Gelato: Print on Demand

I don't understand how Gelato is so highly reviewed. The first two orders placed from my store have not been fulfilled and it has been a month. One even says, "fulfilled," but that is not true, it has never been received and most likely has never been shipped or even made for that matter. There is also zero tracking information. What is going on with these orders? So glad I didn't have more than two.

WARNING! Gelato intentionally does not remove out of stock inventory, knowingly overselling products at the user's expense. This tactic is straightforward to maintain high sales, while the user must handle customers who cannot receive their orders. Additionally, they do not refund out-of-stock items, forcing the user to deal with customers and absorb the costs. This has been a known issue for years, and customer support claims they are working on it; however, they often avoid providing further details and attempt to close the chat.

Horrible customer service. They respond more quickly to reviews here than they do in their customer service ecosystem. The chat function keeps you in a useless AI support loop, making it difficult to contact a live agent.

Problemas con la app.
Hubo una actualización y desde entonces cada vez que realizo un cambio en un producto, desaparecen todas las variantes. Y a causa de esto perdí las ventas de Black Friday, Navidad, rebajas de enero, San Valentín...
Creo que he tenido mucha paciencia y muchas pérdidas económicas y al principio llegaron a decirme que yo no era una prioridad, ni me respondían, tuvo que intervenir atención al cliente de Shopify porque dijeron que el problema era de Shopify, pero Shopify confirmó que el problema era de la app de Gelato, y así, lograron que me contestasen, pero cada vez era esperar a que contestaran unos días, iban dejando pasar el tiempo, por último cada vez me pedían más pruebas, grabaciones de pantalla y todo para nada. Nunca solucionaron el problema.
Les pedí que trasladaran todas mis cosas (método de pago, wallet, mi tienda con mis artículos...) a una nueva cuenta, para ver si así funcionaba todo bien desde otra cuenta porque antes de la actualización iba todo perfecto, insistí varias veces en eso y nunca respondieron a mi petición.
Y no podía estar creando el mismo producto una y otra vez tanto en Gelato como en Shopify, porque al cambiar un diseño, o añadir una talla o quitarla, añadir un color o quitarlo, etc. daba el error y se borraba todo.
Así que al final tuve que cambiar de proveedor de POD.

Con lo fácil que hubiera sido decir, bueno, vamos a cambiarte a una nueva cuenta, haz la cuenta, y te pasamos a la wallet lo que tienes, el resto tienes que hacerlo de nuevo. De todas formas estaba haciéndolo todo de nuevo una y otra vez, no me hubiera importado. Pero ya viendo todo el tiempo que ha pasado y no hay solución. Os digo adios.

Ya no me valen las disculpas, ni que digáis que sabéis lo importante que es esto o aquello, y que aún estoy a tiempo de hablar de nuevo con soporte, etc.
Lo que teníais que haber hecho, no lo hicisteis cuando debíais.
Espero que al resto de clientes les vaya bien, porque a mí, me han tratado fatal. Todo con muy bonitas palabras, pero realmente ningún interés en solucionar el problema, por esto digo lo de tratarme fatal, y por decir que yo no era una prioridad.

Terrible unacceptable absolute no-go experiences with Gelato, continued!! ‍
Gelato platform / system is full of bugs, nothing works properly, constant hazzles, loss of effort+time!
Processes not well thought out, misleading claims
Dev team does NOT understand how to properly implement features, NO clue how to nail safe test before release
CS (Customer Support) most of times NOT aware of all those bugs their platform has!
CS AND Gelato itself committed to ABSOLUTE NO-GOs, lying & cheating, sadly
=> We switched to a competitor: Smooth, efficient + bug-free service

Lying about Printing Locations = ABSOLUTE NO-GO!!
Gelato claims to print everything in CH, but turned out only posters but NOT T-Shirts/Hoodie etc.
CS even asked "how did you find out" !! Confirming that company obviously cheats, trying to hide what they're lying about

"Product Expansion":
Made to gain time, but requires learning curve, final products contain bugs, actually you loose time!
Instead Gelatos ad claim "scale business", you ruin it with lost repeated efforts, time+money gone!

API:
Functional parts shown online unfinished, NOT WORKING, before CS told us to use it, we run into various bugs , 1st confirmed by 2 separate "junior consultants"
Then "senior implementation manager" gets into the conversation , suddenly claims
"No, there is no bug, we the merchant using their API must apparently NOT follow the API description correctly, NOT understanding the semantics of an API, the failure is on us" !!!!
This let us literally freak out: Change in policy how to communicate with merchants? Blaming on the customer their own bugs/failures?
Senior manager finally admitted ONLY IN CALL that this part of the API is actually not working !! ‍
But only in a call, not admitted in a mail knowing THIS COULD BE LEGALLY HOLDING.
=> Absolute NO-GO!

Suddenly accusing the customer is doing wrong whereas Gelato confirmed the bug before is NOT AT ALL how to interact.
You do NOT accuse your customers for doing wrong in order to avoid having to admit your own bug which has been admitted twice before by your colleagues !!
=> Finally we asked Gelato CS why lying online and not taking this part of the API doku down as it's highly misleading (aka cheating) that this shall work to other merchants as well = no reply !!

"New Personalization Studio":
"Seamless integration" incredibly slow, "DOES TAKE AGES TO LOAD", from 3 to 30 seconds Gelatos asks money for that!!!
Appears to any end customer page is NOT
Renders any product you place on your shop USELESS!
DO NOT USE GELATO!

Summary of hazzle and shame:
NOT ANY TRUST ON GELATO AS A WHOLE COMPANY! Constant hazzles-lies-cheating-bugs, loss of effort+time+money!
Gelato company has the guts to put parts of an API online CLAIMING A FUNCIONALITY while ACTUALLY CHEATING on that, willingly having to know API DOES NOT WORK!! ABSOLUTE NO-GO !!
Gelato company has the guts TO ACCUSE ITS OWN CUSTOMERs that they may not understand the technique, whereas it has been confirmed before that the API HAS BUGS, API DOES NOT WORK!! THREATENING THE CUSTOMER TO AVOID ADMITTING OWN FAILURES is NOT how to behave as a company!! ABSOLUTE NO-GO !!
We lost time again and get annoyed with the Gelato system = not intuitive, not straigt-forward, FULL OF BUGS !!
IMPOSSIBLE TO TRUST GELATO in its total!
Cause they work on fancy videos, fancy claims, fancy ads "scale your business" whereas upper management at CEO&CTO level should know HUGE PROBLEMS WITH SYSTEM, TONS OF PLATFORM BUGS, partially wrong NON-INTUITIVE manner of processes, ALL A HAZZLE. ‍

Just use any other POD provider than Gelato: Stay safe and healthy out there!

I agree with the bad reviews. The customer service is quite terrible. Our customers wouldn't receive their orders and Gelato refuses to refund them referring to their "refund" policy. One order got cancelled because they were missing one size of a T-Shirt. However, instead of refunding the order to our credit card, they gave us a credit note on account that is not being used when orders are automatically created - wtf...

The most annoying though is that most of the print products are not great quality. Very thin paper. The calendars are printed on both sides of the paper so that you can see through the pages. The posters are very thin... not great feedback from customers.

We are going to stop using their service, mostly due to annoying customer support that is nor friendly and rather contra productive.

After using it for around 30 days, I would say it is not really worth it. Very high prices, low quality and bad support.

A warning to my fellow sellers:

Hidden Price Hikes and Broken Trust: Why I'm changing from Gelato

I’ve been a loyal customer of Gelato for several years, but my frustrations with this company have steadily grown, and this latest issue is the final straw.

While Gelato is quick to send emails announcing price reductions, they’ve hidden significant price increases from customers. Both products I sell have undergone significant price increases in a short period of time.

Premium matte paper has increased by over 15% since I last checked in September, and premium frames with premium paper have risen by over 16%. For example, the price of a 70x100 premium frame with premium paper has increased by a staggering €25.43, now priced at €194.91 (in Ireland). Discovering these price hikes only through my own records feels dishonest and unprofessional.

There are also shocking price differences between countries. For example, the exact same 70x100 frame costs €90.82 in Germany, while in the neighbouring Netherlands it is priced at €190.30—almost €100 more for the identical product.

How can such extreme price discrepancies exist, let alone be justified? How are businesses expected to price their products consistently with such wild and unpredictable variations?

This isn’t the only issue. Over the years, I’ve dealt with numerous problems: orders lost in the post, items arriving damaged, and prints of poor quality. As Gelato have grown as a company their service has become gradually worse. This Christmas just gone was a disaster for orders, especially in the US. I had some customers waiting into earlier January for orders they made in late Nov/early Dec.

These ongoing issues combined with their lack of transparency have made it clear I can no longer trust them as a supplier.

For anyone considering Gelato, I’d strongly advise looking elsewhere. I’ve reached the point where I can no longer justify working with a company that treats its customers this way and will be actively looking for a new supplier to take over my orders.

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.

Gelato's prices and platform seem nice enough and they came highly recommended to me. Prices are fine but their customer service seems a miss and fulfillment/delivery times are way off and inconsistent (1 order took almost 4 weeks from order to delivery). I had them on my store, a long order fulfillment and poor customer service resulted in my removing them from my store. I cannot recommend them.

I set up a number of design templates, placed a sample order, and added the products to my store. Initially the sample order was broken up into multiple fulfillment locations and charged for each location, from that their initial discount was messed up and they charged about 15% more. They were quick to correct this issue and refunded the difference. Then fulfilment location 1 got their items to me quickly, location 2 took almost 4 weeks to deliver to me (2 weeks to print and almost 2 weeks in shipping time); estimated delivery time was 5-18 days. There was also an order placed through my store, same 5-18 day delivery time estimate, and it took 16 days to be delivered. The customer service blew me off, refused to acknowledge the slow fulfillment time from their fulfillment company, and just kept telling me to message them back in a few days if it didn't arrive (each time pushing further and further back).

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.

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.