Learn everything that you should know about how to start a phone case business online. Here you can learn how to find phone cases, how to make custom phone cases, and the easiest way to create an online store.
Disclaimer:This information is general in nature and for educational purposes only. And, it does not constitute formal financial, investment, or business advice.
How to make a phone case
Here is an easy way to make a phone case to sell or for personal use.
1. Create a phone case design
You can use an online tool like Canva to design a phone cover quickly. It is free, easy, and super simple. Also, you can download a beautiful design using Freepik as well. Then download your design as a PNG file.
2. Use a print-on-demand service to make a phone case
Head over to Printful, and pick a suitable phone case type. Then, click on Start designing.
3. Upload your file and order online
Next, you can upload your design file to the POD design tool, make necessary adjustments, and order your new phone case online. Simple, isn’t it? Now, what if you can start an online business out of it? Let’s take a look.
Starting an online business to sell custom-made phone case
Nowadays, anyone can start an online business without a big budget or any professional support. There are many off-the-shelf tools and services that you can use to start and run a business without having even to leave your bedroom.
From now on, we are going to discuss how to start a successful online business to sell the phone cases that you make.
This is a tried-and-tested strategy that anyone can use. So, it is up to you to add a little bit of creativity to make your business stand out from the rest.
Read our complete guide on How to start an online business
Explore more online business ideas
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How to start a phone case business
Here is how to make and sell phone cases online. Follow these steps to build a successful online business.
1. Find the best selling phone cases and trends
Choose and target around 5-7 most popular mobile phone brands/types that are trending on Amazon best seller listings. You don’t have to sell phone cases for every phone on the earth. It won’t worth your effort.
2. Find the best selling phone cases and trends
Choose and target around 5-7 most popular mobile phone brands/types that are trending on Amazon best seller listings. You don’t have to sell phone cases for every phone on the earth. It won’t worth your effort.
3. Create an online store to sell phone cases
You can use Shopify to create an amazing online store without any technical knowledge. It has everything your need to create an online store for a clothing business. And, best of all, here you can try Shopify for free first.
4. Start marketing your phone case business
It super easy to start an online phone case business. However, building a strong marketing strategy for your business is going to be little bit tricky. So, try working on Facebook marketing and Selling on Instagram to boost your sales.
Making and selling phone cases – FAQs
Find answers to most frequently asked questions about how to start a phone case business.
How much does it cost to start a phone case business?
How much does it cost to start a phone case business?
Starting an online business doesn’t cost much. In fact, you can start an online phone case business for less than $200 in hand. This $200 includes the cost of starting your very own online store and running the first ad campaign.
Well, depending on where you live, you might have to get a business registration to run an online business as well. If it is the case, you will have to check with the local authorities about the business registration fees.
Please note that here we are going to talk about using dropshipping or print-on-demand services to sell phone cases. With dropshipping, you don’t have to buy anything before you are making a sale. So, nothing goes out of your pocket to build an inventory. That is why you don’t need a big fat budget to start an online phone case business.
Can you make money selling phone cases?
Can you make money selling phone cases?
Selling phone cases is an evergreen business. Everyone has a mobile phone in their hand, and they need a phone case. And, some people (usually girls) buy a set of phone cases in different colors, so they can change them to match their outfits.
Likewise, if you do proper product selection, targeting, and marketing, you can sell around 5-10 phone cases every day without much effort (based on our experience). Now let us do the maths to find how much money you can make selling phone cases.
You can find an iPhone 11 case on AliExpress for less than $2. And, you can sell it for like $20 on an online store. Then, usually, it cost around 50% of the selling price for other costs, like payment gateway fees, advertising costs, shipping, etc. So, it gives you about $8 profit for each phone case you sell. That means you can make around $40 – $80 as profits every day by selling phone cases online.
Oh, Wait! You might feel like $40 a day is not enough. But, remember that you can make this $40 without having to spend more than an hour or two in front of a computer at night. That is the beauty of online businesses. Isn’t that an easy way to make money online?
1. Find the best selling phone cases and trends
There are thousands of different devices in the market. And, obviously, you cannot make or sell, phone cases for each of these device types.
So, you need to pick the most popular devices to start a phone case business. So, make sure to pick just one or two brands, with five to seven device types. For example, if you choose iPhones, you can select the most popular and latest models.
There is a neat little trick to find winning products for dropshipping. Here is how to do it.
You know, Amazon is the largest eCommerce store. So, that is the best place to find the best selling phone cases. Go to Amazon’s best sellers page for mobile phone accessories and see what people buy. So, you can pick the most popular brands and phone case types to sell online.
2. Find popular phone case types and designs
There are many different types of popular phone cases. So, when starting a phone case business, you need to have a good knowledge of such trends.
Thin flat type phone cases
Thin flats are a popular choice for print-on-demand phone cases. These phone cases are often made with PVC or rubbery silicon material. You can find thin flats for low prices, compared to the other phone case types. So, don’t forget to add these types of phone cases to your store.
Rugged phone cases
Rugged phone cases are also a good choice for an online store. These cases visually align with a dark-themed, masculine store design. Also, you can easily find the dropshipping phone case suppliers for the heavy-duty, rugged phone cases.
Bumper phone cases
Bumper cases add extra protection around the edges of the phones. The bumper cases are usually made with a shock-resistant material to absorb the socks. Some bumper cases only cover the sides of the phone, and some bumper cases are just the thin flat types with an extra protective layer at the edge.
Fabric phone cases
Fabric phone cases are also catching up in the trends lately. Those phone cases are especially popular among the Eco-friendly consumer communities. Also, fabric phone cases can be modified using embroidery designs, painting, or even printing.
Wallet phone cases
iPhone cases with wallet have a higher demand. So, wallet phone cases can be another great addition to your phone case product portfolio. There are different types of wallet phone cases. Some wallet phone cases with fold-able designs and some are super minimalistic with only a set of credit-card holders.
Choose whether to re-sell or design your phone cases
As we have mentioned in the beginning, when you start a phone case business, you can re-sell the phone cases from wholesale suppliers, or you can make phone cases to sell online.
Re-sell phone cases (Start Dropshipping)
Re-selling phone cases from the dropshipping suppliers are one of the easiest (and, cheapest) ways to start a phone case business.
Since you don’t have to maintain a product stock with dropshipping, you can just add or remove the products from your store to meet the trends. Also, since the dropshipping suppliers will take care of the shipping and order fulfillment, you can use your full steam on business development and marketing.
Finding dropshipping suppliers is not a hard thing to do. The easiest way is to dropship from Aliexpress. Also, if you decide to build your phone case store on Shopify, you can use Oberlo to find dropshipping products too.
But, if you like to earn more profits, you can find real wholesale suppliers for phone cases. We have a whole list of wholesale dropshipping supplier directory on Ecommercebuff. Check it out find the dropshipping suppliers for the phone cases.
Btw, what is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a simple way to fulfill (deliver) the products that you sell on your online store. If you start dropshipping, you don’t have to purchase an inventory of the products to start selling. All you have to do is forwarding the sales orders to your suppliers. Then, they will pack and ship the products to your customers directly.
Read more: How to start a dropshipping business
Using a print on demand services to make phone cases
When you dropship or re-sell products from wholesale suppliers you have to sell phone cases that are available pretty much everywhere. So, you will have less room to play with your product pricing strategy.
However, if you use a print-on-demand service to make and sell phone cases online, you can sell unique designs to differentiate your products from others.
Also, most of these services deliver the products to your customers as well. So, it is a hands-free way to start selling unique phone case designs online.
Where to find phone case designs
When you make and sell phone cases, you have to come up with irresistible design ideas.
If you are not getting any good design ideas, do not worry. Just surf around Pinterest to get plenty of design inspirations. Or, you can even hire a freelancing designer on Fiverr or UpWork to get your designs done.
Find a freelancer to design phone cases for just $10. So, you can save time to focus on developing your phone case business.
Hiring a professional designer to make your phone case designs can bring in a premium touch to your business. You can find some really talented graphic designers on freelance platforms to get your phone case designs done.Hire a graphic designer for your business
Validate your design idea
Once you come up with a design, generate the mockups using the above tools, and use social media to validate your design.
Post your mockups on Facebook or Instagram and measure the amount of engagement and positive comments to get a better idea of your design.
Pick a POD service that works seamlessly with your online store platform
There are many print-on-demand services available. However, if you select one that can be integrated into your store platform, you can manage your whole business through a unified dashboard.
So, our suggestion is to use Printful as your POD service to make phone cases and Shopify to build your store. We will talk more about Shopify in the next step.
3. Creating an online store to sell clothes
Starting an online store is super easy. Now you can create an online store without any coding or design skills.
Shopify is a great platform to build your online store and sell phone cases. It has plenty of themes, apps, and templates to create an amazing eCommerce website. Also, you can integrate Printful with Shopify to make and sell phone cases from one dashboard.
Why Shopify?
Sell phone cases anywhere and sync your inventory
You can reach customers on Facebook shops, Instagram, Amazon, Etsy, or even In-store and manage all your inventory and sales data from one location with Shopify.
Beautiful designs to choose from
You can easily customize your online phone case shop with well-optimized themes. So, you do not need any special design or coding skills to create a blazing web store to sell clothes.
Apps to add custom functionalities
Shopify has a great app library, where you can find an app to add many custom features to your online store. It also has apps to run dropshipping or Print-on-demand clothing store.
Scale-up your clothing business as it grows
From $29 a month to $2000 a month, Shopify offers scalable pricing plans for every stage of your online phone case business. It is a great way to start small and grow big.
However, if you need any support to create an eCommerce store, you can hire a freelance web developer to get it done. It will not cost you more than $50 on Fiverr.
Special gift for our readers!
If you ever get stuck creating a Shopify store to sell phone cases, simply send us an email to “[email protected]” stating your question. Then someone from our development team will personally check your website and help you to solve the issue.
This is completely a free services, and you don’t have to pay us anything. Perhaps, a simple thank you will be enough.
We can show you how to integrate print-on-demand services like Printful or Printify to your store, how to add and customize a theme, how to integrate a payment gateway, and all.
4. Five fail-proof marketing strategies to sell phone cases online
Digital marketing is a must-have skill for any business owner. So, in this post, we’ll talk about the four most impactful marketing strategies for a phone case business.
Branding
Branding is the most effective way to build a successful business. The value gap between your brand and the product is your profit. For example, all the carbonated drinks are same. However, certain brands conquer the market, not because their product is better than the everyone else, but because of their brand authority.
Paid Ads
Paid ads is the easiest and fastest way to spread the word about your business. You can find more information about your target market and ad targeting through Semrush competitor overview report.
Social media
2.5 billion people across the globe are waking up to social media. So, if your phone case business does not have a proper social media marketing strategy, you are basically leaving your money on the table.
Content marketing
Running ads for your phone case business is easy and quick, but costs money. That is why you need a long term and sustainable way to bring in customers to your online store. And, that is why you need to focus on content marketing.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies for online businesses. By combining your social marketing strategy with a influencer campaign, you can quickly build a targeted and engaged audience to sell phone cases.
Create a phone case brand that sticks – Branding
Branding is an important part of starting any business. It is imperative when it comes to an online business.
A good branding design helps your customers remember your business and its products. And, it can also give you an edge over the conversion rates.
Hire a logo designer to create a professional logo for your phone case store
The logo is an important element of your phone case business. It will on your website, social media, labels, packaging, invoices, and everywhere.
So, it is important to have a good logo design for your business. Hiring a professional logo designer is right way to get it done.
Paid advertising for your phone case business
To be honest, you cannot run a business without paid ads. Well, you can, but you will not be able to make enough sales. You can run paid ads on Google and on social media platforms like Facebook. In the beginning, forget all other paid channels and just focus on advertising on Facebook.
There is a reason to focus only on Facebook ads. The paid advertising for online business has to be done very carefully. As a beginner, you will find it is hard to measure and keep track of the cost of conversions.
And, sometimes your paid ads won’t work from the very first try. Most of the time, you need to do a little bit of tweaking to make it work. If you do not understand this, your paid ad campaigns can go wild and eat up all your marketing budget without making any sales.
And, sometimes your paid ads won’t work from the very first try. Most of the time, you need to do a little bit of tweaking to make it work. If you do not understand this, your paid ad campaigns can go wild and eat up all your marketing budget without making any sales.
So, in the beginning, only focus on a single paid channel. Facebook ads are cheaper and easy to analyze. You can start from there and later grow your paid advertising to multiple channels.
Content marketing for an online phone case business
Running ads for your phone case business is easy and quick, but costs money. That is why you need a long term and sustainable way to bring in customers to your online store. And, that is why you need to focus on content marketing.
Content marketing is best way to engage with your potential customers before they make a purchasing decision. Here is how it works for an online phone case business.
Many people buy a phone case as soon as they buy a new phone. So, your target should those who are planning to purchase a mobile phone in the near future. Now, what type of online content would they look for? They will search for phone comparisons, reviews, selection guides, and discount offers.
So, what you can do is, you can start writing blog posts or creating videos for the above topics. Then, you can promote your phone cases to the visitors those who are coming read and watch those content.
That is the basic outline of how to start a content marketing strategy for an online phone case business. Dig deeper, and find some other topics that your customers might be interested in.
Use social media marketing to start a phone case business
Building a strong social media marketing strategy is a whole new subject. So, it worth spending a little more time understanding how to use social media to sell better.
We have created a comprehensive guide to learn how to build a strong Facebook marketing strategy for your eCommerce business. Also, you can try to sell on Instagram to boost your reach as well. Check it out.
Use Canva to create super cool social media posts for your business
There is a free tool called Canva, which is a great alternative to any other photo and video editing tools.
It has plenty of pre-built templates for you to quickly edit and publish your content in a single click.
Use influencer marketing to start a phone case business
As a new business, don’t try to hire top tier influencers to promote your products.
What you can do is, try to find a girl in your friend list with a lot of followers. Then, gift her with a free phone case and ask her to help you by promoting that phone case on her account.
Trust me; she will go overboard doing this. I always use this simple strategy to promote the products in my online stores.
You don’t have to limit this process to one person. You can multiply this process by reaching different people on different networks.
This strategy is similar to using influencer marketing but at the micro-level. I know that this strategy works better than any other method.
Are you ready to start a phone case business?
In this guide, we have discussed how to start a phone case business from scratch and how to sell phone cases online.
We have discussed how to select devices and phone case types to focus on your business. Then we have discussed how to find phone cases to sell, and how to design your own phone cases. Also, we have discussed where you can sell phone cases online. Then finally, we have talked about how to market your phone case business.
I genuinely believe that this article provides a comprehensive guide about how to start a phone case business.
So, what is next?
