Custom products have become a goldmine due to their endless opportunities to connect with your customers on a deeper level.
With personalized gifts expected CAGR of 6.7% from 2024 to 2030 and with 62% of customers preferring customized items, it is safe to say that the market for unique items is booming.
But which products are the best, and how to sell custom products efficiently?
Read on to check out our list of the best custom products and ways to sell them.
Let’s dive in!
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Why is the Print-on-Demand (POD) Method Great for Selling Custom Products?
There are many ways to sell custom products, but the most popular, and for a reason, is POD.
So, what makes POD so appealing?
1. Low Initial Investment and Risk
POD requires minimal upfront costs since you only produce products when a customer orders.
This way, you eliminate the risk of holding unsold inventory, which can be costly and wasteful.
2. Flexibility and Customization
You can easily customize products without additional costs or waste.
Thus, you can quickly change or add new designs, making the POD model ideal for responding to trends or customer preferences.
3. Quick Turnaround and Timely Delivery
POD services offer fast production times, allowing you to fulfill orders and respond to customer demands quickly.
Therefore, you increase the chance of timely delivery and better customer satisfaction.
4. Scalability and Global Reach
The POD model can scale with your business, handling increased orders without requiring significant additional resources.
Especially nowadays, when many providers also offer global shipping, expanding your market reach.
5. Wide Product Variety
You can access a diverse range of products that POD platforms provide, from apparel to home decor, allowing you to cater to various customer interests without holding inventory.
10 Best Custom Products to Sell
When looking for custom products to sell, it’s important to know your audience and see what’s currently trending.
If you need additional inspiration, here comes our list of the best products to sell.
1. Custom T-Shirts
The Apparel category is evergreen, soaring high, with an estimated reach of $830.69 billion by 2027.
Custom T-shirts remain the most popular item in this category, followed by sportswear, leggings, and hoodies.
Retro, minimalism, abstract geometry, and optical illusions are currently some of the most popular T-shirt designs.
2. Custom Accessories
Within the accessories section, the most popular categories are tote bags, jewelry, phone cases, etc.
They offer great customization options, from trending designs to truly personalized messages and quotes or engraving options if we speak about jewelry.
- Tote Bags: Popular designs include pet-related themes, retro-vintage, nature scenes, travel-inspired designs, etc.
- Phone cases: Popular designs range from monogrammed cases, themed ones, cases with personal photos, and special occasions to artistic designs.
- Jewelry is another category with vast customization possibilities, such as custom engravings, zodiac pendants and birthstones, cultural or heritage motifs, etc.
3. Home Deco Items
In general, products that are a good option for customization are the ones that aren’t only practical but that trigger an emotional reaction.
This is definitely the case with our following 2 categories of the best custom products.
Home deco items cater to the warm feeling of being at home, enjoying and resting.
In addition, they help create that “hygge” moment while beautifying the living space.
Popular categories include:
- Blankets and Throw Pillows: Some POD providers allow customization, including choosing patterns, themes, quotes, monograms, and photo designs. They also allow you to customize materials, trimmings, and finishings.
- Wall Art: From canvas prints, photo collages, song lyrics, quotes, and phrases, to family tree prints, the wall art category has lots of versatile ideas to offer.
- Mugs: Trending mug designs and ideas revolve around personal photos, funny messages and quotes, animal motifs, seasons and holidays, matching and couple designs, etc.
4. Pet-Related Items
Remember the emotional appeal we mentioned a few lines ago? Well, the appeal is a key factor in why the pet-related category is extremely popular in the POD world.
Pet owners love everything that reminds them of their little furry friends, such as mugs, key chains, and home decor.
Furthermore, they also love to customize products for their pets. This opened the door to even more opportunities, such as:
- Pet Apparel: Comprises T-shirts and hoodies featuring pet-themed designs or breed-specific graphics.
- Pet Accessories: Includes custom collars, leashes, and pet beds.
But it’s not only pets like dogs, cats, hamsters, and guinea pigs.
In general, popular options include animals that evoke cuteness and tenderness, such as squirrels, hedgehogs, koalas, etc.
💡 ProTip:
Dynamic Mockups, an automated mockup generator, allows you to create and customize your product mockups easily and hit the sweet spot with your audience.
Upload your design assets and colors, and automatically create all mockup variations super quickly — 100 variations in 10 seconds!
What’s more, you don’t need to start from scratch but browse our Template Gallery that hosts evergreen and trending product categories:
- Apparel
- Home Deco, and
- Accessories, all with multiple relevant subcategories.
Now that you know what the top custom products are, let’s explore ways to sell them.
How to Sell Custom Products in 4 Ways?
We’ll share 4 effective ways to sell custom products online.
1. eCommerce Platforms
eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce allow more customization than marketplaces, which we’ll mention shortly.
Platforms allow you to create your own online stores, giving you full ownership and control over your brand, inventory, and customer interactions.
✨ WooCommerce allows you to turn a WordPress website into an online store with product listings, a shopping cart, and checkout.
Due to WordPress integration, you can access numerous WordPress plugins and themes that you can filter by category or industry.
You can sell across multiple channels, including marketplaces, social media platforms, search engines, etc.
WooCommerce is free, but you’ll have to pay for additional plugins and themes.
✨ Shopify allows you to create, customize, and manage your online store with customizable templates, themes, and drag-and-drop tools.
You can access sales reports and performance metrics to monitor sales trends, and analyze customer behavior and other key metrics.
Shopify integrates with Printful, Printify, SPOD, and many other POD suppliers.
✨ BigCommerce focuses on enterprise-level eCommerce businesses and offers web hosting, customization options, eCommerce solutions, and other tools. An interesting feature, Cross-Border Fulfillment, allows you to make accurate quotings for cross-border shipping due to native integration with ShipperHQ.
| Feature | WooCommerce | Shopify | BigCommerce |
| Interface | Complex for beginners, based on WordPress | Very user-friendly | User-friendly with a focus on design and scalability |
| Ease of Use | Requires technical knowledge | Easy to set up and use | Easy to use with some learning curve |
| Scalability | Highly scalable with the right hosting | Scalable with cloud infrastructure | Highly scalable with built-in features |
| Customization | Extensive through plugins and themes | Limited compared to WooCommerce | Good balance with themes and apps |
| SEO Capabilities | Excellent with WordPress plugins | Built-in SEO features and apps | Robust SEO tools, requires manual adjustments |
| Security | Security responsibility falls on the store owner | Handles PCI compliance and security | Built-in security features and PCI compliance options |
| Transaction Fees | Varies by a payment gateway | 0.5% to 2%, depending on the plan (except for Shopify Payments) | No transaction fees |
| App/Extension Store | Thousands of extensions in the WordPress marketplace | Over 8,000 apps | Over 1,200 apps and integrations |
| Themes Available | Thousands of themes | Over 110 themes | Approximately 218 themes |
💡 ProTip
Did you know? With Dynamic Mockups, you can transform your WooCommerce store into a personalized design hub.
It allows your customers to upload their own designs and see them instantly on realistic product mockups — right on your WordPress site.
This means no guesswork for your customers!
They can preview their custom designs in real time, giving them the confidence to hit “buy” while you deliver a seamless, tailored shopping experience.
2. Online Marketplaces
Online marketplaces, such as Etsy, Amazon, RedBubble, etc., host multiple sellers under one platform, manage transactions, and often control aspects like payment processing and shipping.
Thus, you have less control over the transaction process and customer interactions.
✨ Etsy is a synonym for handmade, vintage, and unique products, making it a great marketplace for selling custom products.
It offers detailed product listings with high-quality images, descriptions, and customization options, such as to personalize your shop with banners and logos.
Your buyers can navigate various categories and use search filters to find specific items.
✨ Amazon offers a wide range of products and advertising tools that let you create time-bound promotional offers, ads featuring a single product, and coupons.
It offers fulfillment methods depending on your needs, and has a stellar feature, Amazon Merch on Demand.
It is a POD service that enables you to create and sell custom-designed merchandise through Amazon’s vast marketplace.
✨ Redbubble specializes in print-on-demand products, allowing you to create and sell artwork on various products.
It also handles the entire production and fulfillment process. Redbubble has a global network of POD partners, so you can print and ship your orders directly to customers around the globe.
It also provides special discounts on certain product categories if you do bulk orders.
💡 ProTip:
You can save hours of manual work by linking your Etsy store to Dynamic Mockups! This integration allows you to automatically generate product mockups and quickly add them to your Etsy listings.
With just a few clicks, you can skip the tedious editing and uploading process, making your workflow faster and more efficient.
3. POD Sites
POD sites cater to various aspects of selling custom products, from setting up your online store to shipment options.
Let’s check some popular options.
✨ Gelato is a POD fulfillment platform that enables you to design and sell custom products through different partner fulfillment centers.
It has an API to connect eCommerce platforms, apps, or websites.
It provides real-time tracking and automatic order processing.
✨ Printful is a dropshipping and fulfillment service to create, sell, and fulfill custom-designed products.
It is famous for its vast catalog with a wide range of customizable products, as well as multiple printing techniques, including embroidery.
Like Gelato, Printful also provides automatic order processing.
4. Social Media
Social media remains the top communication channel where you can connect with your audiences.
We’ve already described the 7 Best Print-On-Demand Social Media Strategies in our blog in greater detail, so make sure to check it out.
Here are some quick tips on how to boost your sales:
- Partner with micro-influencers and engage with niche communities. This is particularly good if you use Instagram as your selling channel.
- Create interactive experiences via polls, quizzes, giveaways, etc.
- Use UGC and showcase real customers using or wearing your products.
- Offer incentives to customers leaving reviews.
If you are unsure which social media channel may be the right for you, the following table can help.
| Platform | Audience Demographics | Content Formats | Engagement Rate | Advertising Options |
| Diverse: Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers | Photos, Videos, Stories, Live Streams | 0.15% (average) | Native Ads, Sponsored Posts, Influencer Partnerships | |
| Younger: Gen Z, Millennials | Photos, Stories, Reels, IGTV | 0.70% (average) | Sponsored Posts, Stories Ads, Reels Ads, Influencer Partnerships | |
| X (formerly Twitter) | Diverse: Millennials, Gen Z, Professionals | Short-form Text Posts, Images, Videos | 0.05% (average) | Sponsored Tweets, Video Ads, Influencer Partnerships |
| TikTok | Youngest: Gen Z, Young Millennials | Short-form Videos (15-60 seconds) | 2.65% by followers, 4.07% by views | Native Ads, Sponsored Hashtag Challenges, Branded Effects, Influencer Partnerships |
*The engagement rates are based on the Socialinsider’s 2024 Social Media Benchmarks report.
How to Sell Custom Products with Dynamic Mockups?
Regardless of which platform, marketplace, or social media channel you opt for, the key element is to check your audience’s pulse and monitor their preferences.
The initial step in catering to your audience and boosting sales is to provide them with professional product mockups.
They are at the virtual gate of your online store and create the first impression.
If they are of poor quality, it will immediately give off a bad feeling about the quality of your products.
Luckily, with Dynamic Mockups, you can eliminate this by creating high-quality product mockups in no time.
Furthermore, we go beyond automatic mockup creation, enabling you to tailor and customize your products fully.
Thus, you can:
🔥 Upload, edit, and adjust different assets to generate variations without repetitive work.
🔥 Switch product colors easily or create more color variation products and see them in real time.
🔥 Use our online Mockup Editor directly on your website and let your shoppers create their designs without leaving your platform. Not only do you provide a more engaging shopping experience, but you remain in charge of print quality.
🔥 Create and switch backgrounds based on your text input for more customization without affecting your original designs.
🔥 Work with Photoshop files and automatically adjust your designs, fine-tune print areas, and ensure product consistency.
🔥 Automate mockup creations with Adobe, WordPress, Zapier, and Make integrations.
🔥 Automate your listing updates with Etsy and WooCommerce integrations.
Ready to see Dynamic Mockups in action?
Start with Dynamic Mockups for free and start selling custom products in no time.
Keep Learning:
10 Best-selling Print-On-Demand Product Ideas
9 Tips to Start a Print-On-Demand T-Shirt Business From Zero
