For almost a year now, I have been touting the benefits of starting a Print On Demand business through any number of websites like CafePress, Skreened and Zazzle. If you are still not convinced that this is a great opportunity to make some extra money or become a full time shopkeeper, maybe this will help get you on the train. You can make money off other people’s designs. That’s right. You can let other people do all the work of imagining, designing and creating shirts and other products while you can earn money from their sales. In fact, there are people who earn money from my products every day.

There are no pyramid schemes or any other illegal activities going on here. Zazzle actually promotes associate sales www.zazzle.com/sell/link to people who already have an established gallery of designs as well as people who have no desire to be a shirt designer. All you need is a website, a blog, a twitter account, an email address or some other way to promote products to people.

Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say you are an avid skateboarder and blog about skateboarding. You already have a following from your blog posts, featuring videos of you tearing up the half pipe. You can devote a small portion of your individual posts or even entire posts just to selling skateboards with cool designs by other people on Zazzle. All you have to do is look around Zazzle’s already established gallery of skateboard designs, pick the ones you want, and post them into your blog. Then, when one of your readers sees a design they like and they click on the link to buy the skateboard, you make 15% of the sale.

Doing a quick check on skateboards I saw that normal prices range anywhere from $60.00 on up. Those prices reflect a base amount for the board. (Zazzle’s cost, plus a royalty added by the designer which is what they earn from their own sales. ) That’s at least $9.00 from each sale you refer. In any one month if you’re referrals go over $100.00 in base sales your earnings jump from 15% to 22% of each sale. If you’re really good and can get your referral sales over $5000, your earnings increase to 32% of the each sale. All you have to do is point people to the products and earn the money. Again, you only offer up links to existing designs. You don’t have to buy or store inventory or do any designing on your own. This is all done through Zazzle. Click here to see an overview of the program.

Skateboards are just an example for someone with a niche to fill. Let’s say you are a HUGE fan of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney, Looney Tunes, or even DC Comics. You can link to official products with official designs from those brands on your website, blog or whatever. You still get the same referral rate as you did with other products. This is a really great alternative to creating your own designs and yields nearly the same amount of profit as designers receive. How is that possible?

Websites like Zazzle and Cafepress allow designers to set their own royalty or commission rate for their products. In most cases these commissions can range anywhere from 10% to 20% of the price of the item. A $20.00 shirt could get a designer $2.00 or $4.00 depending on the type of shirt and their markup attached. Like I said, if you don’t have what it takes to design your own, you can still earn as much as a designer on referrals. You can even use my designs as a referral, as long as you link to my products with your unique referral ID.  Here’s how you do it. It’s so simple.

1. Go to Zazzle.com and click on “sign in.”
2. You will be prompted for a login. (If you already have an account, skip to step 5.)
3. Click “Continue” below the header, on the left hand side, that says, “I am new to Zazzle.”
4. Fill out all the information and click “Continue.”
5. Once you are finished signing up, the sign in link will be in the top right corner of the front page of Zazzle.
6. You can either start searching in the search bar or choose topics from the front page of Zazzle by clicking on the Zazzle logo on the top left corner of the screen.
7. Find a product you like and click on it.
8. On the page for that product, below the image, there will be some options under “Share this” listed as Email | Link | Blog. The easiest way to get started is to choose “Link.”
9. On the next screen you have two options, “Link for Email or IM” or “Copy and paste HTML.”   If you are signed in, which you have to be in order to get paid, you will see the sentence, “Your Associate ID is included. You earn 15% by sharing Zazzle.“
10. Choose your method for sharing by copying the code underneath the option you want.
11. Post the information where you want to share it and that’s it.

In your account settings you will see the link for “History” under the “Statistics” section. In your earnings History page look for Referral Reports and you can see how you are doing. After the sales clear the 30 day window for returns and you reach the minimum threshold of $25, you can start being paid. You can receive a check or be paid via PayPal, if you choose. Make sure you fill out all your information for the payment settings so that you can expedite your payments. Also, you will be required to submit tax information if your sales reach a certain amount in a given year.

It’s not hard. Here’s a more visually based instruction



Remember, you have to use the link that shows your Zazzle Associate ID or you will not receive credit for a sale.

There you go. Enjoy and get linking!