Print on Demand or (POD) has made entry into the t-shirt and other related product printing business very easy. This is so because it has taken over the very taxing job part of this business which is order processing, printing, and the subsequent delivery to the intended destination. Basically, it just left the tasks of design creation and marketing to the business owner. Same owner can capitalize on this arrangement to grow his or her respective business.
Which is the best POD Shopify provider app that you should use? The best POD provider that I recommend is Printful. You can see this fact because of the prevailing 5-star reviews it has garnered from Shopify and other store owners. There are about 2100 reviews received and they have an average shop rating of 4.7. They offer comprehensive solutions to your POD requirements and I will go over these below.
Printful allows you to print on products aside from the usual t-shirts. These are the following:
- Hoodies & sweatshirts
- Embroidered & all-over t-shirts
- Dresses & skirts
- Leggings & sports bras
- Swimwear & beach towels
- Sublimated socks
- Embroidered aprons
- Backpacks
- Coffee mugs
- Posters & canvas prints
- Phone cases
- Tote bags
- Throw pillows
You can print on 200 products through various combinations and sizes of these items.
They also offer multiple brands for the same products. You have the option of going with a name or premium brand especially for t-shirts.
You can just imagine the world of opportunities that will come along if you have this big range of products that you can sell with your designs.
Printful has four fulfillment warehouses in North America and Europe that has your back covered should you be receiving orders within this geographic area. They do handle their own order fulfillment requirements.
Let’s face it that this is good for this is where your customers are most likely located. They will realize shorter order fulfillment time because of these warehouse locations.
Printful does this order fulfillment task seamlessly for it can be integrated with your very own online store. They will get the order automatically once it comes in. Your store can be on Merch by Amazon (MBA), Shopify, Woo Commerce, Weebly, Gum Road, Big Cartel, Squarespace, Big Commerce, Ship Station, and Ecwid and Printful can work with them all.
It can also work with marketplaces such as Etsy, Storenvy, Tictail, Inktale, eBay, and of course, Amazon.
And they don’t have a minimum order requirement to process. You can have one single order come in and Printful will treat it the same as it would for a 100 piece order.
Also, Printful doesn’t require you to outright pay for any signup fees and there are no other monthly fees needed to maintain your account.
To start using Printful, you just have to look for it in the Shopify apps page, install it and complete the required registration process. It is not difficult to do this setup task.
You can immediately sell Printful products from your own Shopify store.
When processing your order, Printful can print and ship them under your own specific brand. They have no problem using your own custom labels, stickers, packaging materials, and other branding options that you may be carrying.
They are also partnering with global carriers that will allow your order to be brought into their intended destinations at the shortest time and lowest cost possible. You can see that their shipping costs are generally cheaper compared to others.
It usually takes 2 to 7 days to handle apparel and non-apparel printing with 5 days as the usual benchmark. It will take another 3 to 5 days to ship this through USPS.
Expedited shipment is possible through FedEx and this will take only 1 to 3 days to finish. This will be an added cost.
And in case you need help with your designs, Printful has an expert team in-house who can help you formulate these same designs. They have experienced designers and photographers within these teams.
They can take professional photographs of your items and send them to you. You can then put them inside your stores.
They also have free mockup generators and templates which permit you to see how will your designs look when placed on the product. This is essential because it is important for you to preview how your products will look like before you let your customers buy them.
If you really want to be sure of your products sourced through Printful, then buy them. Printful will give you discounts to enable you to really get a feel of your final products.
It doesn’t hurt here that they also have excellent customer service and helpful tips placed in videos format that can really help you understand this business. These tips explain everything to you which makes you adept and knowledgeable in no time.
The not-so-good thing about Printful though is that they can’t ship posters and canvas to every country. They also have limits in terms of branding options in a sense that you can’t use your boxes, tissues, or poly-mailers.
There are other POD providers that you can use with Shopify. I will go over them later in this same article.
But first, I just want to discuss using POD providers with Shopify. This is to give you an appreciation as to how this same relationship affects the way you conduct your business.
Using Shopify POD Apps
When you use POD apps with Shopify, you will realize the following benefits:
- You are not required to maintain inventory, therefore, you will not need to purchase and store any number of products on hand. And since inventory is treated as costs in accounting, you will immediately see some savings at least in terms of books reporting.
- Cash flow can easily be handled here since you don’t have inventory and processing costs being carried. There are no suppliers, bills, payroll, and other usual business costs to be accounted for.
- This is not difficult to set up since you will just have to install the POD app from your own Shopify store. You are open for business right away.
- Printing cost is zero if you have no pending orders.
- Your business will grow on based on the opportunity provided here. Shopify and POD providers will also earn when an order is placed on your designs. It is to their interests to promote your business.
- These POD provider apps can handle customer returns.
With the free time that you will be getting, you can create as many designs as you can with all possible combinations and test them in the market segment you are targeting. You can then finalize which work and which doesn’t.
Also, work on the marketing of your products. Investigate what is out there that will help you sell your store and products.
If you are convinced now that you should use a POD provider with your Shopify store, I suggest that you consider the following before getting started:
Brand Name
Think of a catchy and memorable brand name.
Go ahead for you can use this even though you have no control over order fulfillment.
Remember, they use white label shipping and you really need to provide a brand or else, your shipment will arrive with no identity. This is not advisable especially for somebody who is trying to gain identity in this competitive business.
Along with the brand name, design the appropriate logo with proper fonts included.
Mock Up Generators
I discussed this earlier with Printful.
When using these generators, approach this from a perspective of a customer.
You will then see how you should place these designs on your products. The fact that there is a 3D photo facility with these generators, it should really aid you in this task.
Try to work with free mockups to avoid added costs.
Sample Products
Get sample products from the POD providers that you are considering.
Consider everything from the garment used, printing results, and even the packaging materials that came with the delivery.
Also, evaluate the delivery schedule, handling, and even the customer tracking utilized by these POD providers. Remember later that your customers will be at the receiving end of these products.
You have to be convinced of their service quality before signing on with them.
I would now like to give you other Shopify POD provider apps that you can consider for your printing business. I will discuss them in detail also and do a comparison with Printful as part of the review.
Printify
This POD provider app is proud to state that it is trusted by 50,000 existing merchants who are using their services.
Aside from Shopify, they are interconnected with Woo Commerce and Etsy platforms.
They have a wide quality selection of POD products which include men’s, women’s, and kid’s items of clothing. They can also make accessories such as bags, jewelry, phone cases, hats, and socks. Home accessories such as art and pillows and covers, wall decor, blankets, mugs and tumblers, stationeries, and stickers can also be facilitated by this POD provider.
Check out their Design Guide page for helpful hints when creating your products. This same guide will make it easier for you to come up with pleasing products.
You will find everything on their site in terms of how to create your products. For example, their Embroidery Guide will assist you to make these designs through the best practices and important specifications needed. There are other similar pages to this same guide that will shed light on product design and handling.
They have an official add-on with Shopify. Through this app, you can create products that are vibrant and have very good designs. And also with Shopify app store reviews, you will see that Printify Customer Service is deemed as one of the best within the industry.
Membership Plans
Printify has free, premium, and enterprise membership access.
You will enjoy more stores to access Printify when you are using the premium (10) and enterprise (unlimited) memberships. Standard memberships only have 3 stores allocation.
All of these membership plans have no limit in terms of product designs allowances. Mockup generators are also free to use and there is a 24/7 merchant support that can be had for all of these three types of memberships.
Paid memberships entitle members a discount of at least 20% on all services.
I suggest that you consider the enterprise membership plan if you really want to maximize your use of this platform and if you are attaining high sales volumes. This plan comes also with your own dedicated account handling manager and branded customer support.
Let me share with you a secret. This is my next preferred POD app to use after Printful. If I am not using them, I will be definitely using Printify.
Their functionalities and value for money approximates what Printful can provide you.
Check out their blog section for you see a lot of helpful articles and insights that will make you run your business better. Article such as “How To Create Your Own Merch Using POD” and “How To Create a Selling Text Design for Clothes” will lend value to your enterprise.
I also like their Help Center page you can learn a lot here. They have a lot of helpful articles that you can read and gain more appreciation about this business that you are in. These same articles are organized in a nice way and it is not hard to navigate your own way around this area.
Partners
Printify has outsourced the handling of the orders you will be getting from your stores unlike Printful.
They connect sellers with the leading print providers in the US and Europe.
They have multiple partners with each one handling specific or multiple products. Certain products such as t-shirts have more than one partner handling order fulfillment.
These are some examples of these outsourced providers:
- ArtGun handles digital printing on garments.
- Troupe Jewelry takes care of jewelry products.
- WOYC (Who’s On Your Case) facilitates printing on mobile phone cases.
- MWW takes care of pillowcases.
- Spoke Custom Products prints on mugs and tumblers.
Comparison To Printful
When compared with Printful, Printify costs are lower thus enabling you to get more income.
Their lead time for shipping is shorter although this would mean that their shipping rates are higher since they also don’t have the partnerships Printful has with global couriers.
It is apparent that they carry more products compared to Printful. They carry bathroom items, wall decor, stationeries, and stickers.
They don’t give discounts in case you want to sample their products.
They have paid membership programs which Printful doesn’t have.
They have outsourced their order fulfillment services to 3rd party providers unlike Printful. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages with this setup.
Teelaunch
They have been around Shopify for quite some time now. They claim to have more than 41,000 stores that are using their services.
Like Printify, they also outsource the handling of the orders to their partners. They can handle worldwide shipping.
Their list of POD products are growing every second and they accept Paypal for payments. Unlike Printify, they have no premium or enterprise membership access. There is no need for signup fees to use this service.
Their automation allows you to view the status of orders as it is being handled through the dashboard of your own website. Unique tracking numbers can be used by buyer and seller parties to know the status of the items being ordered.
Profit Margin
Here are the expected profit margins that you will realize across specific products when you let Teelaunch handle the order fulfillment:
- T-shirt at 65% with SRP of $24
- Hoodies at 57% with SRP of $44
- Phone cases at 69% with SRP of $35
- Mugs at 73% with SRP of $13
- Tumblers at 50% with SRP of $30
You can set your own desired profit margins.
Products
These are some unique products being handled by Teelaunch aside from the usual ones:
- Bluetooth speakers and power banks
- Bowls, plates, and platters
- Cutting boards
- Doormats
- Flags
- Headphones
- Running shoes
- Bracelets and necklaces
Teelaunch offers a discount for shop owners to get samples of their own products.
There are no mockup generators or templates that can be used with this app.
Comparison To Printful
When compared to Printful, Teelaunch has cheaper costs but their order fulfillment time takes longer. Their customer service needs to be improved if it is to be on par with Printful.
Gooten
Aside from being a POD provider, Gooten is also a dropshipping company.
For those who are unaware, dropshipping is a new way of handling customer orders.
Through this method, a retailer need not keep stock on hand and stored somewhere. When an order gets in, this retailer gets the item needed for it from a merchant and ships the same directly to the customer’s destination.
The retailer doesn’t need to see the item ordered through this entire order processing.
There is a convergence here in POD and dropshipping. A lot of Shopify and online store owners have married these two concepts for their own use and benefit.
Gooten offers the same products similar to what the previous POD apps discussed has. They claim to carry more than 100 products. They have outsourced the fulfillment of these orders to 3rd party providers.
They also have sherpa blankets, accessory pouches, laundry bags, travel bags, and others. Pet related products such as dog bandannas and beds.
There are no signup and membership fees to join Gooten. They have unlimited ceiling on what you can charge for your products. Their profit equation supports this and which is Your Price – Our Cost = Your Profit.
Their system can be accessed from a dashboard for your review. They also have an automated system designed to speed up deliveries. You can easily send items in your online stores to their site for handling.
Gooten is also linked to Etsy and Amazon in case you have storefronts in these platforms.
Their shipping rates can easily be calculated by inputting the the type of product to be shipped, customer destination with shipping method. You will have to pay Gooten these costs on top of the item costs.
Website Blogs
I would strongly advise you to check out Gooten’s website. This is not to get freebies but to gain more knowledge about this business that you are in. It will be worth it.
They have articles that are very informative and handy. I particularly like the “7 Resolutions for 2019 to Grow Your Ecommerce Business”, “4 Trends to Inspire Your Product Designs for 2019”, and “3 Ways You Can Extend Your Holiday Sales Season”.
You will pick out golden nuggets of helpful information.
They have other sections that will assist you a lot. In the Success In Business folder, do check out the article “How To Keep Your Store Product Images Organized” and “Guide to Pricing Your Ecommerce Products to be Competitive and Profitable”.
In the Design Tips section, pay particular attention to the article “Understanding the Psychology Behind Why Buyers Make Purchases” and “7 Features of a Creative Ecommerce Store”.
There are a lot more here just like with Printify.
Payment Procedures
Speaking of payment, you will have to compensate Gooten for their services through credit or debit cards. They will not bill your clients directly for the services they have rendered. This setup applies for Shopify, Custom Order Forms, and Application Programming Interface (API).
If setup is done through widgets and mobile, payment will have to be through the Checkout facility provided by Gooten. Customers will pay Gooten directly through Paypal or credit or debit cards. Gooten will then pay you on a scheduled basis for this type of orders
Comparison To Printful
Compared to Printful, Gooten is also cheaper on a per product basis. Their order lead time processing approximates what Printful provides.
However, their ratings from reviews pale in comparison to it. There are concerns about the quality and variety of the materials used in the orders processed.
They also don’t offer branding services to help distinguish your product.
Pixels
This POD provider claims that they have 15 warehouses spread across the world to handle order fulfillment. They are located in North America and Europe with one established in Australia.
You can basically tap the Asian market because of the Australian warehouse presence. This will be a big benefit for your business.
They have prioritized order handling in the sense that products will be immediately processed and shipped as soon as it gets in. The system they have will handle the rest of the processing and eventually save time for the sellers.
Product Design
They have a complete product creation feature in their app dashboard that you can use for this purpose.
You can use this value add service to create your very own products with your own unique designs. These same products can then be tested by Pixels own team for quality assurance and customer satisfaction.
You can use as starting point here the existing 100 products that they carry which is spread across 6 categories.
Comparison To Printful
Since they both handle their own order fulfillment, Pixels and Printful can be compared on an apples to apples basis.
Price wise they are more expensive when compared to Printful once you have factored in their shipping costs.
They carry more products than Printful due to presence of items such as yoga mats, spiral notebooks, and others.
Order lead time is also the same.
As mentioned earlier their penetration of the Australian market will be a beneficial thing for you can make headway to the Asian market through this entry.
Pillow Profits
This is one of the newer Shopify POD apps around.
Their main product lines revolve around footwear, car seats, bags, wall canvas, bed sheets, and pillows. They have an exclusive catalog of POD products such as shoes, beddings, and accessories.
It seems that footwear and shoes are their main products. If you are wanting to break in to the custom shoe industry or are just simply fond of shoes, then this app might be the right one for you. Just be aware that for now, they have no shoe half sizes available except for 7.5”.
They have Express Line products which ask for additional shipping costs to cut the shipment processing time. Even with this, shipment takes about 4 to 7 days which is still an improvement for the normal time of 10 to 15 days.
They claim that they have the fastest processing time around due to their advanced automation systems. They can ship to a lot of countries even to remote and unheard of destinations such as Myanmar and Ukraine. However, there is no facility for shipment tracking for these same areas.
There are no shipping charges for these are already included in their costs.
You can avail of their free digital mockup app features to test your products.
Their website offers a comprehensive number of the frequently asked questions or (FAQ) and other information that will help you navigate using this app. The information there are very helpful.
They have a monthly subscription fee for members. It comes in with free 7-day trial period to see its suitability for your use.
Comparison To Printful
They charge a monthly subscription fee which Printful doesn’t. Their order fulfillment times are way longer.
Combining their shipping cost with their pricing makes it easy for newcomers to price their own products.
They can only integrate with Shopify for now.
Custom Cat
This is probably the cheapest POD provider around. They have 550 products that can be printed on.
Their pricing model is like Pillow Profits for they have a monthly subscription fee requirement. This also comes with a free trial period.
When you avail of this subscription fee, you will immediately realize substantial discount on their prices. This will allow you to get higher profit margins.
Custom Cat offers 2-3 days order fulfillment period which is exceptional and they can do white label shipping. They do about 15,000 custom prints and can quickly scale up to ten times their normal production output.
They are proud of their state of the art printing capabilities and can handle the Direct-To-Garment or (DTG), dye sublimation, and embroidery printing requirements. Reviews received pay compliments to the quality of their products.
One good thing about their app is that it promotes upselling. This is included in their checkout pages and can effectively contribute to an increase in revenue. You can also choose to create coupon codes for your repeat customers.
Comparison To Printful
They charge a monthly regular subscription fee although you can make up for this with the discounts that you will get. Their order fulfillment times are just about the same.
They also integrate only with Shopify.
Print Aura
This POD app may have lost ground compared to its rivals but it still offers good value for money.
They offer custom return labels and packing slips, neck labels, tag application and removal.
Print Aura has in its arsenal Kornit 931 and 932 printers which are very good in handling high quality garment printing. They have about 100 different garment colors to choose from for your products.
Their product catalog is very similar to what its rivals are offering.
Order turnaround is about 3 to 5 days with an expedited processing facility that can handle the requirement in 48 hours.
There is no membership or subscription fee needed to freely use their services.
They have interface with other ecommerce sites aside from Shopify. These are Woo Commerce, Etsy, Big Commerce, Storenvy, and Opencart.
Print Aura offers a guarantee for their products to be without defects due to printing or manufacturing errors. They will not hesitate to replace defective products.
Comparison To Printful
They are cheaper when compared to Printful. Their order fulfillment lead times are a bit longer though.
Printy6
It used to be called Snaprinting. Aside from Shopify, they are integrated with Woo Commerce, Big Commerce, and Big Cartel.
Through this app, you can create your high quality unique designs and directly send them to be published on your own Shopify store.
If you have an affinity for watches, then this app is for you. It will permit you to customize watches that can be sold through your online stores.
You can also create designs on casual shoes, bedding sets, mobile accessories, pillows, and other products.
They have included shipping costs as part of their pricing. They accept branding service for your products and they will even provide you with a box designer where you can do upload your logo for placement. There is a fee for this service.
Their order fulfillment time is about 10 to 14 days. Be careful with returns for it is not their policy to do refunds for buyer’s remorse and wrong sizes. This will be billed to your account eventually.
They also do dropshipping for the same products that you can create designs for.
Comparison To Printful
Their order fulfillment lead times are longer than Printful.
Their product offerings are not many.
Viralstyle Fulfillment
This is another Shopify app. It basically has the same product offerings similar to the other apps comparable to it.
There is no signup or membership fees to use this POD provider service.
There is tracking created for each order that comes in to your Shopify store. You can view the status of the order right from your own dashboard.
There will be a tracking code defined once the order is shipped. Your customer will be informed through an email of this same code.
Different kinds of printing methods are available with this app. They have 30+ core products and they are adding new ones every month.
They will charge you a simple base cost for their products and you can decide how much you want to be added on top of that.
They accept white labelling of your products.
Customer service seems to be a plus for them for they are getting great reviews on it. Customers are also satisfied with the products and the print quality.
Their Viralstyle Academy doles out effective tricks for selling POD products through your online stores.
Comparison To Printful
Just like with others, they are tied to Shopify only.
Their pricing is cheaper compared to Printful.
Related Questions
What is print on demand Shopify?
It is called Printify and it is an integrated Print On Demand (POD) platform. This same platform permits you to create items with your own design and synchronizes products and its descriptions to your own online stores. It will then processed the customer orders, prints them, and handles shipment to the intended destination.
What is the best print on demand sites?
There is more than one best POD site. Each of these sites has their own advantage and disadvantage. You can select from these platforms and you wouldn’t go wrong with your choice:
- Teefury
- Threadless
- Zazzle
- Spreadshirt
- Society 6
- Redbubble
- Teespring
- TeePublic
Does Printful work with Shopify?
Absolutely yes. By installing the Printful app on your Shopify store, you can commence this process. You will have to create amazing designs and then set up shipping, billing, and taxes parameters. Printful will handle processing orders that will come in all the way to delivery to intended destination.
Is Redbubble print on demand?
Yes. They will handle the processing and printing of orders coming from customers. They will then ship the same orders to its set destination. Similar sites to Redbubble are Merch by Amazon or MBA, Teespring, Teepublic, and others.
