Printify: Print on Demand

3.16.2021 Update:
I have currently been working with a Printify manager since my last review. I was able to get my site back up and running, and have been having open dialogue about some the technical issues I have been having. All of which have been addressed. I look forward to continuing my business relationship with Printify. 3.2.2021
I have been using this app for roughly six months. My experience at first was pretty good. However, since then I have had more than enough problems with the print providers sending products that have numerous printing errors. Mind you customer service has been great at getting reprints or refunds executed. However, this affects the overall experience my customer is receiving. Here recently I have had technical issues that has prevented me from making any sales and creating products. Again, customer service is great with responding regarding the status of my issue. Unfortunately, it is very frustrating when two weeks down the road I'm still receiving the same canned answer that "my issue has been escalated to the technical team". While I sit and wait for someone to get back to me regarding this issue, now I'm forced to decide whether to close the store and look elsewhere. I need a resolution now. Print on Demand is a novel concept and very helpful for a small business. This app could be a zillion times better if there were simple quality control checks before merchandise is sent out from the print provider, and that when technical issues arise, that a dedicated person would be assigned to help mitigate the problems immediately.

Great app, good products. The prices can get high when you add a design and shipping.. I would suggest more useful products, like window/bumper stickers, and look into partnerimg with POP sockets, the company is skyrocketing and would be a great product to customize.

I have tried using this company several times over the years. Each time they fail me more and more. People this company is a middle man thats all it is. they do not print the item. They just have a bunch of printers on their platform and collect the money. The pricing sucks and the production time is the slowest out of all of them! Their customer service is HORRIBLE! I have lost lots of money using them because either they send wrong items or they cannot deliver on time! There are many other print on demand suppliers better than this one. This is the LAST TIME i use this company and i will no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. DO NOT USE!

Sorry, in advance, for the length of this review. We think it's important to lay out the situation... I have revised this review after hearing directly from a manager at Printify with explanations and plans for dealing with the issues I’ve detailed below. As changes become obvious, I will revise this review again going forward.

We have had Printify’s app linked to our Shopify store for more than 6 months now. We pay for their monthly subscription service to be able to access the lowest possible costs so that we would enjoy the highest possible margins. We have added hundreds of t-shirts, mugs and apparel products into our store as we built out a strong offering, pre-launch. All along the way, we tested the order and checkout process and were really happy with the experience. Worked like a charm.

Adding products to your Printify store is simple. The mockups generated by their platform are very nice and you don’t have to do anything extra to produce them. It’s easy to control prices to maximize your margins and you can see the “what if” scenarios on the product page as you add the product. Then when it goes over to Shopify, everything’s in order.

Most products have multiple vendors you can choose as your supplier. They have US and international printing partners so you DO have choices. Sadly, there are no live merchant reviews of individual POD vendors so you’re really not sure what each is capable of and likely to provide when chosen.

That’s the Good. Here’s the UGLY BAD…

Printify has your business success in their hands and the current state of their customer service department is awful, so bad that it makes them appear to care not one iota about YOUR business. Their painfully slow (my shortest response time has been more than 48 hours) lack of response to legitimate and critical questions about technical problems and printing partner issues materially impacts your ability to launch or maintain your site, the customer’s ability to order and your culpability in terms of customer service that you have no control over. It could actually bring a business, whether brand new or well-established, to its knees. Currently you can ONLY reach them by email and the only timeline you’ll ever see mentioned on their site is that they’ll get to it “as soon as possible.” I’ve been assured that customer service is a top priority and that Printify takes responsibility for the problems we experience – they’re ramping up hiring and training presently so let’s see how things change – again, I’ll revise this review when we’ve experienced more in the future.

I have two absolutely critical issues in front of them, one for more than a week and the other for about 5 days – neither had resolution. One had ZERO response at all. One had apparently identified a problem with Shopify’s platform but Shopify’s customer service was not aware and pointed the finger back at Printify. I'm the merchant and this is materially impacting our ability to do business so just fix it! So there’s a disconnect in communication that is merchant-affecting…

So that you understand that I’m not a hysterical person who is over-reacting, these are my issues:

1. The Printify app doesn’t consistently supply shipping costs in the cart during checkout. It, instead, throws a vague error that means nothing to the customer and isn’t correct anyway in its content. You can’t check out of my site’s cart. After I spent HOURS on the phone and chat with Shopify customer service and confirmed that everything is set up correctly in our shop settings, Shopify CS sent 2 requests over back-channels to Printify regards this on my behalf and there was no response on either. Turns out that it’s actually a Shopify problem with the shipping calculator not talking correctly with Printify. Printify can’t fix it. And Shopify hasn’t been quick to repair the issue. So bottom line here is that, whether it’s Printify’s “fault” or not, there is a technical connection issue that prevents my cart from functioning properly. It’s untenable and I will take this up with Shopify again, armed with this new knowledge. Today.

2. I randomly noticed last week that the vendor we had chosen for virtually all of the hundreds of apparel items we were to offer is apparently no longer contracted to print those items. WTF?! We never received the notification that apparently was sent out in February so this was news to us -- I immediately sent an email asking for confirmation that the printer we’d chosen was no longer producing these products and for instructions on how to bulk move everything at once to another printer. I also asked why we hadn’t been notified of this critical piece of information. Queue the cricket noises… 5 days and I’d gotten ZERO response but I had 2 emails from Printify CS this morning. Go Figure. So for nearly a week, I’d waited to understand whether any orders would get rejected, hung up, passed to a provider that was substandard in some way – enough so that they were dropped from the provider list… To feel such lack of control is not a great feeling. Bottom line is that the original vendor would still process the orders but if I want to use another vendor for the same shirts, I’m going to have to re-create every listing and will have to resize graphics on virtually all of them because every printer has its own graphic requirements, even for the exact same product. This is a ton of work.

You only get one chance to make a first impression and our store launch has to be something that people remember – in a GOOD way – and tell others about. Right now I’d say that both the customer service issue and the disconnect between Shopify and Printify’s communications are going to have a negative impact, the likes of which could mean a store that either limps along or, if it’s bad enough, might never recover. I thank God every day that I realized all of this on the day we intended to launch and start spending considerable marketing money driving people to the site. At least that didn’t happen.

Today, we will decide whether to remain all in with Printify or begin vetting a new POD platform partner. I am not looking forward to the work required to load up all of those products with a new vendor on Printify or moving them somewhere else but I also will not work hard for poor results because I stuck with the wrong partner too long. If we move, we would make knowing that our margins would likely be smaller than with Printify. But projected margins mean nothing if the service doesn’t work and work well. I’m sure you get it.

We feel like, as business owners, we MUST minimally have chat or phone as a way in addition to email for customer service, technical or any other issues that might come up. If response times when you reach out for help are in excess of 24 hours and you accept that, you’re really setting yourself up to fail by continuing to stick with a platform. Because Printify’s manager reached out to us this morning and was accountable, we will likely give Printify another chance, leaving at least non-apparel items there and possibly looking for additional vendors for the apparel piece. It really is a ton of work for us either way. You can make your own choice. I hope this has been of some help to you.

I am very dissapointed in Printify. They mailed my customer 500 t-shirts that were ALL damaged. I have not recieved a response from customer service and I have lost money on this transaction becuase of their faulty products. Very poor customer service and products.

Printify offers an easy to use platform and a range of print on demand companies to select from and I have enjoyed creating on the site... However...they cannot guarantee products will arrive to the customer which is a big problem. I have recently had one customer wait three months for a product and still yet to receive it. There were no shipping updates on the website that indicated any delivery issues and the only solution was to offer a resend still with no guarantees or alternatively a refund. Obviously my customer will not shop with me anymore. I understand COVID plays havoc with logistics, but other print on demand companies are navigating this situation better. I would suggest Printify focus on making sure their partner's supply chain is working from beginning to end before offering the service instead of passing blame to the delivery company.

Well, I have mixed feelings about my experience with printify.

What I liked:
- Easiest product generator on the market. It is just perfect! Easy to use, intuitive and user friendly. No comments, everything is just great!
- Prices are almost lowest on the market if compared to other vendors.
- Product range is really perfect. I use Printify to create all the products except t-shirts just because they are cool.
- customer support was very responsive and kept me updated about all my requests; I had no troubles at all.

Now about pains.
That's their t-shirt printing vendors. It was a complete pain. I wanted to use printify for printing my t-shirt range but I will never ever get back to this idea.

- Their t-shirt prices are cheap. The same is with printing quality. My black colors became with red tints, seems no white color was added before printing of other colors (this is how DTG process should work). Some of the prints were with stripes like their printers were lacking colors or were not adjusted properly.
- I ordered models with tear-away labels but almost all labels were either cut off with visible remains or if they were torn, the garment was damaged.
- some of the models were torn.
- some of the garments were just dirty
And this all was about my samples order! I would never offer something like that to my customers.

Since t-shirts were my primary goal, three stars only.

I wish I had these services 15 years ago. I've only just begun, but it has been a great experience so far. Loving it!

Slow production (up to 9 business days) and nonresponsive vendor reply. For example, order placed Mar 21, 2019. Zip hoodie had faded, silvery grey ink instead of white. Printify customer support said they'd take care of this Apr 2 w/ reprint. Next hoodie had same faded white ink issue. I asked Printify to get an answer from their vendor and the only answer I received was, "they need more time to investigate." It's now Apr 24th and there's no resolution, which is a shame because I really like Printify's catalog of items! The reliability and fulfillment part of their service is severely lacking, however.

If you're reading this just don't waste your time going to this fulfillment center. Switched over all my designs into printful