> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://pixelsnprofits.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # [Journey] Why I Started Print on Demand - URL: https://pixelsnprofits.com/why-i-started-print-on-demand/ - Published: 2026-09-25T23:33:41.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T11:02:37.000Z - Author: Nick T - Tags: Print On Demand If you're reading this, you're probably starting print on demand, or thinking about it. So here's why I started it myself: it was the first business I found that let me fail 99% of the time and still win. --- ## What I tried before print on demand Like a lot of people, I wanted to make money online. So I tried a few businesses: dropshipping, affiliate marketing and Amazon FBA. None of them were profitable. But I wouldn't call them a failure, because I learned from every one. The biggest lesson was that there's no shortcut. There's no get rich quick. You need to get good at something. --- ## Every one of them charged me to learn The next problem was that all of them charged me just to play. Dropshipping needs ads. Affiliate marketing, same story (back in the day at least, since I tried it before the TikTok era). Amazon FBA needs money upfront for inventory. So every time I played, I paid, while I didn't actually know anything yet. I didn't like that, because it isn't really logical. You're starting from zero, and you're paying for every try. > Your money goes down while your skill goes up. --- ## Why not Etsy, Amazon Merch or Shopify? Then I found print on demand. The popular ways to do it are Etsy, Amazon Merch, Shopify, and royalty platforms like Redbubble. They're good opportunities, and I'm not saying any of them are bad. They just weren't right for the stage I was at. Shopify is the same story as dropshipping. You have to run ads to your products while you're not good yet, and you don't know which products are good. Etsy charges you for every listing you post. Amazon Merch caps you at 10 products. To get more, you have to make sales and move up a tier. That doesn't seem logical to me. You get 10 chances so your learning is capped too. Other royalty platforms, like Redbubble, don't seem worth it due to their size. So Shopify cost money I didn't have, and Etsy and Amazon Merch put a limit on how much I could learn. On top of that, Etsy has its banning problems, and Amazon Merch isn't really accepting applications. --- ## The gap I found inside Amazon FBA Every business you try teaches you something. What FBA taught me is that Amazon has another way to sell, called FBM, short for fulfilled by merchant. You don't buy inventory. You pay one flat subscription, $39.99 a month, which I was paying anyway, and you can list as many products as you want. Put that next to print on demand, where you never hold inventory either, and to me it was a no-brainer. **Here was a business where you get to fail as much as you want, and you only have to win once.** Keep working on it, keep getting better, and I think you're probably going to succeed. That's why I picked print on demand, and why I do it on Amazon FBM. You get a definite way in, and I think it's the freest way to learn. --- ## Where the journey starts So that's the start of my print on demand business, and the start of my Amazon journey. I'll keep sharing it along the way, as it happens. If you want to walk it with me from here, [follow along by email](https://pixelsnprofits.com/#/portal/signup). Onward, Nick T