Printful: Print on Demand

Printful has become the worse print on demand I use. I have been having issue after issue with them.

I have been using this app for over 5 years now, and despite my long-term loyalty, I have had a terrible experience with their customer service. One major issue arose when I added my PayPal account for billing payments right from the start.

Last Friday, I received an order, and the app automatically charged my PayPal account. However, the payment failed because there weren't enough funds in my account. I then tried to pay with Apple Pay, but they declined my payment through that method as well. When I attempted to use the same PayPal account with sufficient funds, my account was suddenly blocked.

To resolve the issue, I received an email requesting a screenshot of my banking mobile app showing the transaction value, date, and recipient. I promptly provided the screenshot through the Apple app. However, instead of resolving the matter, I received another email stating that the transaction was made through PayPal and they needed details from that platform.

Here's the problem – my PayPal account did not have enough funds for the initial charge, and after trying with Apple Pay, they declined the payment and refunded me. Now, even with funds in my PayPal account, they still claim my account is blocked, making it impossible for me to proceed with any transactions on PayPal.

To make matters worse, it has been 5 days since I sent them the required information, and they haven't responded to my emails. In their first response, they even threatened to delete my Printful account, putting at risk more than $5000 worth of merchandise stored in their warehouse.

Their live chat support is equally unhelpful, as they always give the same generic response, saying they understand my frustration but can't do much at the moment, and I have to wait for their team to review the situation.

Adding to the frustration, they do not provide any phone number for direct communication, leaving customers stuck with their ineffective email and live chat support.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this app due to its abysmal customer service. The live chat is utterly useless, and they have shown a lack of concern for their customers' problems, even for a long-term user like me. If you value reliable and efficient support, this app is definitely not the right choice.

Impossible to deal with them. Way too many shipping issues and they always find an excuse not to send a replacement or issue a refund even though the deadlines have long surpassed the date given, even when the label is the issue which they create. They will always find a way not to help. You are left with angry customers bashing your store because of the greed and incompetence of Printful. They are awful and I am now replacing all my prints. Trust me just don't do it.

Update 1/10/18 This place is such a joke. They screwed up a jacket for a customer then said it was because of my mistake when ordering. I reversed the charges on my credit card and after a week and screen shots of my order being placed correctly, they decided to credit me back after I said not to because I had already reversed the charges. Now I get a note from their fraud investigator stating I owe them the price paid plus $15 to pay for the chargeback. Not happening and i'll dispute that on my card as well.

Update 5/9/16 I took off another star today after another customer complaint (in a string of complaints) regarding the BAD quality of printing. The same printing that i've complained about for years from this company and each time get the excuse that it was a one time mistake.

This place has gone DOWN HILL. I've been using them since 2013 and the quality has gone down, the customer service has gone down, and the response time for emails has gone down. Seriously don't intend on getting a response back within 2-days. They send out "urgent messages" if something is wrong with your order or shipping address but it's not treated as urgent once you update. They don't let you know that an item is out of stock until the very last day of their 7-day shipping window so by that time, you look like an idiot telling your customer that their item is out of stock a week after they ordered it. I occasionally order test shirts just to keep up on their quality and EVERY one has had something wrong with it that they claim is a one time mistake. If their shipper loses a shipment, you get to pay to have another item shipped. Unfortunately, I am stuck with them for now.

All of our orders are taking way longer than the estimated processing time, which caused us to have several marks against our Etsy account. Orders are sitting 7-8 days when they estimate 2-5 days to process. Additionally we have lost orders stuck almost 2 weeks in pre-transit and we're just told to wait longer before offering a solution.

We used to love Printful, but now they've shifted to shipping their items from other countries and making their customers responsible for any charges and taxes that come with that. The worst part is that they don't even tell you. We've had two of the same item in different orders ship from two different countries and were charged completely different prices. This makes it impossible to know what to charge our customers and resulted in us losing money, essentially paying for some of our customers to get a free item. Customer service reps are rude, unhelpful, and even threatening. Printful needs to get its act together.

Anyone giving this service more than a star doesn't sell more than 2 shirts a month.

We spend about $4,000/month with Printful and they couldn't care less about us. Imagine if YOU had a customer paying you $4,000/month and you had a rough 100% markup like they do. About 15% of the orders have one issue or another.

Packages lost, that Printful has refused to replace, because they can't be bothered to submit a ticket with USPS. Designs printed on the wrong side of the garment. Holes in garments. Sending products to your customers from other shops, instead of yours and some of the things they've sent have been humiliating and we've had to explain to the customer how it wasn't one of our products. I could write an entire novel with all of the issues we've had.

I make a point to let them know about every single issue that they cause in hopes of their service eventually improving and they've BANNED us from their live chat, because there are so many mistakes made and they clearly don't want to hear about them.

The orders are taking a very long time to get delivered. No communication from their side and customer support number is no longer working. If I could give zero stars, I would.

I should have checked their company history and BBB rating before ever using this manufacturer! I have had nothing but problems. They have cost me customers, and money. The latest problem was the last straw- I created an item and ordered it as a sample for myself (May 30). I received notification (from printful) on June. 8 that it had shipped. I received notification on June.9 (from DHL) that an electronic shipping label had been created. I waited and waited for the arrival date of June 16- June 22 - still no package. I messaged printful and was told to just keep waiting- it's on the way. So, on June 29, I contacted DHL - they told me that never received the package, and therefore nothing was coming- I should contact the manufacturer. So, on June.29 I contacted Printful again (after waiting in a queu line of 66 people to virtual chat because they have NO PHONE NUMBER)- I was again told to just keep waiting. I told them that DHL never received the package. They denied everything and took no responsibillty and told me to just keep waiting. I finally received a call back from a manager 2 days later- and was told- yes, there was an error-the item was never shipped. Tracking was never updated, I was never notified- nothing- and I had to DEMAND a refund in order to get one. After all of this, i received another e-mail (from a different manager) giving me a completely different story- and telling me to keep waiting. UNBELIEVABLE! This company is shady, has horrible customer service, and is completely unreliable! STAY AWAY!

Terrible for Shopify/Amazon/Ebay stores - NO regard for customer service, delivery windows. Dishonest support answers.

I run an Amazon store, a shopify store and an ebay store. I integrated printful to do some of the on demand printing.
When Covid started, there seemed to be a mad rush to get my orders fulfilled as if they wanted to rush production before they got shut down. Then mid April every week a new change would happen with fulfillment times. Constantly changing their "window" on previously existing orders even though the orders were already placed under the delivery windows published at the time.
So I would put an item on Amazon or Shopify or eBay, going with the Covid scheduling, saying "This will ship in 14 business days...".. customer places order thinking this is true. 4 days later Printful changes its policy silently (unless you constantly check their ugly website blog) saying, orders take up to 4 weeks. So now what? 1st off, your Amazon seller metrics take a hit if you do not deliver the order within the original 14 days or if you cancel the order, and your customer can leave you a bad review because they didn't get their shirt on time.... Customer support takes no responsibility for this, simply saying "our blog updates show the timeframe"...
Then when you think it can't get worse, Printful decides to start having orders for the USA printed in Latvia, at which point they sit in a warehouse waiting for other orders to ship to North Carolina where they then re-ship to the customers. Blank garments sourced in Europe are NOT materially the same as blank garments sourced in the USA. And they are not the items I ordered. Printful denies this though my Gildan rep does not. They also tell me that they can't cancel or rush an order as it is already sitting in Latvia and replace it with a USA order, even though I NEVER agreed to such a ridiculous fulfillment method.
There is NO transparancy with Printful, their support tells me it will take 48 hours for a manager to "get back to me" then after 40 minutes of pushing i got to talk to someone in Latvia and then someone in NC all of which are dishonest.
And here is a real unethical issue.
Printful puts priority on Amazon store orders over Shopify and eBay store orders. With 99% of orders I got for all my stores of the same items going to the same places on the same days, the Shopify and eBay orders took 3-5 times longer to process/fullfil. They will NOT admit this, but it is happening internally.

Avoid printful if you don't want to wait 4-6 weeks for your order to start being processed if you have an external store where metrics or feedback are important. You will take a hit and they will do NOTHING to rectify it.