In a market defined by fast-changing consumer preferences, shrinking product lifecycles, and rising operational costs, many merchants are under pressure to adopt leaner, more adaptive business models.
Adding new products is one of the most effective ways to grow. But traditional inventory means buying stock before you’ve made a sale, finding space to store it, and managing what doesn’t move.
Print-on-demand (POD) flips this model. Products are created only after a customer orders. No upfront inventory costs. No storage. No risk of overstock.
In this post, we’ll show you how one merchant used WooCommerce and Printful to turn a deeply personal story into a fast-growing business, along with the strategies that made it work and how to evaluate if your existing store can expand via POD. If you’re new to print-on-demand, start with our print-on-demand basics.
Print-on-demand expects 27% annual growth through 2033
↑ Back to topThe numbers tell the story: the global print-on-demand market was valued at $10.2 billion USD in 2024 and is projected to reach $87.1 billion by 2033, growing at nearly 27% each year. But the real opportunity isn’t just market growth. It’s what POD enables: you can test new products, expand into new categories, and respond to trends — all without committing capital upfront.
WooCommerce and Printful make this practical. Woo gives you the storefront, customer data, and flexibility to build exactly what you need. Printful handles production and global fulfillment. Together, they let you grow without the operational complexities of holding inventory. Here’s how one merchant used this combination to build a modern, scalable ecommerce operation.
Case study: How Life Is Golden Company reached over 1M people in its first year and scaled with print-on-demand
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Not every successful ecommerce business follows the same playbook. Life Is Golden Company demonstrates how print-on-demand enables a fundamentally different strategic approach — one where capital flows to brand-building and customer acquisition instead of inventory speculation.
We chatted with founder Michael DePace to learn more about Life Is Golden Company’s outstanding success.
Check out their WooCommerce store and Instagram profile to see their strategies in action.
How Life Is Golden Company came to be
After stepping away from a high-pressure tech role and navigating medical difficulties with his son, Michael DePace found calm in the quiet, simple routines he shared with his golden retriever, Enzo.
Inspired by the relationship they shared, Michael started creating golden retriever-themed designs that captured the emotional bond between people and their dogs. When he looked for apparel that reflected that connection, “most felt either too cute or too generic. Nothing felt like what real dog people actually feel.”
He could have followed the traditional path: find a manufacturer, order minimum quantities, forecast which designs would sell, and manage inventory. Instead, he made a different strategic bet.
Why Michael chose print-on-demand
Michael chose print-on-demand specifically because it allowed him to compete on brand positioning and emotional resonance without over-investing on inventory.
“Life Is Golden Company was never really about making stuff — it was about capturing what Enzo gave me during a hard season of life, and then realizing thousands of other people felt that same kind of bond with their dogs,” Michael shared. “Once I started telling those stories, the brand grew because the community saw themselves in it.”
Choosing POD wasn’t just about avoiding inventory risk — it allowed Michael to reallocate capital to Life Is Golden Company’s key differentiators. While traditional pet apparel brands were optimizing SKU forecasting and managing inventory turns, Michael was building a community and iterating designs based on direct customer feedback.
Woo and Printful: The foundation for fast, flexible growth
Having spent a decade running a marketing agency and working exclusively with WordPress and WooCommerce, Michael was already familiar with the ecommerce platform. When asked why he continued to choose WooCommerce, Michael highlighted the flexibility and control that the platform is known for.
“I wanted full creative and technical control — from layout to product metadata to custom order flows. WooCommerce gives me the flexibility to build advanced automations and create a premium branded experience without platform limitations.”
— Michael DePace, Founder, Life Is Golden Company
Printful paired naturally with those goals. The platform’s high-quality products, reliable fulfillment, and ability to support a large and growing catalog were essential as Life Is Golden Company expanded. Although mapping SKUs and metadata required care due to the scale of his product line, once everything was set up, WooCommerce and Printful worked together seamlessly. That combination let him move quickly and stay focused on what mattered: creating and connecting.
From passion project to fast-growing brand
Life Is Golden Company grew quickly — in part because the print-on-demand model let Michael move at the speed of his creativity and his community’s response.
The model proved itself during a Father’s Day campaign. “Practically overnight, thousands of orders started pouring in,” Michael recalls. “People weren’t just buying gifts. They were buying gifts for their husbands, dads, and fathers-in-law — not because the product was flashy or materialistic, but because it spoke directly to the relationship that meant everything to them.”
“One of the big takeaways from our growth curve is that demand can spike quickly around major gifting moments (Father’s Day, the holidays, etc.). That’s a strong argument for print-on-demand: it lets you capture upside during sudden demand swings without forecasting inventory months in advance — especially early on when you’re still learning what will hit.”
— Michael DePace, Founder, Life Is Golden Company
In his first year alone, Michael had reached over one million potential customers and was able to make Life Is Golden Company his full-time job.
This is where the strategic advantage of print-on-demand becomes clear: When demand signals appear, traditional merchants often face inventory constraints, fulfillment bottlenecks, and stockout risk. Michael could meet demand immediately because capacity scaled with orders.
At his first in-person event, customers approached him saying they already owned his products. “Most of them had no idea I was local. They assumed it was a much larger company,” he said.
Michael’s advice: Momentum beats perfection
When asked what advice Michael has for merchants considering print-on-demand, he was direct: “Keep things simple at the start. Launch fast, test products quickly, and learn what your audience actually loves before you overcomplicate your catalog.
“The customers will tell you what’s working, and you can’t learn any of that until you dive in. Momentum beats perfection every time.”
Today, Life Is Golden Company runs over 1,000 designs. Printful handles fulfillment so Michael can focus on design and community. WooCommerce gives him the storefront and data infrastructure to make smart decisions about what to expand and what to cut.
Four ways print-on-demand can grow your existing business
↑ Back to top1. Launch products faster than competitors
The result: First-mover advantages in micro-moments without the inventory gamble.
Traditional inventory requires ordering months ahead. By the time your stock arrives, competitors might have already captured attention.
Print-on-demand compresses this to days. When you spot a trend, seasonal spike, or increase in customer requests, you can respond before the window closes.
This works especially well if your category has seasonal spikes — think holidays, cultural moments, or viral trends. It’s also powerful when early market presence matters, or when customer preferences shift faster than traditional inventory cycles can keep up.
2. Offer custom products without custom operations
The result: You capture high-lifetime value customers through personalization without building custom operational infrastructure.
Custom products used to mean complex operations: one-off production runs, specialized fulfilment, and custom order management. For most merchants, it only made sense at high volumes.
Print-on-demand handles this complexity as standard. If customers are asking, “Can you make this with my dog’s name?” or “Do you offer this in my team colours?”, POD makes it possible without the risk.
This makes sense if:
- You have engaged repeat buyers who’d pay more for personalized versions.
- Gift-giving drives purchases in your category.
- You’re already getting “can you customize this?” requests.
How Life Is Golden Company leveraged this: “I do a huge volume of custom orders, and that simply wouldn’t be possible with traditional warehousing. You can’t create one-off, highly personalized pieces at scale unless you’re using a system built for it.”
Custom products typically command significant price premiums because they solve specific customer needs that off-the-shelf products don’t address. They also represent higher customer lifetime value — buyers who customize once are more likely to return.
“These shoppers tend to be our VIP customers. We see significant repeat business from this segment, as they often return to use their custom artwork on additional products and shop new collections when they are released,” Michael noted.
“We develop a bit of a relationship during the personalization process, as it’s not just adding the name in a cold, impersonal box on a website. I think that human touch goes a long way in adding lifetime value.”
For inspiration on how to structure and scale your own customization experience, take a look at Life Is Golden Company’s personalization options and process.
3. Expand into new markets without setting up fulfillment infrastructure
The result: You validate market demand before committing capital, reducing expansion risk while maintaining speed.
Testing a new market used to mean committing to regional inventory, fulfillment partnerships, and upfront capital — all before you knew whether demand existed.
Printful’s global fulfillment network (with facilities in North America, Europe, and beyond), enables you to test demand with almost no upfront investment. Products ship from wherever’s closest to the customer.
This works if you’re:
- Considering international expansion, but unsure about demand.
- Testing new customer segments (like corporate gifting).
- Entering categories where you don’t have forecasting data yet.
How this helps businesses grow faster: Life Is Golden Company reached over a million prospective customers in the first year without building regional inventory or fulfillment operations. Products shipped from the facility closest to the customer, reducing delivery times while allowing Michael to focus on brand building rather than logistics coordination.
For established merchants, this means you can test a European market segment or expand into corporate gifting without the infrastructure investment that would normally be required.
4. Scale winning products based on real data
The result: Your product portfolio becomes a real-time optimization engine rather than a quarterly forecasting exercise.
With traditional inventory, you commit to products before you have performance data. With print-on-demand, you can launch variations, watch what sells, and scale the winners — all without being stuck with products that don’t move.
This approach works best if you’re tracking performance (Google Analytics, conversion data, email engagement) and can act quickly on what you learn.
Michael DePace uses this approach with seasonal collections: “I can test new products and launch seasonal collections instantly without the pressure or financial risk of dealing with stock.”
His 1000+ design portfolio isn’t the result of betting big on every concept — it’s the result of rapid iteration where successful designs get expanded and unsuccessful ones get quietly discontinued.
Your growth roadmap using print-on-demand
↑ Back to topReady to get started? Here’s a phased roadmap to help you expand your business with print-on-demand from early testing to long-term growth.
Months one and two: Foundation setup and initial testing
Your first month should focus on integrating WooCommerce with Printful, building a tight and cohesive starter collection, and launching early tests to collect performance data. By paying attention to early marketing results and store behavior, you’ll begin to see patterns in what people respond to.
Months three to five: Optimization based on data
In this stage, you’ll refine your catalog based on what your data tells you. You can expand top-performing products, introduce seasonal capsules, and implement automated email flows like welcome sequences, abandoned-cart messages, and VIP programs.
This is where the model starts to feel scalable. You’re no longer guessing, you’re responding to clear signals. This period is all about sharpening your brand and optimizing your lineup.
Month six onward: Scaling and expansion strategies
After your initial foundation and optimizations, you can scale more intentionally. This might include entering new markets, adding premium or bundled products, or partnering with creators and niche communities. Your metrics become more advanced — measuring conversion rates, repeat purchase behavior, customer acquisition cost, and long-term profitability.
The future of ecommerce is lean, flexible, and custom to your business
↑ Back to topPrint-on-demand has evolved far beyond its beginner roots. Today, it’s one of the most strategic and cost-efficient ways to scale a business without taking on significant operational or financial risk.
WooCommerce gives you flexibility and ownership, while Printful gives you the fulfillment infrastructure to grow quickly and creatively. Together, WooCommerce and Printful form an agile system that helps you adapt to shifting customer expectations and build a future-ready business grounded in flexibility, creativity, and sustainable growth.
Ready to explore print-on-demand for your store? Get started with Printful.
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