Why Order Print-on-Demand Samples?

When you shop online, you usually see pictures of the finished products. But have you ever wondered how a small online store knows what those products actually look and feel like?

At Lencyn, we don't manufacture our own products. We work with print-on-demand companies that print our designs on products and ship them to our customers.

But before adding certain new products to our store, we like to order samples for ourselves. That gives us a chance to see what our customers would actually receive.

Have you ever ordered something online that looked beautiful in the pictures, only to be a little disappointed when it arrived?

Maybe the colors weren't quite what you expected. Maybe the material appeared differently than you imagined. The design may have looked much better on your computer screen than on the actual product.

That's one reason ordering samples matters when selling print-on-demand products.

A Picture Doesn't Tell You Everything

When you're creating a print-on-demand product, most of the work happens on a computer.

You choose a product, add your design, adjust the size and placement, and look at a digital preview of what the finished item should look like.

And sometimes it looks fantastic!

But there's something to remember. That beautiful picture on your screen isn't the actual product. It's a digital representation of what the product is expected to look like.

Until you have the real thing in your hands, there are certain things you just can't know for sure.

The colors might look slightly different. The lettering might be smaller than you expected. Or the entire design might need to be moved or resized.

That's where ordering a sample comes in.

It's Not Only About the Design

Another reason to order samples sometimes gets overlooked.

You need to know what the actual product is like.

Take a journal, for example. The cover design might look beautiful, but what about the journal itself?

How does the cover feel? What is the paper like? Does the binding seem sturdy?

Or consider a jewelry dish. Is it a nice size? Does it feel well made? Does the finished design look as good on the dish as it did on the screen?

You can't always judge these things from a digital preview.

And when you're selling something online, customers trust you to represent that product accurately.

What We Learned from Two Mug Samples

Here are two mugs we ordered as samples for Lencyn.

When we originally worked on these designs, everything looked fine on the computer. The illustrations appeared to be the right size, the lettering looked good, and the overall placement seemed about right.

Then we saw the finished mugs.

On the personalized Zoey memorial mug, we realized the illustration could have been larger. There was more empty space around the design than we had expected.

The personalized floral mug possessed the opposite problem. The flower was too close to the mug's top rim. Although the design looked fine on the computer, seeing the actual product made us realize that the flower needed to be smaller to allow more space at the top.

Neither issue was particularly noticeable in the digital previews.

And that's exactly why we order samples.

Sometimes the printing itself is perfectly fine. The colors look good, the details are clear, and the product is fine. It's simply a matter of realizing that the design would look better with a few adjustments.

Both designs looked fine on the computer, but seeing them on the actual mugs made us realize that the Zoey illustration needed to be a little larger, while the flower needed to be smaller to leave more room at the top.

These are the kinds of things we'd rather discover ourselves before a customer places an order.

Here is another example of why we order samples.

We recently ordered a sample of a small personalized monogram pouch. We chose a soft Sage Green for the background, but when the pouch arrived, the color looked quite different.

The color we ordered	The color we got

The color wasn't our only disappointment. The overall quality of the pouch wasn't quite what we had hoped for. It looked and felt a little cheaper than we expected.

After looking it over, we decided not to add it to our store.

This is another reason we order samples. Sometimes the design looks perfectly fine on the computer screen, but the finished product tells a different story. We'd much rather discover that ourselves than have a customer be disappointed with something they purchased from us.

There's Another Benefit: Taking Your Own Pictures

One nice thing about ordering samples is that you can take your own photographs.

Print-on-demand companies usually provide digital mockups that show how a design will look on a product. Those mockups are useful, especially when you have lots of different designs to display.

But there's something about seeing an actual photograph of the finished item.

You can show the product from different angles, give customers a better idea of its size, and show details that might not be obvious in a digital preview.

It also lets you show what the product really looks like, rather than relying entirely on computer-generated images.

For a modest online business, having those photographs can be especially helpful.

Why Sampling Matters to Us at Lencyn

At Lencyn, we're always working on new ideas, whether it's a personalized journal, a jewelry dish, a mug, or something a little different.

When we're considering a new product, we sometimes order a sample to see how the printing turns out, feel the materials, and get a better idea of the overall quality.

Sometimes that means making adjustments before adding a product to the store. Other times, it confirms the design looks just the way we hoped.

Occasionally, a sample might tell us a particular product isn't quite what we're looking for, so it never makes it into our store.

That's part of running a small print-on-demand business.

We want our customers to be happy with what they receive, whether they're buying something for themselves or choosing a personalized gift for someone special.

While no sample can guarantee that every future order will turn out perfectly, taking the time to examine the products we sell is one way we can work toward that goal.

After all, if we're going to put our name on something, we'd like to know what we're putting it on.