If you have recently discovered a print-on-demand (POD) business, your head may be spinning with endless possibilities. Your aim may be to make profits as fast as possible with this business. But, like many industries, POD is very competitive.
How do you get low-competition niches for print-on-demand businesses to help you build loyal customers and earn good profits? The low-competition niches for print-on-demand allow you to showcase your unique talents and offer your customer value for their money.
This article will help you break free from oversaturated print-on-demand niches and stand out from a sea of hungry competitors. Let’s dive into the entertaining process of choosing a niche. You will love it.
If you wonder whether Amazon KDP is Worth It? I wrote a whole article, including its pros and cons!
What Is a Niche?
The word ‘niche’ refers to specialized content. But for the purpose of our topic, it refers to a range of products that appeal to a particular customer base. For instance, a niche can be determined by product purpose (sportswear), product types (t-shirts), product aesthetics (minimalism), or a combination of several subcategories.
You can choose a broad or narrow niche, depending on the number of players in it.
Other factors that may affect the type of low-competition print-on-demand niche you choose include the retail store you intend to run, your digital marketing skills, and how big you desire to grow your business.
While it may seem self-defeating to limit yourself to low-completion niches in this industry, it is the best-selling decision you can make when starting as a small entrepreneur.
7 Low Competition Niches For Print-On-Demand Business
Now let’s dive into some exciting niches you can always go with.
1- Customized Stationery
You are probably wondering if customized stationery is worth the shot. You can make good money with this niche because most industry players are unwilling to put in the work needed for it to pick.
You will need to pitch to individuals and businesses and offer them personalized notepads, sticky notes, pens, flash disks, and other types of stationery.
But what makes customized stationery a low-completion niche for print-on-demand?
Consider The Following Factors:
- Personalization: You can personalize stationery for clients looking for something unique and special. Market research lets you discern special events, qualities, and persons in a business or an individual to help you stand out.
- Businesses always look for ways to maintain loyal clients and attract new ones through personalized gifts. And this is where you come in by offering print-on-demand services on their stationery gift.
- Target market: You can approach businesses or individuals and create for them print-on-demand designs that focus on a particular hobby or interest. This way, you target only a specific audience, thus avoiding competition experienced by general stationery retailers.
- Specialty: You can differentiate your stationery business from other e-commerce stores by targeting a specific type of stationery. You will attract unique clients interested in your customized products.
- Cost-effective: Competing with big fish in the stationery industry is a long game you will lose with your small business. So, how do you cut a piece of this market without drowning your meager finances?
- Customized and specialized print-on-demand is the answer. You can stand out by providing unique and high-quality products to specific customers.
2- Special Interest Merchandise
What do I mean by special interest merchandise? These are goods or products related to niche hobbies, fandoms, or subcultures.
And because they are of special interest, they are a low-competition niche.
Here Are Factors That Put Them On This List:
- Niche audience: You will create and sell products to a specific and dedicated group of fans, hobbyists, and enthusiasts.
- Many print-on-demand producers generalize their creative work to serve the mass market, but with particular interest merchandise, you focus on a specific group of people with common interests. You can expect low completion here.
- Limited supply: Special interest communities are no cup of tea for print-on-demand retailers. This group may have little money to spend and is often ignored; thus, the supply of merchandise is often limited.
- This makes it easier for a new entrepreneur like you to capture them with unique products. Before you know it, you are the go-to retailer for this niche community.
- They are hidden: It takes some digging to discover special merchandise groups needing print-on-demand products.
- You will need to lurk in various Facebook or Instagram groups and on Reddit subcategories to unearth this lying market for your product.
- Variety: This characteristic makes special interest merchandise low-competition print on demand because you can narrow it down to fandoms, hobbies, and subcultures to get your target audience.
- You can avoid sub-niche with high competition and target the ignored ones.
However, the downside to this niche is that it can also have low demand. So, research a potential market before investing your money in it.
3- Unique Phone Cases
Phone covers look like a highly competitive niche for print-on-demand businesses. That may be true, but we are talking about unique phone cases. These are not the traditional designs that have inundated the streets. You can differentiate your print-on-demand phone cases by making them unique.
What Can You Do To Make Them Stand Out And Target a Specific Market?
- Customize: You can print custom-made artwork that will resonate with specific clients. Make it personal for your target customers to appeal to their emotions, and you will have distinguished your product from the hay in the market.
- Use trends: Find out what is trending online and tailor your design to match the trend. You could catch your competitors with the element of surprise.
- Use eco-friendly material: Many people are environmentally conscious, and they will easily resonate with your phone case if you use these materials.
If you don’t manufacture eco-friendly materials, you can source from reliable manufacturers to capture your target customers.
4- Customized Home Décor
Customized home décor is another print-on-demand niche with low competition. While general home décor products have major players, you can stand out through customization.
Here Are a Few Things You Can Do To Customize Your Home Décor Print-On-Demand Products.
- Personalize: You can target individuals, restaurants, hotels, and businesses, with designs for pillows, mugs, wallpapers, door mats, and carpets.
- Your selling points could be customizing these home decors with names, initials, or favorite pets.
- Focus on special events and dates: You can also design home décor for weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays.
- You can also create designs on hobbies. For example, you can create a doormat, wallpaper, or photo frame designs for sportspeople or musicians.
5- Special Games
Games have dominated the print-on-demand industry, and finding a low-competition niche in sports can be challenging. However, you can identify special games with limited attention and focus on them.
- For instance, the Paralympic games may not attract international attention as the Olympics, and you can focus on these games.
- Other games that could be low-competition for print-on-demand include Darts, chess, fuss ball, and handball.
However, before you choose a particular game niche, you should research your target audience to gauge demand levels.
More is needed than a low-competition niche; you should also consider demand. Considerable demand means you will make a profit with little marketing.
6- Products Addressing Specific Health Needs
Health is a vast industry, and you can discover low-competition print-on-demand niches.
For instance, you can create unique designs for mental health on t-shirts and hats, varicose veins designs on socks, and diabetic designs on special shoes.
Special health needs are not mainstream, making them less crowded for newbies in the industry.
7- Focus On Unique Age Groups
Youth groups have dominated the print-on-demand industry, with most products focusing on this age group.
This means that older adults and babies have low completion. You can focus on baby or adult clothes.
Research to find unique messages that resonate with parents and senior citizens. You can design your products with these messages to capture the proper attention.
8- Products For Specific Regions
Few things move people, like patriotic feelings and a sense of pride to belong to a certain region.
While many print-on-demand retailers in this niche compete for customers’ attention, you can stand out by associating the region with special historical events or tourist sites.
If you target New Yorkers, find some things in the region that your target market identifies within the region. You could also tweak your design with funny memes about the area.
9- Activism and Social Causes
We all believe in something, and we all have ways of supporting our beliefs. The truth is that most people love standing for something they believe in. These people always look for accessories and apparel that allow them to voice their views visually and support their cause.
Ideas For Finding Low Competition Products:
- Veganism: It offers a vast and growing potential for creative and inspiring designs and slogans.
- Politics: Politics and worldview can be excellent ways to drive traffic and engagement to your store. But remember that politics can be a touchy topic for most people; I suggest you choose something you believe in.
- Environmentalism: I suggest you find a narrowed niche, including polluted oceans, climate, or endangered wildlife.
10- Travel and Outdoors
Travel and the outdoors is an evergreen topic that is expected to continue to grow. In 2020, the outdoor apparel market generated over 12 billion USD, with expected worldwide growth of about 5 % between 2021 and 2031, according to recent market research.
Here are a few ideas for you to investigate:
- Hunting
- Fishing
- Camping
- Hiking
11- Animals and Pets
Animals and pet niche is one of the most lucrative and competitive too. Many people are willing to speak a tone of money on pet-related products and services.
According to American Pet Products Association (APPA), about 70% of US households own at least one pet.
In 2022, the pet industry in the United States grew to about 109.6 billion dollars, according to a recent survey.
Here Are Ideas Of Pets You Can Focus On To Get Started:
- Cats
- Dogs
- Fish
- Horses
- Birds
- Reptiles
- Small Animals
What to read next:
- How Much Does It Cost To Start An Amazon KDP?
- Is Amazon FBA Worth It? (Yes, and here’s why!)
- Is Selling on eBay Worth It? The Pros and Cons.
Final Thoughts
Print-on-demand is a growing industry with highly competitive niches. However, you don’t have to compete directly with the big players like Printiful.
You can identify low-competition niches in the industry and prove yourself an expert. There is money in these low-competition niches, but it requires you to be creative and draw out your customers.
What other low-competition niches for print-on-demand did I not cover? We will appreciate your input.