive rather
than going blindly with what you feel is right.
Make it customer-centric and it will sure be a
success. Up until here, we have sorted you with
almost everything. Now, you just have to make a
quick decision on the shipping method.
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Drop-shipping If you are setting up an online
business, you might as well target the customers
globally. Its like If you dreaming, you might as
well dream big. So, to make your web store
compatible with the global market, you would want
to go with the drop-shipping method. A method
where you are trading a small bit of your profit
with the supply-chain management company and they
will be taking overall care of all your
shipping. Sounds good, right?
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Because it is. Being a startup, you wont be able
to do everything in-house and outsourcing these
hectic things will make you concentrate on more
important things like marketing which is the last
stop on our concluding points. Marketing The
word marketing itself sounds fancy. Doesnt
it? And it surely is. But not for the start-ups.
There is some easy and inexpensive way to market
your products in this information crazy world.
Some best marketing practices recommended for
startups are SEO, inbound marketing, organic
marketing, social media marketing, etc.
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Dont get overwhelmed. Just pick one method of
marketing keeping in mind where you targeted
audience spends its most time and move ahead from
there. Conclusion Any market with a low
barrier to entry will attract multitudes of
vendors. But theres no point trying to
out-muscle the competition. In that situation, no
one wins. You must always aim for a
product-market fit. Marc Andreessen defines the
term as being in a good market, with a product
that can satisfy that market. Most people
arent born geniuses. Genius occurs in flashes.
What you must do to come out triumphant, is to
keep at it, diligently, and the sparks come.
Unfortunately, no one can tell you what coming up
with a product-market fit feels like. You can
only experience it. And the more you have
experienced, the better chances you have of
finding it again.
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