How Does RedBubble Work? Experienced Seller Tells All
Redbubble is a marketplace that sells print on demand products designed by individuals, independent artists, and pretty much anyone that wants to set up a store and meets the eligibility criteria.
Redbubble works by providing a platform for customers to purchase products with unique designs created by independent artists. Products range from mugs, stickers, and t-shirts to face masks, puzzles, and aprons. It also provides the opportunity for independent artists and graphic designers to make a profit online from their designs.
CAN ANYONE SELL ON REDBUBBLE?
Redbubble isn’t particularly selective or exclusive about who they let post designs on their platform. This makes it a great place to start for anyone that is interested in trying print on demand as a business or side hustle.
However, they do have some specific eligibility criteria that you need to meet in order to sign up. It’s pretty straightforward and, for the most part, if you’re over 16 and have a valid tax ID number you should be in the clear. Obviously, this is not legal advice and you need to do your own due diligence.
You can read their eligibility criteria here.
HOW DO YOU USE REDBUBBLE?
Luckily it’s pretty simple!
Once you’ve signed up and created your account you can start uploading designs. Click the Add New Work button towards the top right of the screen and select a design to upload.
Once you have uploaded a design it will auto-populate on each of the products below.
Next up, add a title, a description, and keywords. You want to use keyword-rich titles and descriptions and add relevant tags to your design. This will help customers to find your work.
Now it’s time to go through each product image and make sure it is placed appropriately for the design you selected. Take a couple of extra minutes here to make sure everything is placed just right.
You can hit Edit to adjust the image or upload an image with the proper dimensions for that product.
Once you are confident all the products look their best with your chosen design it is time to scroll further and select your Media style, and collections if applicable.
Next is the optimization option, if your design is meant for a specific product and you are just throwing the others up as a ‘why the heck not’ sort of thing then you will definitely want to select what product your design is meant for here.
Now select who can view the products, if it’s mature content, and that you have the rights to the image you are using. You need to have the rights to all of the images and designs that you are uploading.
More on Redbubble:
DO YOU HAVE TO PAY REDBUBBLE TO SELL?
No! It is 100% free to sign up to RedBubble and make sales on their platform. You will not hand any money over to Redbubble. That being said, you do not make a large profit from each sale. As a seller, you earn a commission, the percentage is set by you based on the base price set by Redbubble.
HOW MUCH DO REDBUBBLE ARTISTS GET PAID?
Obviously, this varies from person to person. It depends on how much time and effort they put into it and how much graphic design experience they have before starting on RB, among other things.
However, if you do your due diligence, do your keyword research, and learn from others as well as learn from your own successes and failures, you can start making sales relatively quickly and consistently.
It’s a bit of a numbers game and you will need quite a few designs to sell consistently to see any decent income.
One of my first consistently selling designs sold well on t-shirts and stickers. This seems to be a pretty standard experience on Redbubble for most sellers who are just starting out.
I have made anywhere from $0.15 to $1.00 from a sticker sale. So you will need to sell quite a few, in the hundreds if not thousands, to make a significant amount of money from selling stickers.
T-Shirts, however, profit you a few dollars in commission. Anywhere from $3 to $10 or even $20 depending on your commission rate and the cost of the shirt. So you can start making a decent little commission every month from multiple t-shirt sales.
HOW DO YOU GET PAID ON REDBUBBLE?
Redbubble pays once a month so long as you reach the payment threshold. The payment threshold for Redbubble is “$20/20€/£20 or more” and, at the time of writing this, they pay in the following methods:
- Direct Deposit – only available in the US, UK, and Australia (at the time of writing this)
- Paypal
I’m Canadian, so I use Paypal and it works just fine.
IS IT WORTH IT TO SELL ON REDBUBBLE?
Yes, it is worth it to sell on Redbubble.
Ultimately, I don’t know what your situation is or your reasons for being interested in selling on Redbubble, so I can’t tell you what is worth your time or not. But chances are, if it was worth your time to read through this article then it is likely worth your time to upload a handful of designs and see if you even enjoy the process.
If you don’t like it, then don’t continue, but if you do then you may have just stumbled on a great way to earn some passive income and build up a little business for yourself.
It is in no way going to make you rich quick, but if you keep at it you can make consistent money fairly quickly. Anywhere between a few weeks to a few months is typical for most beginners.
HOW DO YOU AVOID COPYRIGHT ON REDBUBBLE?
You can avoid copyright by creating your own designs or hiring a graphic designer to create designs for you. Those are the two best ways to avoid copyright. You can also buy designs from sellers off Etsy or, my personal favorite, from Creative Fabrica. I have a subscription to Creative Fabrica and it has been a game-changer for me with print on demand.
When buying graphics you need to be sure to read through the license agreement to make sure it allows use for print on demand products.
Redbubble also has a partner program where you can submit designs based on popular tv series and bands and a few other entertainment entities. For full guidelines to the partner program click here.
Other ways to avoid copyright on Redbubble is to use open-source images and designs that are royalty-free.
HOW DO I GET MY FIRST SALE ON REDBUBBLE?
To get your first sale on Redbubble you need to upload multiple designs with keyword-rich titles, tags, and descriptions. The quickest way that I have found for new sellers to get a few sales under their belt and get a handle for the platform is to stick to trending topics and designs.
If you aren’t sure how to find out what’s trending you should read through this post here where I give you three free tools that help you with keyword research and ultimately what to design.
HOW DO I GET MY REDBUBBLE NOTICED?
There are a handful of ways to get noticed on Redbubble. The first thing you need to do is optimize your titles, tags, and descriptions to be SEO-friendly. You should ALWAYS do this when uploading products to Redbubble’s platform. If your designs are optimized with relevant keywords it will never get found, it doesn’t matter how good of a design it is, it will get lost in the void that is all of Redbubble’s failed designs.
Next, you can market your products. Click here to discover 10 ways to market your print on demand products.
You can also become a featured artist on Redbubble or get featured on the home page under the “Found Feed” Redbubble says you are more likely to get featured by doing the following:
- Post to social media
- Fill out your artist profile to completion
- Fill out your shop with a variety of products and collections
- When you post to social media, tag Redbubble as well and engage with their socials
FINAL THOUGHTS
Hopefully, after reading through this you have a better idea of how Redbubble works and if the platform is right for you or not.
If you have any questions you can always reach out to us through our contact page or message us on social media.
