Mike Driscoll Breaks Down the Science of POD Product Research

In the Print-On-Demand (POD) world, everyone wants to own a unique t-shirt design, but few people know that: success or failure in POD starts with the product selection step. Finding a bestseller shirt is not a matter of luck, but the result of a logical, methodical and verified research process. In this article, Mike Driscoll - founder of LionKingShirt - will share how he researches and identifies POD products to optimize revenue on major platforms such as Amazon, Etsy, or Teespring.

Why Does Product Research Determine 90% of the Success or Failure of POD?

Before designing beautifully or running good ads, you need to make sure that what you sell is needed by people.

1. Most POD Failures Come From Choosing the Wrong Product

Many people randomly choose an idea, post it online, quickly release it and hope it will go viral. In reality, few people buy, because they don’t understand the market demand or customer sentiment.

2. Product Research is NOT Guessing – It’s a Science

According to Mike, product research is a systematic process. He uses data from sales platforms, social trends, and analytics to predict growth potential.

3. Product Research Saves Time, Money, and Effort

When you invest in thorough product research from the beginning, you avoid spending hours designing, writing descriptions, or running ads for an idea that no one cares about. Instead of taking a gamble, you’re building a strategy based on real data and consumer behavior. This helps you optimize your resources, increase your chances of success, and create a product that’s truly in demand. Making POD isn’t just about being creative – it’s about having a deep understanding of the market and your buyers.

This is the portrait of the male CEO behind LionKingShirt's success over the years.

5 Steps to Research a Standard POD Product Mike Driscoll

Before starting to design, Mike applied the 5-step process below to choose the product with the highest potential.

Step 1: Identify the Real Niche - Not Just a Trend

Trends are often short-term. Niche is a group of customers with long-term needs. Mike uses Reddit, TikTok, Facebook Groups to find groups of people who live with passion.

Step 2: Verify Market Demand

Use tools like Everbee, InsightFactory, Etsy Search to quantify: how many people are looking for this product? How many shops sell it? Is there a big competition?

Step 3: Analyze Current Bestsellers

Inspirational CEO and Marketing Communications Manager - Mike Driscoll looks at the best-selling list on Etsy/Amazon and analyzes: launch time, reviews, images, product name, attached keywords.

Step 4: Create a Personal Perspective / Strong Emotion

Instead of copying, Mike adds elements: personal quotes, jokes, inside stories. Incorporate cultural trends (memes, job titles, zodiac signs) to tap into emotions.

Step 5: Quick Test Before Expanding

Create a test listing and run ads with a small budget. Track key metrics like click-through rate (CTR), add-to-cart, and conversion rates over 7 days. If the signals are positive, you can confidently scale your campaign and invest more.

Unique graphic tees that help you stand out from the crowd.

Common Mistakes When Researching POD Products

Even with data in hand, many POD sellers still make serious mistakes. They often misunderstand the meaning of the data, blindly follow trends, or fail to combine data with real customer emotions and needs.

1. Copying Bestsellers Without Understanding the Context

Many new PODers often make the mistake of seeing a best-selling shirt model and immediately copying it without understanding the reasons behind that success. They don't realize that each hot product is often associated with a very specific context: a rising trend, a social event, a specific community group. Copying without understanding the context makes the product easily out of sync, not creating the same buzz as the original.

2. Ignoring the Emotional Element of Customers

A Lion King Shirt product really sells when it touches the buyer's emotions. It could be a touching feeling, a funny quote, or a sense of pride in yourself, your family, your hometown. If you only focus on the image, the font, without thinking about the emotions that the design brings, you are missing the most important factor that leads to closing the deal. Emotions are the glue that connects the product and the customer.

3. Focusing Too Much on Design and Forgetting the Story

Beautiful design is necessary, but not enough. A shirt can be printed beautifully, but if it lacks a clear story or theme, it will quickly be forgotten among countless other products. Customers don't just buy the shirt - they buy the message and personality behind it.

Product research is like finding diamonds in the sand: the more patient, the more systematic, the calmer you are, the closer you will get to the golden opportunity. Every POD seller should consider research a serious skill and continuously learn it. You just need to start by asking the right question: What do customers really want?