Printful: Print on Demand

Before using Shopify, I had been searching for a one-stop shopping company that would handle the needs of my t-shirt company flawlessly, and so far this is what Printful has been for my company.

Really poor customer service. They make thousands of dollars through my stores each month and then once in a blue moon when I ask them to reship an order ($15-30 their cost tops) because of package theft or something of the like, they tell me to go pound sand. Their customer service is way below average to industry standards.

I've been using Printful for a few weeks now. I really love the concept because it allows me to attempt to start a T-Shirt (brand) company at a low investment. The 2 stars are for 1) their awesome customer service and 2) for the print quality. Some people complained about print quality but so far I have been happy, despite the placement of my logos not matching the product mockup. The customer service is by far their best attribute, while it is impossible to receive real-time customer service, the responses are generally quick and extremely helpful. All the replies from different team members and genuinely helpful.

I would like to offer more of their products to my customers, but the costs are just so high that it's impossible to offer them at a reasonable rate. Example 1: their cheapest mug is $10 and shipping it is $11, so I am charged $21 for a mug: JOKES! I wouldn't want to charge over $12 in the first place for a cheap white mug so charging $25+ to my customers is out of the question. Example 2: their 12x16 canvas is $45 and shipping it is $36, meaning we're already at an unreasonable cost to me of $81: forget about it. My customers don't want to pay $100 for a tiny Cavas of my photography.

PROS:
- Customer Service
- Print Quality
- No overhead
- Little to no risk

CONS:
- Extremely high costs of goods
- High Shipping rates
- Product printing can differ from your mockup
- Extremely slow shipping

Overall I am happy with the service because it enables me to test out a market for a brand I wish to create at very little cost to myself. Because I am trying to create a brand rather than make money, I can use Printful. If you are looking to make money, look elsewhere, unless you already have a client base. If you price your products reasonably, your profit margin will be extremely low.

I am using Printful in hopes of building a brand within the next 8-14 months. If I don't succeed, no big deal as the cost is nominal. If I do succeed, I can drop Printful, print local and start making money! Either way: Printful did its job.

*If not for terribly slow shipping and most products being too expensive, I would rate 4-5 stars*

July 13 EDIT:

Fulfilment and Shipping are beyond irritating. I haven't marketed my new store yet so it's Family and Friends only... which makes it even more embarrassing. Point in case: my friend put an order in June. It was shipped June 26. 20 days later, she has yet to receive the product. It's ridiculous. I'll never have repeat customers with this kind of bogus shipping service. And I'm in Toronto! I can't imagine if it were an order outside of North America. I have another order that was placed July 5..... 8 days later and the only update is "Sorting Completed" so it has yet to be fulfilled, let alone shipped. JOKES

Changing my Final Verdict Rating to 1 STAR. Unless Printful helps me out and fixes some serious issue then I can lift the rating to 3-5 stars depending on service provided.

There have been a couple of products that our customers received that were cut off, however, we are doing the best we can at our new e-commerce business and Printful has been a huge part of it for us. We are thankful for the service that Printful has provided us. We like to think that the people at Printful put as much time and effort into making great products as we have designing the products that we sell. Although we haven't heard personally from the Printful team, we appreciate the time they take to create our products for us. It is a bit pricey as far as making a profit goes, which is something I'd consider looking into before using the app. But over-all our experience so far has been good. Thanks to the Printful team! Keep it up!

I know I should have given 5 stars. (this is a 4.5 stars review)
Great team with great customer support. the only reason for the missing half star is for the technical side in regards of the bulk duplicating and the possibility to save a print file broken apart as in its original format when created (and not merging it in one file)
I already submitted a review asking for a duplication feature and got taken in consideration and quickly made such feature available. now time to review the bulk duplication process...
Thank you Printful ! Flawless !!

Would be cool but any change in price results in you having to recreate the product over again from scratch.

Such a pain in the ass.

I ran a Buy 1, Get 40% off sale on T-shirts and every single shirt that was 40% off can't sync and even though in their platform it shows an icon of the shirt they ordered, I have to recreate it from scratch. There's not even a clone button.

Live Chat Support says there's no other way and didn't seem to think this was a big issue.

I really love this app and the service...and the products have exceeded my expectations. We even digitized my logo, which is a handful, and it came out perfectly.

Very easy to use and user friendly. I will be use this template for all of my future t-shirt sales.

Its a fantastic app and easy to use interface to organize products, orders and inventory. Definitely a must have for any store wanting to personalize their own products! 5 stars!

So easy to integrate into my Shopify store, absolutely seamless and easy. Thank you for making it easy and seamless. Keep up the good work.