You can sell designs you buy online, provided you have permission from the intellectual property owner. For example, you may hire a designer to create something for you or you may have a license to use a particular design. Please be aware, however, that there are many different types of licenses. In addition, each platform likely has its own policies and terms, which you should read carefully.
Spring is not able to offer legal advice. If you’re not sure whether your content infringes on someone’s intellectual property, you can contact the intellectual property owner or consult an attorney. If Spring receives proper notice of intellectual property infringement, we will comply with our policies and remove the infringing material.
FAQ’s
1) If my design is removed for copyright infringement, would I just send the IP team my licenses to get reinstated?
If you believe your listings have been removed in error, you can submit a counterclaim or write to us at policy@spri.ng. Correct. However, if you or the claimant (or both) have an exclusive license, then it is possible that only one of you is entitled to use the licensed design. In such instances, Spring will typically allow you both to sell the design on Spring and it will be up to you to work out any such dispute amongst yourselves (and with the original designer).
2) Can the original designer file an IP claim on Spring?
Yes, it’s possible that the original designer you purchased your license from could file an IP claim on Spring. We intend on responding to this as we would with any other IP claim.
3) Someone copied my original artwork that I used in conjunction with purchased design elements. Can I file an IP claim?
Correct, if you’ve substantially modified the purchased design and someone copies it pixel for pixel, you can make an IP claim and we will look into this for you.
Remember, there are lots of free and affordable tools out there if you prefer to create your own designs. Many don’t require design experience. 😉
After landing on a design idea, get designs ready to apply to your products and prepare promotional content. You don’t have to be a design professional to create products for your community, and there are tons of helpful tools online, as well as expert designers who can help. Below are some helpful tips from creators as well as some step-by-step guides.
Quality of design is important. You want to launch something that will excite your fans, not just the idea, but how it’s visually represented as well. But don’t let that scare you, it’s super easy to create or source a cool design and It’s ok to keep things simple – slogan and typography-based designs are all the range at the moment.
Free design tools
We’ve listed the most popular tools used by creators to come up with effective designs. Whenever purchasing pre-made artwork or a design element, you should research the design’s license limitations to ensure your design complies with IP laws. See our guide for selling purchased designs here.
Placeit: Create designs within seconds using Placeit’s 10,000+ on trend templates. UYou can also use Placeit to create lifestyle mockups to share with your community on social platforms. Spring creators have access to unlimited features at a discounted rate of $12 a month. Click here to learn more.
Canva: This popular app is amazing for creators to choose from premade templates, stock photos, cartoon images, shapes, icons, and more when creating a design. Similar to Spring’s text tool, Canva also has a text generator with over 100 different fonts to choose from. Canva is great for creating designs for digital products.
Creative Fabrica: This platform offers a full license for creators who want to use purchased designs to sell on products. It’s not uncommon for people to purchase design elements instead of creating a design from scratch.
Video tutorials
Spring creator and leading YouTube art channel Jazza [5.43M subscribers] created a really helpful video offering tips and tricks for creating designs using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Jazza covers useful topics such as how he comes up with design ideas and a step by step guide to creating files ready for print.
Another creator who makes incredible content focused on graphic design tutorials specifically for products, is Charley Pangus. Spend some time checking out the full range of useful and insightful tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/c/charleypangus/videos
Here’s one of our favourites:
Specific Spring resources
Specialty product templates
Follow the video playlist below for guided tutorials on applying your designs to specialty products. Download templates to start using once you have access to the product here.
Once you’ve unlocked specialty products, you’ll see them in the launcher. Find design templates here to help you create product designs and check out these video tutorials for tips.
Take advantage of these free design patterns all creators can apply to all-over print products such as leggings, phone cases, blankets, pillows, and more.
Our creative team here at Spring have kindly shared with us their 2021 Pinterest board, which houses an ever-growing collection of different design styles and pieces of inspiration for you to help inspire you. Check it out here.
Collaborate with 99designs
Providing you an extra layer of support, Spring has partnered up with 99designs. This service allows you to collaborate with world-class designers, to create designs for products beyond your expectations (without being a design guru). With this design sourcing service, you will now be able to transform your vision into a fully-fledged design, simply by submitting a brief and letting the 99designs algorithm match you with the best suited designers.
You have the safety and comfort of knowing there is a money back guarantee if you don’t receive the design you’d hoped for.
Transfer of copyright. Any designs you have created are now yours to sell.
99 designs have collaboration tools in place allowing creators to provide feedback easily as well as work closely with the designer seamlessly.
All for a price that won’t break the bank
Spring’s design services
In addition to our partnership with 99designs, Spring also offers a free in-house design to any new creator with over 100,000 followers on any social platform. To apply for our design services, please fill out the form here, and our support team will be back in touch soon.
Social media tools
As a creator, you’ll know how important it is to get your social media platforms looking flawless and consistent with your branding. As well as this, the promotional content you share with your community linking to your products and social store should catch your fans’ attention. We’ve collected a few easy, straightforward apps for doing this.
GifLab is perfect for creating .gif videos and it’s super simple. Use it to show off all color options for your products, or highlight all products available in your newly dropped collections.
Layout is a great collaging app. It’s integrated with Instagram, so you can share the image directly to social media.
Splice enables you to create videos quickly and easily, with a unique zooming function too. Generate close-up shots of your products creating amazing promo videos and showing the details of your products.
Videoshop is another great app that offers a variety of features to create quality videos. You can combine photos and videos, add slow-motion edits, create animated titles, and more.
Legend is ideal for creating animated text. You could use this tool when sharing special promotions and discounts for example.
PlaceIt enables you to choose from thousands of stunning, professionally designed ad templates to promote your products across all social media platforms. They are ridiculously easy to modify and you can download images formatted correctly for just about every platform.
Canva makes it easy for everyone to create professional-looking graphics. There are hundreds of templates available with beautiful layouts for text editing. Each template is designed for a specific purpose like sharing on Instagram, Instagram Stories, Twitter, or Snapchat in newsletters, etc.
Creative Fabrica: This platform offers a full license for creators who want to use purchased designs to sell on products. It’s not uncommon for people to purchase design elements instead of creating a design from scratch.
If you’re ready for your first payout, congratulations, that’s some serious hustle. Collecting your earnings is an awesome feeling, so revel in your success. Here’s what you need to know about requesting payouts with Spring:
As of 11/1, Payout requests are processed once a month. Payouts must be requested by the 21st of the month in order to be included with the payouts processed at the end of that month.
Creators can request a payout within 24 – 48 hours of a listing’s print cycle ending.
We recommend only requesting a payout once a week—it’s best to group your payouts and request more funds at one time.
Payment methods
Make sure your PayPal/Payoneer account is completely set up and verified before you begin collecting your hard-earned profit. If you notice a delay in a PayPal payout from Spring, please check your PayPal account for messaging regarding a “Receiving Limit“. You might need to provide additional account information to PayPal once you hit a certain payout amount. The receiving limit can be different for different countries, please contact PayPal directly if you have questions about this.
Once processed, payouts should be received within 24 – 48 hours.
Payout Support
Once requested, if you do not receive an email from Spring within 10 days confirming your payout has been processed, please reach out to creatorhelp@spri.ng. Also contact us here if you need to cancel a payout (ex: “Oops. Made a typo in my Paypal email”). Remember, you will need to verify your payout method (within your dashboard account settings) before you can request a payout.
Reward fans and increase product sales by running a promotion. You can instantly create different types of promo codes and offer discounts for a limited time all within your Spring dashboard.
Go to the Dashboard, Tools and services, and then select the “Promotions” section.
Name your promo code and select your promotion type (i.e. free shipping, specific amount such as $5, or a percentage amount like 15%).
Set the expiration date or leave it as ‘never’ so the promotion is always available until you switch it off. You can make the discount active or disable it by switching the status to on or off.
When someone uses your promo code you’ll be able to see it within your listing’s analytics. The discount amount applied to the order will also be visible under ‘Costs’.
If a promo code is not working, it’s likely because the product in the cart does not have enough profit margin for the discount to be applied—you can update the product’s price within the listings section of your account.
Ensure all your products have enough profit margin to support the discount you create. If your fans apply your promo code at checkout and it fails, this likely means one of your products doesn’t have enough profit margin to support the discount. You can edit your product pricing by heading to the Listings section of the dashboard.
Sharing your promo code on social media
To get your fans applying your promo code at checkout, you’ll need to announce your sale on social media. Find a few tips below and use our design resources to find free online tools, making it easy to create effective imagery for socials.
Use images of your samples or find a Instagram story template on Canva. Include your promo code.
Make eye-catching posts on your Instagram feed, Twitter, Facebook announcing your sale, explaining your products, and include details of where to enter the promo code.
Get fans excited by including your products in your video content on YouTube. Feature them below your content using the YouTube Integration.
Discuss your sale during your livestream and provide the link in an overlay on Twitch taking users to your store.
You can share products seamlessly with your community through our platform integrations. Use the Integrations tab to activate and customize your products on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Discord, and Streamlabs.
If you’ve got 10k+ YouTube subscribers you may be eligible to sell your products on the YouTube merch shelf. Visit your YouTube Studio, click on Monetization and follow the prompts through to Merchandise. The Merch shelf appears below your YouTube videos, in your channel store, on end cards, and more. Pin products under specific videos and feature them during livestreams. Check out the YouTube promo guide to learn how to use this tool.
With this feature, fans can browse your top products or head to your full Spring store—all from your Linktree in your social media bio. This means seamless shopping for them and tons of new traffic for you. Learn more.
The Instagram shopping integration allows you to promote your products by tagging them in your Instagram posts, stories, reels, and more. Your fans can browse and purchase straight from your profile. You’ll be able to track insights and habits to better understand your fans. And that’s just a few of the benefits. If you have access, you’ll see an “Add shop” button on your Instagram profile. Learn more and register your interest below.
The Spring x Twitch merch store panel extension gives fans a fully integrated experience and enables them to discover your products without having to leave your stream. Creators can drop subscriber-exclusive products to reward loyal followers and encourage more subscriptions. Your products will be visible to international viewers within 15 minutes of adding them to your store. Check out our Twitch promo guide to learn more.
Spring’s live merch alerts are available on every streaming platform integrated with Streamlabs—including YouTube, Twitch, Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and more. What’s more, you can customize their appearance within Streamlabs too. Once activated, your community can add a personalized message post-purchase that is visible in real-time to you and all of your fans watching your stream.
To customize the look of your alerts, go to the sidebar and select Features > Alert Box > Merch. You can use Streamlabs for merch alerts while using other alert providers too. Make sure there’s no overlap with activated alerts on each platform—for example, if you’re using merch alerts on Streamlabs, make sure they’re deactivated on StreamElements.
The Spring x Discord integration allows your fans to create and push custom alerts to a Discord channel of your choosing whenever they purchase your products. Alerts feature a link to the product they purchased as well as a personalized message from your fan.
See results from your hustle in the analytics section. You can also utilize Google Analytics in conjunction with your Analytics on Spring for additional insight.
Click the analytics icon next to a listing to track the listing’s sales performance. From there, you can alter the date range, see where your traffic and views are coming from, see the number of sales you’re getting, and more.
Alternatively, go straight to the “Analytics” section of the dashboard to see an overview of all your analytics. This summary shows data on orders, units, views and profits across your entire account.
Getting started with analytics
Source of units: Source of units offers a straightforward view of where your sales are coming from. All of your sales will either come from Spring’s Boosted Network, or they will be direct sales (sales driven by you through paid ads, online promotion, etc.). You’ll also see the total orders, units, and profit generated by each channel.
URL parameters: Here, creators can find what’s driving your fans to view your listings. You can create a URL parameter by simply adding a “?” at the end of your listing link with key-value pairs. If you activate the Google Analytics Integration (see below) you can also build tracking parameters using this tool.
Traffic sources: The traffic sources section shows you a breakdown of where your page traffic is coming from. For example, you can see how many views you’re getting from a variety of social media channels, websites, etc.
Orders: See what your most popular products are. If you find your community is loving one specific type of product or design, you can drop other products that are similar. You’ll also see a clear breakdown of your total profit per sale after costs are deducted (for example if you offer a discount code) or if a CPO (cost per order) is applied.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics (GA) is a powerful and free reporting tool that provides information regarding website visitors and their behavior. Use Spring’s integration with GA for deeper insight on your store visits, traffic, fan demographic info, and much more.
Use tracking links for additional insight
Easily create tracking links to share online using Google’s URL builder. This tool enables you to see which social media platforms are catching your fans attention and leading them to your store.
Connect Spring x Google Analytics
You don’t have to run Google ads to unlock this analytics tool. Once set up, it can take up to 24 hours for Google Analytics to begin collecting information.
Go here. Sign into your Google account if you already have one, or create one.
Click Access Google Analytics, then click Sign up. Fill in your Account Name, Website Name, Website URL (your store or listing URL), and select an Industry Category and Reporting Time Zone.
Under Data Sharing Options, check the boxes next to the options that you want. Click Get Tracking ID. The tracking ID is a string like UA-000000-2. Find more information on finding your ID.
Add the tracking ID to your Spring Account. Go to your dashboard, find Tracking Pixels in Tools and Services, and paste your ID into the Google section under Default Google Analytics tracking snippet.
For more support on using the Google Analytics tool to gain further insight, take a look here.
The ‘Listings’ section within the dashboard allows you to view and edit all of your listings. You’ll be able to see sales and profit for each product. Access the following tools and customization options by clicking the buttons and icons next to each listing:
Archive listings to remove them from your dashboard view
Relaunch ended listings to make products available for purchase again
Listing Details
Edit listing details instantly by simply clicking the pencil icon next to the product you’d like to edit. Updated prices and profit margins will be reflected on any new orders placed once your changes are saved. The new price will not impact orders placed beforehand.
Title: Customize the name of your product
Description: Edit the description displayed on your listing page
URL: If you’ve changed your product title, you may want to switch the URL. Just enter the new URL, click save, and see your changes appear
Currency settings: Spring automatically displays currencies based on your fans’ location. You’re able to choose the exact display price in USD and in one other currency, either GBP or EURO, on your listing page. If you set the primary EU currency to GBP for example, this means the EURO price displayed will be based on this GBP price you’ve set. The specific EURO amount will depend on the current exchange rate. Make sure to update your currency settings first before editing any prices in the “Available products” section below
Default product in listing: Select the default product you want to appear when fans land on your product listing
Available products
Edit or add designs: The ability to change the design of existing products or add/remove products from listings is explained below.
Price: Customize the selling price displayed (and profit) per product. You can set the selling price for global products (fulfilled in EU and US) in both USD and your primary EU currency (either GBP or EUR). The EU price you set includes VAT—if you’re located outside of the EU the display price you’ll see on the listing page will not include VAT
Product images: Choose which product image to display per product
Edit, add or remove existing designs
Click ‘edit or add designs’ to get started. Here, you can alter individual products or apply your edits in bulk to other products in the listing. Adjust design placement, size, etc. as well as upload new designs to apply to your products. Apply your design changes to your chosen product or alternatively, toggle the ‘bulk edit’ option to apply your design changes to all products on the listing.
Editing your products will initiate the print cycle for current orders. Once saved, new orders placed will feature the new design. Fans will need to cancel their order before edits are saved, or contact support as soon as possible.
Once saved, edits will immediately be reflected on the listing page. However, edits may take 2 – 3 business days to be reflected on external Spring integrations such as the YouTube merch shelf due to content review policies. Edited products will not be available through integrations during the review period. Please note it is not possible to completely delete a listing due to legal reasons. You can ensure it is no longer visible online and prevent fans from being able to buy by archiving it.
Listing settings
You can access a listing’s settings by clicking its ‘gear’ icon. You can update the following settings for each listing:
Visibility: Control who is able to view your listings and where your products appear (e.g. merch shelf).
Marketing: Toggle this on to let Spring help you drive more sales through our Boosted Network (marketplace integrations, SEM, paid promotion, etc.).
Schedule end date: Set a date for your listing to end (for limited edition merch) or end it immediately to make products no longer available for purchase.
Print cycle: By default, all listings automatically have three day print cycles. This means orders are produced and shipped every three days. If no orders are placed, the print cycle will continue indefinitely. If you select “Start Print”, we will initiate production for current orders on your listing and the print cycle will reset to three days. By selecting “end immediately”, your print cycle will not run again and your product will no longer be available. Alternatively alter the end date, time, time zone, and save your selection. Adding a scheduled end date means if you’d like to continue selling, you’ll need to reset the print cycle once it’s ended.
Initiate a print cycle
You can initiate a listing’s print cycle from within your Spring account.
Click the Listing Settings icon next to the listing you want to edit.
When you select “Start Print” we will initiate production for current orders on your listing and the print cycle will reset to three days.
Select “End Immediately” if you want to initiate the print cycle and do not want the listing to relaunch, i.e. you do not want print cycle to reset and the products to be available for purchase again. You can relaunch listings at any time.
Control who sees your listings and products by updating a listing’s visibility setting. You can select public, private, or unlisted visibility.
Public listings can be seen by and shared with anyone. Depending on your account preferences they will also show up on your social integrations e.g. Merch Shelf, Twitch.
Private listings can only be seen by you while logged into Spring account. This setting is a great tool if you want to prepare a product launch and make your products private until you’re ready.
Unlisted listings can be seen and shared by anyone with the link, but will not show up in your integrations or store. Utilize this setting when you want to share your listing with a select group of fans—they’ll only be able to see your products if they have the link.
If you change a listing from private to public it will be visible within your Spring storefront almost immediately. However, it can take up to 24 – 48 hours for the product to appear in your platform integrations like YouTube merch shelf. Making a listing private will take up to 10 hours for the product to be removed from any integrations.
Product countdown timer
If you’ve scheduled an end time you may want to also activate the countdown timer on your listing page. To do this, go to the “Settings” section of your Spring account. By switching this on, it will add the timer to all of your listings. Once your listing ends on the scheduled date the print cycle will not restart (fans will not be able to place orders after it ends) so you must manually relaunch the listing if you want the products to be available again.
Archiving listings
Archiving listings will remove them from being visible in the “Listings” section of your dashboard. Archiving also ends the listing’s print cycle and removes them from your store and other integrations. You can access archived listings and unarchive them at any time. If you want to unarchive a listing, change the ‘Show Archived’ filter to ‘Archived’. You can also relaunch listings that have ended print cycles here.
Digital products are non-physical assets sold by means of a downloadable link online. They can be anything from digital calendars to e-books, audiobooks, photo filters, digital wallpapers, and virtual events. Your options are limitless. Join the digital revolution, enhance your product collection, and begin monetizing your content.
Many creators begin earning thousands of dollars in digital products sales within their first 30 days. If you’re not sure about which digital product to start with, get some inspiration here.
Follow these steps in the Digital Launcher to start selling your digital product:
Choose a category that fits your type of digital product
Upload your digital product file. This is the file fans will purchase and download. You can only upload one file at a time. If you have a ‘bundle’ of products, or want to include assets such as instructions, be sure to optimize your files into a compressed (.zip) folder and upload them all together.
Product title and description
Ensure the wording you select for your title and description is unique to your brand and the nature of your digital product.
Mention inspiration behind your digital product
Let your community know what to expect after purchasing and downloading
If applicable, explain how to upload the digital product onto various devices or app’s. It’s important to explain how fans can start using your downloadable product.
Sadie provides a guide to her fans on how to install her Lightroom presets and Pungence directs fans on what to expect after downloading his e-book.
Pricing your digital products
There are a few things to remember when determining the ideal price for your digital product.
Consider your community and what they are willing to pay
How complex is your digital product? Make sure the price mirrors the value. Factor in the time you have invested creating it.
Keep up with the digital product market. Get your prices right the first time and you’ll see the benefits. Compare your prices with others and make sure you’re neither cutting yourself short nor overpricing.
Showcasing your digital content
Your preview images should present the product “in action” so buyers can picture what it is they’re buying. For example, if you are selling a wallpaper, include images of your design on several devices. Check out the preview images Bonnie provides for her Vibin’ wallpaper bundle.
You can upload up to 4 images of your digital product. Choose a featured image to appear first when fans visit your product page.
We recommend preview images are 900×900 pixels, 1MB in size, and are .jpeg, .png, or jpg. file format.
Ensure you have plenty of effective mock-up templates to drop your designs into. Use your Placeit subscription to create flawless product preview images. Head here to find our free top picks.
Starting from scratch
Create a synergy between physical and digital products. Recycle your successful physical product designs to create new digital products. For example, Spring creator Liam Kyle Sullivan used their popular “Kelly” design to make a t-shirt and mobile wallpaper.
Test the waters. Run a poll on social media to get an idea of your community’s preferences. Trial your digital product with family and friends first and use their feedback to tailor your product accordingly. You can share your listing with a select group of people by making your product “unlisted” using the privacy settings in the Digital Launcher.
Consider creating limited edition digital products to create urgency. Sell them at a special reduced price on a first come first serve basis using the promotions tool (simply deactivate the promo code when you reach a certain number of sales).
Spring offers direct to garment printing (also known as DTG) and screen printing. Both processes offer high quality results and our system automatically determines which technique is used based on each order (product type, quantity, number of colors, etc).
Screen printing
Spring offers the screen printing process when certain product types and order quantities meet the need. Screen printing is a great alternative to DTG for high quantity orders and products with higher polyester blends. We use a screen printing press, an aluminum framed screen mesh stencil, squeegee and ink as the tools for the process. Our production artists arrange for a screen stencil to be made for each color in your artwork. The production team then sets up the printing press by registering each color. The press operator will imprint each color onto your selected garment and send down the dryer for the ink to be cured. The quality of screen printing is second to none, and a screen print lasts as long as the garment itself.
Direct to garment printing (DTG)
Spring has invested in world leading digital textile printing equipment. Direct to garment (DTG) printing is our primary method of custom apparel printing. This cutting edge technology allows us to provide creators with outstanding prints, even if it is for a one-off piece. DTG printers hold the garment in a fixed position while inks are sprayed directly onto the textile by a printhead. The ink is then cured using efficient dryer technology. This type of printing allows for vivid artwork and endless color combinations. The inks used are environmentally friendly, non hazardous, and toxin free.
Quality
Spring guarantees optimal quality from both types of printing. All designs uploaded to our website undergo a thorough and rigorous art analysis before the printing process starts. We take ultimate care and responsibility to make sure we create your products sustainably. Constantly streamlining and reviewing our quality control process at every stage, we ensure all creators can be confident in their printed products and distribute merch to fans they can be proud of.
Spring, formerly known as Teespring, has been dedicated to empowering creators since its founding in 2011. Over the years we’ve grown from a simple print-on-demand service to becoming the largest creator commerce platform in the world, allowing creators to turn ideas into digital and physical experiences for their fans. If you’ve got an idea and a following or community, the possibilities are endless.
Create with Spring, sell on social.
Spring’s partnerships and platform integrations create new opportunities for you to connect with fans and nurture your brand. We handle product production, order fulfillment, and offer top quality creator and fan support giving you the freedom to continue to do what you do best, while we handle the rest.
Since 2017, creators have been able to sell on social using powerful platform integrations with YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Discord, Streamlabs and more. Enabling anyone to seamlessly share products with fans right alongside their content.
In 2020, we introduced limitless product options—alongside our 180+ product selection and sourcing services, creators can also offer exclusive branded products from brands like; Champion, Puma, Rubix and more. Spring’s innovative Digital Launcher allows creators of all niches to further flex their creative muscles and sell virtual or digital products such as photo filters, e-books, audio files, and more.
Over the course of Spring’s evolution as a company, our goal remains to create meaningful connections and memorable moments between creators and fans. Thank you for being a part of the Spring creator community.
