Introduction
I know a lot of us are at home right now, trying to keep ourselves busy and maybe we’re excited about starting a new business idea. So starting a phone case business can be lucrative, it has high profit margins and a low upfront investment. There are 8.5 billion mobile device connections around the world. But there’s only a population of 7.6 billion people on this earth. So lots of people, but even more devices out there. And 44% of smartphone users, they’re going to be upgrading their device every two years. So if you want to sell phone cases online, then maybe this is your sign. Because it’s relatively easy to get into and the market is booming. So in this video, I’m going to teach you how you can start your own phone case business. And you’re going to watch me start my own phone case business from scratch. So let’s do it. Okay.
Choosing Your Phone Case & Target Audience
So the first thing that we would need to do is we would need to decide what kind of a phone case we want to sell and then that’s going to help us define our target. So start by thinking of the benefit that your phone case would have and that’s going to bring you closer to deciding who your potential customers would be. So let’s start with a little brainstorming, so maybe you could sell an extremely durable phone case and maybe it can withstand an a hundred meter drop. So then in that case, maybe you’d be targeting campers or really outdoors. Or maybe we could sell a phone case that’s like almost invisible and it doesn’t interfere with the iPhone’s, like really sleek design. So maybe in that case, we would be targeting people who are design enthusiasts. So for my business, I’m going to make phone cases that have artwork on them and have a slogan on them so that people that have these phone cases can really express themselves and their interests. Um, and for this, I’m going to be targeting dog owners and dog lovers. So this whole exercise that you watched me go through, you’re definitely going to want to do the same for your business. And I would say it definitely helps to go with an audience that you can relate to. So go with the theme that you’re already really passionate about. Um, that’s just going to make it more enjoyable for you as well. And another thing at this stage, you’re also going to want to think about which devices you’re going to want to target. So for me and my business, I’m just going to target iPhone users. Um, and I’m just really, just really narrowing it down just to make it more simple for me. Operation-wise, um, especially in the beginning, but if my phone case business takes off, um, business picks up, then I can really think about holding more styles in the future. But for now we’re just going to keep it super simple.
Source Your Materials
Next step is to actually source our materials. We’re going to want to think about how we’re actually going to make these phone cases. So here, you’re going to learn the three ways that you can actually make your phone cases. Um, you can either go the print on demand method. You can make it at home or you can white label. Now, if you’re not sure what some of these things that I just mentioned are. Don’t worry. I will explain it in just a sec.
Print on Demand
So for us, for me and my business, I’m going to have custom artwork printed on my cases. So I’m going to decide to go the print on demand method. So print on demand if you’re not familiar, this basically means that you have your own online store, you have your own designs printed on your own cases, but you don’t actually have to buy the phone cases upfront. Only when a customer makes an order do you actually go ahead and pay for the product and the printing and the shipping. So the way that it works is once a customer places an order, the customer is going to pay you, then you’re going to pay the printing facility. And then the printing facility is going to get an automatic notification. They’re going to get notified that they have to make an order. So they’re going to make that order. They’re going to print it. They’re going to ship it to the customer and you never have to make or ship anything yourself. And this is all automated, especially if you do have a Shopify store. Um, and if you’re using an app like printful, or printify. But if you do want more in depth information, just all on how print-on-demand works, we actually have an entire video dedicated to just that. So I will link that right up here for you guys. So hopefully that makes sense. Um, but the reason that I decided to go this route is because now I don’t really have to worry about buying too much or too little inventory. And especially because I don’t know what the demand is going to be like for my products. I also don’t know which designs are going to be resonating with my audience. So if there is a design that doesn’t sell, I could just take it off my site, no harm, no foul. Um, and the nice thing about print on demand is that I don’t really have to be putting money down upfront. The only thing, the only thing is that print on demand, your profit margins are going to be slim. You are paying a bit of a premium with print on demand, but for now, this is going to make sense for me because I want to avoid risk, especially in the beginning. So I have a custom design right over here that I hired a designer to create. So I’m going to head over to Printify.com and I’m going to click start designing. From here, I get to choose what kind of a phone case I want. And then I’m going to click start designing. And I’m going to upload my design that my designer gave me. Um, and so far looking good. And then once I click save product, it’s going to prompt me to make an account. So if you are going this route, you can sign up here. Um, and then we have a little preview of how our phone case might look. So that’s really exciting. If you have a Shopify store, I highly recommend you either get the printify app or the Printful app, it’s going to just seamlessly integrate with your Shopify store. It’s going to make your operations so much smoother. It’s just going to make your life a lot easier. But if you didn’t want to go the print on demand option, you could still make your own custom designs, but you would just make your cases at home.
Make it at Home
Um, that way, if you are the more creative type and you want to be involved with the actual making process, you could still do that with this method that we’re about to talk about. So to do this, you’re going to use a process called sublimation. This is going to include making your designs on the computer at home, and then printing them onto some blank phone cases. But to do this, you’re going to need a sublimation printer kit. So I’m going to leave a link in the description box for you guys, just an example of a printer, but of course, you’re gonna want to make sure that you’re choosing the printer that’s, you know, within budget and right for you. And then you’re also gonna want to order some blank phone cases online. So I would recommend you just type into google, sublimation blank phone case, and then it’s going to bring up some results that are local to you um, and you can choose from the phone cases that makes sense for your business. With this method, the nice thing is that you can really customize your phone cases. So when we’re thinking about print on demand, you’re really just limited to printing. Um, and you’re limited to the unboxing experience that your partner provides, like you can’t really customize that unboxing experience, but when you’re doing this at home, you have the control to really customize, um, your phone cases. You can glue on accessories. You can add textures, you have that control and you have control over the unboxing experience as well. You can add an insert or really make it very branded, and that can really set you apart from other brands since this market is definitely competitive. So the thing about going this road is that the cost of the printer is going to be a little bit high. So you’re going to have a high upfront cost. Printers are around $500. Um, but the thing is when you’re printing at home, the actual cost for each of the phone case, that’s going to be less than a dollar. Now with printiful, when you’re doing the print on demand, route, each phone case is going to cost you upwards of $13. So if this is a business idea that you plan on sticking with that upfront cost of the printer is definitely going to eventually pay for it.
White Labelling
So the next option is white labeling. So if you’re not already familiar with what that term means, basically it means you are taking an existing product and you are reselling it under your own brand name. So if you want us to find a case that already exists, you would basically just go on Aliexpress, Alibaba. Um, so I’ll give you an example here. I searched for an iPhone eight case. And I chose one that had a very clear benefit. Like this one says that is it’s an anti-stress phone case, so that’s perfect. Um, and while you’re on the product you want to, of course, make sure that you’re looking at the price, make sure that it supports the device types that you want to support. And look at the details about the manufacturer. If you are going this route and you are sourcing your products, we actually have a whole video just on how to find the right manufacturer. So I will leave a link for you guys to watch it right up here for when you’re done with this video. The nice thing about products we’re seeing is that there’s very little time investment on your part. You know, you’re not making the design. Um, you’re not coming up with the concepts like this has already been done for you, but the drawback is that if you’re able to buy this product and sell it yourself, there will be other companies out there that are selling the exact same thing as you. So it can be a little competitive going the product sourcing route. So at this point we have defined our niche. We’ve decided on her audience and we’ve decided what it is that we actually want to sell. But the next thing that we’re going to have to do is to decide, how are we going to sell it? So by signing up with Shopify, you can easily source and sell your products all in one centralized place. You can also design your store to look exactly how you want it, you know, make it super on brand. Um, and of course you got to take advantage of those powerful apps that we talked about. Like printify and printful. And the nicest thing is that you have a 14 day trial so that you can just, you know, play around, um, see if it’s for you. Um, and one thing that I do want to mention is that if you do decide to go the drop shipping route, you can be up and running in as little as a day. So I will leave the link in the description box for you guys, if you do want to take advantage of that free 14 day trial. All right. So once you have your store up and running, the next thing that you’re gonna want to think about is how are you going to market your products. Are you going to use Google ads or you going to use Facebook ads? Are you going to go real hard on social media? Of course the options are endless, but if you’re asking me, I would recommend that you create content on TikTok, especially if you are a maker, especially if you’re making these things at home. I think people love to see that behind the scenes, you know process video, and we actually have an entire video dedicated just to TikTok marketing. So I’ll just link that up here for you guys um, and you can watch that later. So that is pretty much it. You just successfully learned how to start your own phone case business.
