(Updated 7/17/24)
Every election season since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be one of the people selling wacky political t-shirts, bumper stickers, and other merch. Up until a few years ago, I always thought that selling political shirts was something that would require a big upfront investment into tools like a screen printer, blank products, and shipping materials. That misconception went out the window the moment I discovered print-on-demand, the business model that made me more money over the last two election seasons than I made at my last full-time job. Here’s everything you need to know about selling political merch online, even as an absolute beginner.
(This post contains affiliate links)
How to Sell Political Merchandise With Print-On-Demand
Print-on-demand (POD) is a process that allows you to sell printed products like apparel, posters, mugs, and home goods in your own online storefront. Instead of printing and shipping everything yourself, you partner with a POD company like Printful, which you can automatically sync to your online store. Whenever a customer places an order, you pay for the base price of the product on Printful, then they process and ship the order to your customer with your own unique branding. You can start an entire business without ever touching a single piece of inventory.
There are lots of different POD suppliers out there and many ways to sell POD merch online, but my favorite pairing and the one I recommend for beginners is to start an Etsy shop with Printful as your supplier. Etsy has a built-in audience of millions of shoppers, so that’s a huge advantage when you’re just starting out.
Check out all of my posts about print-on-demand here.
How to Design Political T-Shirts and Merch
The #1 reason why a lot of people think they could never start a POD shop is because they have no design experience. This is another reason why politics is a great niche, because sometimes all you need is a bold statement to sell your merch. If you have a bold and catchy phrase that invokes a lot of emotion (preferably the kind that makes someone say “OMG I have to buy that”), then sometimes all it takes is a simple text-based phrase to make sales.
Design Software: Canva
I create 90% of my designs using Canva Pro, which costs $12.95 per month. It’s not as complex as something like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape, but it’s perfect for beginners and my #1 recommendation for POD and digital product newbies.
Political Design Templates and Mockups: PlaceIt
I love PlaceIt’s selection of commercial use design templates that you can modify and sell on your political products. They have a whole selection of political and patriotic designs that you can modify however you want, but you can also browse their full design selection and make anything political with the right phrases. PlaceIt costs a little more than Canva, but it’s also worth it for the lifestyle mockups.
I made that design and mockup using PlaceIt. Technically you could start an entire store with just a PlaceIt account, but there are lots of benefits to knowing how to make your own designs.
Commercial Use Fonts and Clip Art: Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica is my favorite website for finding trendy fonts and clipart to use in my designs. Everything on their website is available to incorporate into designs you sell, and they have a growing section of POD-friendly designs that don’t require any modifications in order to add them to your product. Make sure to sign up for their newsletter to have weekly freebies mailed to you. You can download any font or graphic from Creative Fabrica and upload it into your Canva account to use in your designs.
Market Your Products With Lifestyle Mockups
One reason a lot of people are hesitant to get into the merch game is because it’s “oversaturated” and “everyone is doing it.” That’s always been the case for things like graphic tees, so you need to worry more about standing out from your competition and less about whether you’re the first person to do something. You can easily stand out in search results with the right mockups, which are digital photos that demonstrate how your product is supposed to look while in use.
PlaceIt is again my favorite place to find lifestyle mockups for POD products. They have thousands of mockups with a diverse range of models, and they’re always adding more.
Canva also has a variety of mockups for different products in their stock photo selection. Simply search “t-shirt mockup” or “mug mockup” or “poster mockup” to see what they have available for free.
You can also buy mockup images on both Etsy and Creative Fabrica, but you’ll find more flat lays in their selections. This post has some of my favorite Etsy shops for mockups.
Drive Traffic and Sales With Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is essential to any online business, especially e-commerce. It’s knowing what keywords your target customers are using to search for products like yours, and strategically using those keywords in your shop titles, tags, and descriptions. This is less of a technical skill and much more intuitive, so don’t let the idea of SEO or keyword research intimidate you.
If you have products that cater to a specific niche or political group, you can easily figure out what keywords people are searching with a tool like Erank or Sale Samurai. Let’s picture two customers as an example:
The first one is searching for an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez t-shirt. You happen to sell an AOC shirt. Your target customer might search some of the following phrases:
AOC shirt
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
AOC 2024
Leftist shirt
Democrat shirt
Social justice shirt
Feminist t-shirt
Gift for feminists
Liberal t-shirt
Those are some of the keywords I’d include if I were selling that shirt. Now let’s say I’m selling a Trump 2024 t-shirt. Off the top of my head, someone who wants this shirt might type the following keywords into Google or Etsy:
Trump 2024 shirt
Pro Trump shirt
MAGA shirt
Keep America Great shirt
Donald Trump shirt
Trump is my president
Republican shirt
Conservative shirt
I’d start with those keywords and do some additional research for more ideas. My most-used tool for keyword research is Sale Samurai, which will show you search volume, competition, and keyword recommendations like this:
If you install the Sale Samurai Chrome Extension, you can get live search data from the Etsy search bar, like this:
This will also give you other ideas for what to make based on what people are searching for. It’s truly an invaluable tool for e-commerce and POD beginners. I always tell people not to bother with paid ads until you have a solid understanding of SEO and you’re getting most of your traffic from organic search. If you’re going to spend any money on marketing, you’re much better off spending it on an SEO tool that will help you master your understanding of your target market than you are spending it on paid Facebook ads. You can get 20% off Sale Samurai with the code AGIRLSGOTTAEAT.
For more SEO tips, check out my full post about how to use Etsy SEO.
The Best Political Products to Sell DURING THE 2024 ELECTION
There are hundreds of different products you can add your designs to with print-on-demand. Some of them work better in the political niche than others. Here are some products that, in my experience, work exceptionally well for the political niche:
Apparel – obviously any and all apparel work well in the political niche. Printful is my preferred apparel POD supplier. They have t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, dresses, leggings, and even shoes and flip flops. Check out Printful’s apparel selection.
Coffee Mugs – mugs are a popular collectible item and great for gifting because they’re one size fits all.
Political Flags – Printful recently added flags to their inventory which I definitely plan on adding to my store this year. Printful’s flags can be advertised as an outdoor flag or as a wall tapestry for indoor display.
Political Posters & Wall Art – Political posters make great wall art, or you could even promote them as signs for people to bring to a protest. Printful has framed and unframed posters as well as canvas gallery wraps which you can sell at a premium price. If you decide to sell political wall art, I recommend also selling the printable wall art files for people to buy and print themselves. There’s even less overhead when you sell digital files. Read my post here to learn about selling digital products on Etsy.
Political Hats – Dad hats, trucker hats, beanies, think of your niche and target customer to determine what kinds of embroidered or printed hats they’d buy with your designs.
Stickers – I love selling political stickers and in my experience, people love to buy them. They’re an inexpensive way to express your views wherever you choose to stick them, perfect for politics. Read my full guide to selling stickers on Etsy here.
Can anyone sell political merchandise online?
It is legal to sell political merch online as long as it does not contain hate speech. The benefit to selling political merch is that politicians are in a unique position as far as branding and exposure, so if you’re using a campaign slogan like ‘MAGA’ it’s less likely that the trademark enforcers will come after you than if you’re using a private company’s trademark, like Disney (still, use your own discretion and check the USPTO Trademark database before making your designs).
You can also sell political merch anonymously. There are no requirements where you have to publicly disclose your real name or other personal information outside of Etsy or Shopify billing and registration. You can even create a fake identity to go along with your brand if you’re uncomfortable with sharing your personal information.
Start your shop today:
Open an Etsy account with my referral link for 40 free listings
Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Canva Pro
Get 20% off Sale Samurai with the code AGIRLSGOTTAEAT
Join my free Facebook group for Etsy Printable & POD Sellers
Printable & Profitable: This eBook contains my full step-by-step guide to starting a profitable shop selling both printable AND print-on-demand products.
You make a good point with this! I’ve been told I should start capitalizing on politics with my Etsy shop also but never really gave it a second thought.
Do you have just one Etsy store or multiple stores?
I have one now that I sell POD tshirts, but thought to make a 2nd store front to sell digital printables so each store can have its own niche. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
You definitely should do it! I have multiple stores and they have a combination of both POD and digital products. I think both product types mix well together, especially because if you sell a digital print and someone wants to buy a physical copy, you can use POD to print and mail them a poster. Best of luck with your stores!
I have a store on Shopify and believe there’s a niche market for the products but getting not much traffic even though I’m using Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Errornoteraaparel.com my concept is good. What am I doing wrong?
Hi! You should use more realistic lifestyle mockups like what you’ll find on PlaceIt, especially for Instagram posts and your shop homepage. On Instagram, search and follow political pages (there are tons of political meme pages out there), comment on their posts, re-share some pics/memes that are relevant to your content. Check out what hashtags they’re using and make a big list of hashtags to pull from when you post a new product. You can post up to 30 hashtags on a post so make sure you’re doing that – I usually leave mine as the first comment on my post so they don’t show up in the caption.
Hi Mandy,
Always had wanted to do a t-shirt line but my art & positive in nature. But my guy said we should do political t-shirts first so we did so last year by building a website, paid and an artist for designs and bought 100 of each for the 3 t-shirts we offer & a 100 for 1 shopping bag. We have moved very very little and still have a lot of merch. I realize we should have done the print on demand but I am so controlling of art. Can I have an online store and to print on demand, Etsy or another avenue other than my own store? I do twitter, FB & Instagram. I am really stressed as I need to move the inventory that I have to pay my guy back then I want to do solely POD, especially with the other business which I plan on creating for my art. Sounds like you a photographer as am I, however my primary business is a makeup artist in the film business especially as I climb towards retirement! Want to build the t-shirts to be sure I have something to do going forward. I could really use your advise. Here is my site and yes my guy is Grandma! This link has everything but I thought I would send the shop and blog separately as well.
https://everybodylovesgrandma.com
https://everybodylovesgrandma.com/shop/
https://everybodylovesgrandma.com/category/blog/
Thank you for taking the time to look. I really appreciate it.
Diana
I love your stuff! It will be much cheaper and less stressful if you switch to the print-on-demand method so you don’t have to invest in upfront inventory. You don’t have to give up any of the rights to your work with this method, you’re just outsourcing the printing and shipping. You can keep your site and also sell the same products on Etsy, eBay, Amazon, wherever you want. Etsy is easier than driving traffic to your own site (as you’ve discovered) because they have a built-in audience of 30 million annual shoppers. If you have any other specific questions or want to talk more you can always email me at mandy@agirlsgottaeat.net. 🙂
I am inspired( boomer here) my grand kids will be proud . Diving in to SEO first as you suggested. Look forward to reading your cheat sheet 🙂
Thank you for the boost!
Roberta
Amazing!! Let me know if you need any help along the way 🙂
I took a stab at getting started myself, I feel like creating the listings is therapy for me 🙂
I’ve gotten quite a few listings up now and played around with tags, titles and descriptions. I then decided to spend a few bucks to get help via Fiverr. I hired two different people to write tags, titles, and descriptions for me. They both seemed to tackle the project the same way, however, I’m not seeing any really increase in traffic. I feel like all the tags they choose were too generic, but they said it’s more about how popular the tags are than how specific they are. I wonder if tags more closely aligned with the political theme of the products would be better than “T-Shirt”. I’d love some advice with this approach to SEO as well as any other tips you might have to help boost my traffic.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NoHarmDesigns
Thanks!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NoHarmDesigns
Hi Ken! You should definitely have tags that are more specific to your niche. “Political t-shirt” or “anti Trump shirt” are much more effective than “unisex t-shirt” which has millions of results that could range anywhere from political shirts to cat shirts. I would actually give the opposite advice of the people you hired – that the more popular/generic a tag is, the more saturated it is and the harder it will be for people to find you. Using highly specific tags and descriptions help you reach people who are searching for exactly what you sell, rather than everyone searching for t-shirts.
I looked at your tags on this listing and would remove things like “neckline style shirt” and “gift for lovers” and add tags like Trump and Putin Shirt, Democrat Shirt, Gift for Democrats, 2020 Election Shirt, Vote Him Out, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin… all things that are specific to this shirt. Also make sure your most popular tags are also in your listing title. Hope this helps! I have more info about Etsy SEO over here if you haven’t read it yet!
What you didn’t cover is about using actual copyrighted campaign slogans such as “keep America Great ” and so on. In order to use copyrighted materials you need permissions. I’d like you to address this as there are many on ebay breaking laws that ebay ignores.
Good point, trademarks and copyrights are something I’ve covered in other posts and it’s worth mentioning here. I never recommend using trademarked phrases, but feel differently about it when it comes to politics. For example, if someone makes a “Keep America Great” shirt they might be infringing on a Trump campaign trademark, but they’re also providing free advertising to someone who is trying to become a public servant. The end goal of a campaign is to get elected, not to grow a business selling Keep America Great t-shirts (unlike a traditional business registering a TM to protect their profits and IP), and it only helps their visibility when others are selling or wearing shirts promoting their campaign. It would also look really shitty if a billionaire in the highest position in the world decided to send cease & desist letters to someone selling fan art on eBay (and I don’t think he would, because of the reasons I mentioned above, but I’d love to watch this play out on Twitter). Maybe none of this makes it right because it’s still technically using someone else’s trademark, but these are the reasons why I don’t feel bad about using political trademarks. Hopefully this makes sense.
i am happy i find this site
Mandy,
Thank you so much for your article! I found this helpful and enticing. Two quick questions:
1) If you want to cover slogans that are Republican AND Democrat, would you recommend maintaining two different “stores” on Esty?
2) If I get stuck on figuring out this new business process, is it OK to email you with specific process questions?
Thanks,
JP
1) It’s ultimately your call – the benefit to one store is it’s easier to manage, but might turn people off if they see the opposing side in there when they’re hoping to buy from someone who shares their values. However, a lot of customers don’t care or only look at the item they end up purchasing, so there’s a chance it won’t hurt your sales at all.
2) Yes, of course!
Mandy…thank you so much for the quick reply!
Great article! Look forward to seeing the SEO cheat sheet. Complete newbie but want to capitalize on the election. Do you have a step-by-step?
I do! You can check it out here 🙂
Is it legal to make political merch with candidates logos on them? I am wanting to get into this field but unsure how the copyright situation works in this scenario if I’m wanting to sell the merch commercially.
I wouldn’t recommend using their exact logos, you can use similar colors and styles but I would suggest coming up with your own designs. If someone wants the exact logo on a shirt they’re more likely to find the campaign version than your version, so you’re more likely to get sales with unique designs 🙂
i am trying to get items for donald trump to sell i have a business and would like to include these items… please tell me how to get ahold of them so i can start selling them i am really interested in this …
thank you,
stacey Hall
I don’t have Donald Trump’s contact information.