Printful: Print on Demand

A Live customer support option NEEDS to be available. It’s pretty frustrating having to deal with chat or email.

Don't do it! They basically charge you retail prices and squeeze your margins to the point they are not profitable, after facebook ads and shipping costs I am left with (negative) -$4 to +$3 for all of my troubles. Based on their cost I need to charge $70-80 for a hoodie. This would be fine if the quality of the product were aligned with the cost. They are not. We have experienced multiple print peels and errors and many customer complaints. Cost aside the functionality is fine but note they will have many inconsistencies in the availability of the product. We liked a more premium feel so opted for the next level 4600. However, keeping this available on the site is a full-time job. The shirt is often out of stock, our latest issue seems to be we are unable to add the basic white tee as a variant. Like seriously I can't add white as a variant, this is the most basic of options?!?! In short a good option if you are looking for cheep quality prints and products for perhaps band merchandise but if you are trying to create a credible brand I'd use them to test designs and samples to get a feel for how people are responding to your designs, then immediately switch to a local screen print if your style is popular. Based on ease of use for new brands just starting out is the only reason I'd give them 2 stars. Once you scale to a point you'll need to move away from printful and find a printer you can work with on a more long term basis.

I have used printful for 3 years and have been very happy to date. Recently however they have updated their app due to a permissions change on shopify and following that update my set up has been broken with products showing as out of stock, orders not syncing and no guidance from printful on how this change needed to be managed. I cant seem to ever get anyone on chat at the moment and the emails back and forth don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of this situation that I am sure others are experiencing.

Update: 10/27/20 - issues with the automation persist with regard to inventory levels. Only fix for the conditional logic appears to be scheduled to roll out 1st quarter 2021. Updated rating to reflect.

Edit: Since writing the review underneath I have been contacted by some supportive and caring customer care agents. They have also informed me that Printful are currently in the process of opening a European Centre to avoid EU customs charges (see below). The actual opening date is still unclear.

Printful do not state VAT or correct product value on packages = Extra customs charges & VAT which have been crippling my business and customer retention (eg. a €40 hoodie will be charged an additional €19.50).

Unbelievably bad customer service. One agent in particular, who twice I had the misfortune of having to deal with. There is absolutely no care for the customer.

I've been working with Printful for over ayear and have the products for 2 stores printed and fulfilled by them. I had a very important package arriving too late at a destination and asked them to reroute it for me at my expense. After much back and forth they refused, in the end it was too much of a hassle for their operations. This isn't the first time I've had frustrating experiences with Printful's customer service. So while the printing is good, the fulfillment has been ok, the customer service is the reason I'm going to Gooten.

It's a fun and rather easy to use. But there are options missing like linking similar products together that don't quite fit in the parameter of "variant" and having folders to organize the uploaded files.

They have a good service the only problem I have with them is their prices for their shirts are high . I wish that they would come down on some of their prices so I won't have to charge so much for my products.

SHIPPING, SHIPPING, SHIPPING!

I use different companies for different things I want my designs printed on. I am currently in BETA testing mode with Printful as my Print-on-demand service for my designs.

I need shipping to be EASY, not complicated. I also need it accurately calculated at NO EXTRA COST to me or to my customers. What my customers see during checkout should be the same as what I pay to Printful for shipping provided. If Shopify charges my customer $6.50, Printful should not charge me $6.51 or $6.49. It should charge me exactly what the customer was charged.

I do not want to setup complicated weight based shipping groups. It doesn't work well and either causes me to OVERCHARGE or UNDERCHARGE my customers. My customers, mostly VETERANS, DEMAND and DESERVE accurate shipping rates when checking out. It shouldn't be complicated for the software either in Printful or Shopify to know the shipping location and decide to use Shopify's shipping rates or Printful's. It's 2019, not 1998.

When I joined the live chat to ask for assistance, they tried to UPSELL me to fix the problem. This means it's possibly an issue they know about and refuse to fix as it's profitable to not fix it.

From the MUGS and PHONE CASES I've tested thus far: Print quality has been GREAT! Goods delivered on time as estimated on their website. Packaging is good.

Only 3 stars as shipping can help grow or kill a business.

App works great... The only limits that are set are on the Shopify side. I have a large store to fill and apparently on my Shopify plan they throttle you down, especially when pushing a lot of variants. If I get on a roll it will allow me to create about 100 products, which amounts to about 300 variants as well, before it stops me. Apparently there is an algorithm called the leaky bucket. When the "bucket" fills up with enough products and variants, it won't take anymore. It SLOWLY trickles out the products until there is room for more. If you don't wait long enough, it will fill up quickly. If you wait about a full day, it will be completely empty. UPDATE 10/6/20 - I down graded my review to a 3 star review...The wait time have become a serious issue. When COVID hit I had to spend every day trying to convince customers to patiently wait because orders were so backed up. It took up to a month and half to get a shirt printed and out. They eventually got it sorted out in about the end of August. Now, I am right back to the same situation. Long waits, products out of stock, and complaining customers. Some of my orders are approaching 1 month. Printful only counts business days, I guess to make the charts look better, but the rest of the world just counts days. Be prepared for long wait times and complaining customers.