Apliiq ‑ Print On Demand

I had great expectations for this energetic, young company, but I'm pulling the plug, and here's why:

1. Lagging Fulfillment and Turnaround Times: The fulfillment and turnaround times were nothing short of disappointing. Countless frustrated customers bombarded me with questions about the whereabouts of their orders. Despite Apliiq's claim of a two-week average turnaround from door to door (still too long), it often stretched to three weeks. At this rate, you risk losing your valued customers, mind you, this is during the less hectic months. I shudder to think what chaos the fourth quarter and holiday season timelines would bring, with a potential wave of irate customers left waiting for their t-shirts.

2. Customer Service Requires Urgent Enhancement: While customer service is somewhat acceptable, it desperately needs improvement. Live chat is agonizingly slow, and email responses are no better. Waiting for a 48-hour turnaround is common, and sometimes I had to send two or three follow-up emails to address a single issue.

3. Mistakes and Blunders: Yes, we all make mistakes, but Apliiq's frequency of errors and the timing of these mistakes is simply unacceptable. Several of my customers received soiled shirts, one received an unraveling shirt and a few received the wrong shirt. The process itself is part of the problem - Apliiq orders the shirts from vendors/wholesalers only after your customers have placed their orders. So, if one of those shirts is defective (which can be often) I'm sure they just print and ship that dirty shirt. An unwieldy business model at best. What are the alternatives? Apliiq suggests pre-purchasing printed shirts from them, so they can ship out quickly. But at that point, why even involve them? The ENTIRE allure of on-demand printing is to avoid such complications!  Alternative #2, Apliiq suggests allowing them to print on ANY shirt they have available and if anyone knows anything about t-shirts, they know that they vary wildly in quality and many of them stink!  

Declining Quality: I periodically ordered sample shirts from Apliiq to check my designs and received shirts with designs printed crooked and poorly printed. My theory is that they're onboarding way too many new shops and can't cope with the volume. And who pays the price? You, as your hard-earned customers walk away.

I had high hopes for Apliiq, but ultimately, they fell short. The team is undoubtedly kind-hearted, but they urgently need to overhaul their processes and logistics. Rapid expansion at the cost of small businesses like ours leads to dissatisfied customers and disappointment. If you're considering Apliiq for your t-shirt shop, think twice.

Their DTG print quality is a major disappointment. On darker base layers, you can tell they aren't printing the white underlay prior to dropping in color, which means the vibrance of the print is nowhere near what Printful and Printify provide. I still give them two stars because they provide garments that can't be found elsewhere (especially for kids). But if DTG is a major part of your business, Apliiq is not the one stop shop you may be hoping for.