Gelato: Print on Demand

If you value your time, stay away.
Pros: Good user interface, option to add personalized products, customer care team available 24/7, and chats are responded to within minutes
Cons: Everything? Prices are defaulted to EU, so all time spent configuring prices for each variant will be erased and a random price shows up on your listing each time you save. So many glitches setting up the personalized products and no support. Staff are available 24/7 and respond to live chat within minutes but if you don't reply within 5 minutes, they will close the chat and mark it as resolved due to "inactivity" even if issue has not been resolved. You are expected to wait hours for them to respond if they tell you to wait, but as soon as they respond and you happen not to be online at that time, they will close chat within 5 minutes. Imagine waiting 12 hours or more for them to investigate then as soon as they respond they expect you to be online that second. When you go to their live chat with an issue and they say they will get back to you with an email, just lower your expectations as they will likely either never follow up, one sidedly mark issue as resolved, or blame the issue on your theme because they are perfect. because of their lack of accountability, I even sent them an organized bulleted list of the issues I'm having, as expected they said they'll get back to me via email and asked me to record screen of the issue even though I already wrote down all the details, still entertained them by recording my screen, no response. Crickets. Spent TWO WEEKS trying to set up one product, imagine that. I'm out. In conclusion. Their time is valuable, yours isn't.
Update: They said they'll follow up with an email and asked me for a screen recording of the issues despite having already organized them in a list for them, but i recorded my screen and sent them the video anyways. I emailed again to check if there's updates, they asked me to send them examples/screen recording again, then never responded again. The level of disrespect and lack of care for customers is appalling. Luckily I found a much more powerful customization app, uninstalling this joke rn, want my time back.
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Another update- Not to sound petty with this update but I reached out to them again to check in on their "resolution" and if they checked the screenshots and screen recordings they asked for, but they ghosted me. They don't even bother to respond. Ms Paulina, if you wanna work in customer service, then actually do know basic customer service etique like actually responding, following up and providing resolutions you promise. In conclusion, they are not reliable at all.

Set up my framed canvas product, went to order a sample product only to find out the next day that it is out of stock and there is no information about when it will be back in stock.

Nice idea. But support has been abysmal. I really hope they can fix things. If not, we're out. Just don't expect good support.

Unfortunately after 2 weeks of trying to resolve a problem with my store, I am giving up to find a new merch supplier and will need to refund my customers.
I've not had any real attempt to resolve my problem as far as I can tell. I've had at least 5 or 6 emails saying sorry it is taking so long after I needed to reach out for follow-up, but nothing else. It's disappointing because it seems the majority of users have had good experiences with this app and it seems to have great products, but unfortunately I will never be able to experience them it seems.

Giving this App a one-star rating.

Why?

The app appeared in my Shopify Embed Apps.

When I did a test product, the left gallery on the product page had an ugly window pane scroll. I switched off the Gelato App and the ugly scroll disappeared.

I contacted support (Emilia) 2 weeks ago and she couldn't explain what was wrong but said the problem would be escalated to tech.

2 weeks later no contact from any support so I wrote another email to support. Nothing.

Today (28th June I went online to try to contact support again. Said under 2 minutes. I was still hanging on after 15.

Maybe this Shopify feedback page for Gelato is monitored more. So forced to come here and complain.

Support rating -5.

Could not order a sample because it said
Delivery for submitted combination of products isn't possible to chosen destination to a Florida address. Product said it can be shipped to USA.

WORST APP & TERRIBLE SUPPORT! Dissatisfied with this gelato app due to several recurring issues that have severely impacted our operations and tarnished our customer relationships. Notably, a critical system error prevented customers from adding items to their cart, which significantly affected our sales. The support team incorrectly blamed our theme when the fault was clearly on their end. Additionally, unresolved saving errors continue to hinder our business operations. We also faced a shipping and printing error, resulting in unnecessary charges due to stock unavailability. The lack of accountability and resolution from the support team is unacceptable.

I don't normally write reviews, but in this case I think it is very important that I share my experience. People say you get what you pay for and that is true with Gelato. I placed an order of fifteen 11oz mugs for a boutique according to Gelato's schedule to arrive before Black Friday. No biggie for a company of this size. Their printing partner split the order of 15 mugs into 3 packages. AND DID NOT SHIP THEM ALL TOGETHER. They waited 6 & 7 days between shipments. I received 2 boxes of 3 mugs today, (6 total), on Black Friday. I have no idea when I am getting the other 9. When I opened the boxes, Wow! The print quality is terrible. The colors are off and way to light. I did double-check the print quality using Gelato's 3D and regular mockups with customer service before I placed my order to make sure there was enough saturation to get a good print. The customer service assured me there was, and my mugs would print with the regular mockup quality, not the 3D which was terrible.. They did not. Not only that, but this partial order of 6 mugs contains SOME that are 11oz and SOME that are 15oz. THEY SENT TWO DIFFERENT SIZES!!! This order of 15, 11oz mugs are not uniform in size or quality of color print. Also, the packaging is terrible and not uniform. Some of the mugs are in brown boxes with bubble wrapped. Two of the mugs came squeezed into boxes that are too small and held together with packing tape. I gave them 1 star because their customer service responds quickly. However, Gelato seems to have no communication, control or oversight of their printing partner.
I installed this app and was also going to use this company for cell phone cases, but as an independent artist who works with bold colors, I cannot put my name onto anything from this company. They have no concern for the quality of the items they sell only the quantity.
This company has embarrassed me with a client and put me into a bind, because I cannot possibly display/sell mismatched colors/sizes of mugs, and I have missed my deadline. They have cost me countless hours of aggravation, phone calls, follow-ups, sales and now time as I have to redo all of my cell phone templates.
If you are a small business owner, independent artist like myself or startup, I would really think twice before relying on this company. We really get one chance to make a first impression and they have cost me dearly. I cannot recommend this app or this company.
UPDATE 11/27/2023
I finally received the rest of my order from Gelato. Not only was it a mismatch of mug sizes, the order was missing three items. RECAP: I ordered fifteen (15) 11oz mugs. From that order I was actually sent eight (8) 15oz mugs & three (3) 11oz mugs. Total of 12 mugs . MISSING 3 ITEMS. I don't carry 15oz mugs so this is an issue as is the poor print quality on all of the items I have received. It is quite apparent that Gelato takes your money and washes its hands of the final outcome. It would appear as if their printing partner never read or checked my order before shipment and just threw whatever they had available in these shipment boxes. Gelato did refund my money with very little fuss, which leads me to believe this kind of disfunction is normal for them. On a final note, while customer service is available, on three different occasions they did say they would "investigate" and get back to me. They never did.
I now need to reorder everything with less than 4 weeks before the holiday season. If you are an artisan, artist or small business owner who depends on your production partners to be reliable with quality merchandise, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH to go elsewhere. There are better companies out there. I usually use a different POD company and will be running back to them. Do your homework. Less expensive isn't always better. Sometimes it is just cheaper, but will cost you a bunch.

I am starting an PoD brand and have been shopping around. I tried both printful and gelato. Today I received my Gelato test garments and let me tell you I was shocked at how bad they were. I ordered a t-shirt and hoodie with a simple thistle design, the garments came loose in a paperbag, no individual wrapping and they were creased beyond belief. The embroidery didn't match the previews and when I contacted customer support I was told how they were packaged and the quality of the embroidery was as intended. These reviews are paid for I have no doubt. If you are starting a PoD brand I would look elsewhere or pay the money to find out yourself.

Once again this site is locking up and not efficiently letting me add new products. I've ruled out a problem with my internet.