CustomCat: Print on Demand

Choosing to use a new app during the busiest season of the year almost promises to be a disaster, but my POD was out of ornaments, and CustomCat had them, so I thought I'd give it a try. First two bulk orders were completed and shipped in super fast time, instilling a false sense of security. Then the problems started and haven't stopped. I'll break down all of the issues with this app to make this review as comprehensive and helpful as possible.
1) there are no status updates of your orders. If you place a manual order, just sit back and pray it gets shipped. You'll never know if it's in review, in production, etc. The only thing you'll know is that it's shipped.
2) They do not fill manual orders in the order in which they were received. If you have 20 manual orders, even if they're all for the same design, you never know which one will be filled first.
3) User friendly? Not in the least. My other POD app lets me select the product I need to order. I had to recreate the product for every order I needed. Is there another way? Maybe, but I never found it.
4) Consistency. I ordered 30 of the same design. They are in no way the same product. The hole for the ornament string is askew in a many of them, to the point of them being crooked. The design isn't centered on all of them. I spent $150 on an order that wasn't even close to being correct.
5) Response time. Took me 4 tries over 7 days to get support to answer ONE question. They still haven't responded to the above referenced issue.
6) Inability to view your orders. If you make a manual order, all that is there is the order number, and name. There are no links to click and see WHAT the order is, or confirm the order that arrived looks anything like the order you placed. Case in point today, I received an order and the hole for the ornament is in the person's head of the photo. I'm super certain that I didn't do a memorial ornament by hanging it from the deceased person's head.
7) There is no inventory tracking. The closest they come is letting you know a size is out of stock. You have no idea if they'll be able to fulfill any bulk orders of a certain product on Shopify, because there's no inventory listed. All in all, it's probably one of the worst apps out there for POD. When you receive an order that's wrong and you spent $150, you don't want to stew in anger for days on end waiting for any response. When you order 30 of the same design, you want 30 matching products. I will say the quality is very good when they're right and their shipping is very reasonable, especially for 2 day ground for bulk orders. I couldn't in good conscience recommend anyone use this app, though.

5 of 7 orders were wrong. received totally wrong products. my logo was done in completely wrong color. customers received products for a company that wasn't even mine.

We have used this app since the start of our company in 2018 and they have been amazing. The customer service is what sets them apart from other companies because they are so willing to help. Thanks again guys!

I hate writing reviews. but I must. I just ordered 3 hoodies as test samples for my children. I didn't like the way the designs were printed. It looks fuzzy. Too bad because I was excited to use a company from my home town. I'm waiting on another shirt ordered to see how it would turn out. I will be uninstalling the app if this shirt doesn't work out.

Update: I was happy to work with Brett who has agreed to replace on of my sweatshirts and suggested specific products that could better suit my store and printing. I am thrilled with the great customer service and look forward to working with the company to create the best products.

We are just getting started with POD on a couple of our stores and CustomCat came HIGHLY recommended to us actually by two friends in the business. Right from the beginning it has been a pleasant experience for us. The app has made adding the products to our store very easy with all of the variations that we need. The tutorials are excellent and each time I needed assistance someone was there to help. We are very happy with CustomCat and highly recommend them. Looking forward to a long and profitable future with CC!

CustomCat is a great service! To put it simple, they have tons of products and the prices cannot be beaten. The quality of their DTG print is also far superior to what I have experienced with other on demand print companies. I would definitely recommend working with these guys if you are serious about your business.

I love their products and they really work on behalf of their customers. I do think their design lab is not as easy to use as others but their product line is amazing!!

We wish the customer service would answer questions that were asked. Here were the three questions that we asked the last time:

1) read somewhere that says that shipping rates to Canada have changed. Correct?

2) In one of your tutorial videos, it says you [MUST] have a US return address. How is that going to work for non-US-based companies like ours (we are in Canada)?

3) We also find that the "Design Library" within Customcat is rather limiting. Same as mockup options. Can one make the designs from say "Placeit" and have the designs imported into Customcat directly?

The following is the triggered long-winded corporate sermon received, providing an answer to a question that wasn't asked. When we told them we were disappointed that they didn't answer any of the questions asked. We received no further response. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time an answer was provided to a question that wasn't asked.

"We don't return items for fail deliveries outside of the USA.

"If you are operating your business outside the United States of America or do not wish to receive any returns to your address, please enter our address in your app settings:

"1300 Rosa Parks Blvd.
Detroit, MI 48216

"If a package is returned to CustomCat, for whatever reason including being undeliverable, it will be donated upon receipt. We will not be contacting you if your customer returns a package for any reason. No package should ever be returned, by your customer, to our fulfillment center.

"Our receiving department is here to get the blank product on the floor for decoration. We are not the intermediary between the customer and the seller so be sure to update your FAQs, return policies, etc. Your customers should never ship their decorated orders back to Detroit for any reason. It is very important that you reform your store's Return Policy. Any arrangements for returns, or exchanges, consistent to your posted policies on your websites, need to be handled between the buyer and the seller.

"We understand the importance of having a variety of options available for designing products and creating mockups, and we appreciate your feedback.

"To address your concern, many merchants use third-party applications such as Placeit.net and Smartmockups.com to create product mockups. After creating the products, you can update them at any time within your ecommerce back end in the products section."

Loaded app, attempted to follow instructions to configure shipping, but the instructions were outdated. Email support several time and never got a response so had to delete. Was super exited for the speed and the prices, but can't rely on a firm that zero support capabilities.

The app has too many critical bugs. Many features don't work from screen to screen. It locked up my system and had delayed response times. Really slow at times. Wasted a lot of time working my way in and out of the features and adding products. Biggest issue beside the slow response and system lock up is that the fields for entering in product name, selecting colors and sizes, adding to collections and adding tags doesn't work. You input the data and make selections then save and move forward and all the inputs are gone. And from the next screen if you enter it again, then push to store it doesn't hold changes. So you have to then go make all the edits in Shopify again. And if you are doing multiple products all at once that is very time consuming (not to mention the wasted time doing it on the 2 available screens when designing product). I sent a bug email and they didn't reply. Then when I mentioned it in a different email, they said app doesn't have major bugs - seriously test your app!!! I placed 2 sample orders, the first one took 2 full weeks to arrive. After shipping tracking number was sent it took 3 days to see any progress. Then an additional 4 days to arrive. The 2nd order didn't even get transferred into their system. They said it was a web hook issue and that this is common with new customers - again, fix your app. Email response take a day or two. Didn't get the sense they cared at all about my issues or concerns.