Printify is a print on demand website that allows you to design a custom product such as t-shirts, phone cases, and over 800 products. It also handles printing and shipping to your customers.
Printify was founded by James Berdigans. According to the founder, Printify was born when there was a need to find produce custom phone cases followed by a search for POD manufacturers in the mobile phone cases niche.
It was around 2016 that Printify evolved into the marketplace that it is today. The marketplace model allows Printify to create a network consisting of quality print providers capable of printing and drop shipping a range of products.
Though, relatively new in the POD fulfilment scenes, Printify has grown to be a go-to destination for merchants of custom items. There are currently over 250,000 merchants using Printify to sell custom products in different e-commerce stores.
Because of its model, one of the draws of Printify is having access to different Print Providers, and being able to choose the one that best suits you. There are over 90 Print Providers available in the network. Thus, Printify lives up to its promise of being “a transparent print-on-demand network that instantly connects merchants to major Print Providers worldwide”
Printify can be accessed at www.printify.com. The website, which is available only in the English Language, can be used by anyone who’s 18 years and above.
The tagline of Printify is: “best print on demand providers, one click away”. And if that is not revealing enough, they advertise as “a print on demand network that instantly connects merchants to major Print Providers worldwide”.
That tells you that the platform connects you to POD (Print on Demand) order fulfilment services – that is, companies that’ll allow you, as a merchant, to create custom products and sell these products in your online store.
Yes, Printify is legit. It is not a scam since the service you paid for are given to you without a problem. And they have no history of scam or not rendering their service to customers after payment.
This should mean that if you’ll want to sell fancy products online customized with your own designs, you can use Printify to get POD providers who’ll handle everything for you; from printing on the product, to drop shipping the order directly to your customer. What is more, Printify promises more than just helping you fulfil your POD orders. They say that their mission is to “help merchants make more money with less effort”.
All of these make Printify appear as the merchant’s delight. But are these just marketing blurbs, or can you really use Printify to seamlessly and cost-effectively fulfil your POD orders? In the first place, is Printify genuine?
This Printify review will examine Printify in order to provide the information that’ll help you answer these questions and more.
You’ll see Printify added in many lists of POD fulfilment services/ companies. However, it should be understood that Printify is only a platform or a POD marketplace; they simply connect you with the POD companies that you can use to fulfil your POD orders. Printify does not do any product printing or sell any product.
As a seller of customized items online, you can link Printify with your online store. Then you can visit the Printify catalogue to select the product you’ll want to sell. You’ll find the Print Providers in the Printify network that provide fulfilment services for the particular item chosen. You can then proceed to customize the item with your own design, after which you’ll publish the customized item to your store, and it will be listed there.
When an order is placed in your store, it is automatically sent to Printify. Upon receipt of the Order, Printify will charge your linked credit card for payment. It is when that is successful (that is, payment is received by Printify) that the item is sent to production (to the selected Print Provider). After the item is produced, it is shipped directly to the customer who placed the item in your store, without you having to do anything.
To sell custom items in your online store, the company you’ll use to fulfil the orders must integrate with your store. In this regards, Printify does relatively well. The POD platform integrates well with the popular e-commerce platform in the business.
Where some platforms will integrate with only one of the major e-commerce platforms (usually Shopify), Printify integrates well with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Etsy. It is good that Printify integrates with a range of platforms; that way, customers can use the POD platform to power their different online stores in different e-commerce platforms. Also through plug-ins on these e-commerce platforms, merchants can expand to other channels such as Facebook.
You want a platform that is easy to use. If the ratings of Printify in the e-commerce platforms are anything to go by, you’ll find that Printify is one easy to use platform. For example, Printify has a rating of 4.6 out of 5 in Shopify; and 3.1 out of 5 in WooCommerce. Among the many good reviews, you’ll find that Printify offers seamless integration and ease of use.
With Printify, you’ll be selling custom items in five easy steps:
If you believe “variety is the spice of life”, then you’ll find that Printify offers the spiced life. The Printify network consists of over 90 Print Providers. These Providers have their printing facilities located in the US, UK, and China.
The advantage of using a marketplace is not just finding different suppliers, but finding different specialities in one place. For example, in Printify, some of the different Print Providers and their area of speciality include:
Print Providers such as ArtsAdd have the advantage of being capable of high volume manufacture of custom items. Some Providers in the network don’t come out with anyone speciality but have very strong reputations.
For example, CG Pro Prints is reputable for being the world’s foremost producer of grand and large-format digital graphics, while MWW On Demand is reputable for providing high-quality US-made custom items.
There are other advantages to having different providers; one of such is that fulfilment centres are closer to the customer. For example, Inklocker, which is also in the Printify network, has over 90 fulfilment centres around the world. When an Inklocker item is ordered in your store, the item will be printed in the closest available print facility; and that will translate to lower shipping times.
Printify is a white-labelled service which means that Printify’s name will not appear anywhere on the shipping label or packaging. This gives you a chance to get your store name (brand) on the orders that are drop shipped for you. Thus, it appears as if the items are coming from your store.
The different Print Providers in Printify offers different branding options. In most, you can only have your brand on the packaging. In others, there is the option of neck label printing for T-Shirts (to give your brand even more visibility).
If you want to use drop shipping services to sell custom products, the products you can list in your online store is determined by the products that the POD fulfilment service that you’ll use have in their catalogue. Thus, if you want to be able to list a wide range of products, you’ll want a POD fulfilment platform with a wide range of products.
Printify leads the chasing pack in this regards. Their product catalogue contains almost all products that can be printed upon in the POD business. In the Printify Product catalogue, the product categories and the items you’ll find in each category are:
Men’s Clothing
Women Clothing
Kids’ Clothing
Accessories
Home and Living
You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone POD fulfilment service that offers more products for customizing than Printify. Printify is able to offer a wide product range (over 200 products) because of its operation as a marketplace that brings different POD providers together.
With this model, each provider comes in with its speciality in printing on particular products; some specializes in printing on Jewelry, others in printing on shoes, etc. Thus, in their product catalogue, Printify is able to offer different types of clothing, shoes, jewellery, and home items, knowing that there is at least a POD provider in their network capable of fulfilling the order.
Granted, you can build your online shop around one of the products provided by a POD fulfilment service. For example, you may create a store to sell fancy bags, and then create unique products by using different custom designs/ artwork to customize the same base bag.
However, with different products in the catalogue of Printify, you can use a particular design to customize different products types, or you can customize different product types with particular custom art.
Quality of customized items is made up of quality of prints and quality of products printed upon. The ideal POD fulfilment supplier will offer quality outcomes featuring quality prints on quality products. Printify draws products from some of the best brands in the market, which ensures that the products in their catalogue are top drawer quality. Some of the brands include AWDIS, Anvil, Independent Trading Company, Next Level, and more.
With respect to print quality, Printify is a marketplace; as a result, the different Print Providers in the network produce outcomes of different quality. Printify clearly states this and advise that you do the necessary checks before using any Provider. Since custom items purchased by your customers will be produced and drop shipped to them without you seeing the items, the best way to determine for yourself that only top quality items will be sold in your store is to order sample items.
Many POD suppliers offer discounted prices for such sample items, so that you may test as many items as possible. Unfortunately, Printify does not offer any discounts for sample orders; you’ll have to pay the full base price including shipping. Needless to say, this will not encourage the testing of products. Thus, instead of making sure yourself, you’ll just have to trust that quality items will be fulfilled.
As a merchant who’ll be using a POD fulfilment platform to sell custom items in your store, you’ll want to consider the cost of using the platform. You’ll want to make sure that such setup costs are reasonable at every stage of your store’s life cycle so that they’ll not adversely affect your profit margins.
In this regards, Printify has three service plans – free plan, a premium plan and an enterprise plan. The cost of the “free plan” is as its name suggest – free of charge. It’s good for merchants starting a business, and those who’ll rather not pay monthly subscription fees to use a POD fulfilment service.
If you’ve seen reviews of other POD providers you’ll find that when subscription-based providers also offer a free plan, the free plan comes with a lot of restrictions such as caps on the number of items that can be listed in your store, and caps on the number of orders that can be fulfilled in a month. However, the free plan of Printify does not come with such restrictions.
You’ll have access to the full range of features of the platform. That is, you can design and publish to your store an unlimited number of products. Also, it does not matter that you’re using the free plan; Printify will fulfil all orders placed in your store. The only restriction you’ll find in the Printify free plan is that one free account can be used in up to 5 stores.
The Premium Plan of Printify cost $29/ month. Needless to say, this plan also gives you access to all the features of the platform. One advantage the premium plan has over the free plan is that one premium account can be used in up to 10 stores, but the biggest advantage is that the premium account allows you to get up to 20% discount on all products.
The Enterprise plan is created for persons who’ll get 10,000+ orders a day; it has custom pricing that can be negotiated with the company. It comes with the “20% discount on all products” advantage. Also, one account can be used with unlimited stores; and you’ll get other perks which include a dedicated account manager and branded customer support.
Simply put, this is the cost price of the custom products you’ll be selling in your store. When setting your selling price, you’ll not want to set a price that is above what customers will normally pay for the particular item. Thus, to optimize profit, you’ll want product prices to be as low as possible, so that there’ll be enough wriggle room to set a selling price that’ll net you a significant margin.
In this regard, the product prices you get in Printify will depend on what Printify plan you are using. With the free plan, you’ll get regular prices, which are still very competitive. For example, at the time of writing this review, T-Shirts were priced at $7.59 – $26.60, long sleeves went for $10.34 – $43.27, Hoodies went for $16.55 – $29.70, dresses started from $28.88, skirts started from $19.90, and socks started at $8.96.
In the non-clothing category, for the shoes: Sneakers started from $38.81, Heels started from $43.28, Men’s Boots started from $58.21, Women’s Martin Boots started from $56.72, and the Flip Flops started from $13.93.
For the bags, you’ll find Totes starting from $9.66, and Backpacks starting from $32.84; for the jewellery, you’ll find pieces starting from $5.45; while phone cases start from $7.66.
If you’ve seen reviews of POD fulfilment companies, you’ll find that these are some of the most competitive prices you’ll find. However, if you’re using the Printify Premium Plan, you’ll get up to 20% discounts on all products. For example, where the regular Sneakers start from $38.81, Premium Sneakers start from $29.89, saving you $8.92 per sneaker sold. That said; the product prices of Printify are relatively good. With the Premium Plan, it even gets better.
When you buy anything online, the item will be moved from the warehouse/fulfilment centre of the retailer to where you’ll receive delivery of it. Thus, you should always consider the shipping policy of the retailing platform. Three of the most important shipping considerations are shipping destinations, shipping times, and shipping costs.
Except for e-commerce platform ships to your location, it’ll be difficult to receive an order placed in the platform. Thus, you’ll want an e-commerce platform to ship to many worldwide locations so that your location will more likely be covered.
In this regards, you’ll be hard pressed to find one POD order fulfilment platform that trumps the reach of Printify. Because Printify is simply a marketplace for POD providers, and with each provider in the network aiming to reach as many markets as possible, you’ll find that Printify is able to provide shipping to worldwide locations.
Customers don’t like waiting for centuries to receive delivery of their order. Thus, when thinking of POD providers for your store, you should look at providers that offer fast delivery. The delivery times of POD providers is made up of order production times (how long it takes to produce the unique item and dispatch it for shipping) and order shipment times (how long it takes the order to get to the shipping address after leaving the warehouse of the POD provider). For fast delivery, the POD fulfilment platform should offer fast production times and fast shipping times.
It should be remembered that Printify is just a marketplace. They neither print nor ship; they just provide the platform where you’ll find POD fulfilment companies that do the product printing and drop shipping.
Thus, you’ll find varied times in Printify. Every Print Provider in Printify has its different production and shipping times. For the former (production time), Printify offers a “Guaranteed Production time” where they undertake to give refunds if production time of any Print Provider in their network exceeds 10 business days. This ensures that Providers offer fast printing.
For the latter (shipping time), you can browse through the different providers to find what best suits you. For example, you’ll find that ArtGun (the Florida based print provider) takes: 5 – 7 business days to ship to locations within the US; 10 – 15 business days to ship to Canada; and 10 – 30 business days to ship to other international locations.
Prodigy, which is based in the United Kingdom, takes 1 – 3 days to ship to locations within the UK; 8 – 15 business days to ship to locations within Europe; and 10 – 30 days to ship to other international locations. Lastly, ArtsAdd which is based in Fujian (China), takes 7 – 15 business days to ship to the US; 10 – 15 business days to ship to Canada; and 10 – 30 business days to ship to other international locations.
That said; the particular shipping time that applies at any one time is determined by the Print Provider that is used to fulfil the particular order.
The total spend on any item includes its purchase price and its shipping cost. Even when an item is reasonably priced, the high shipping cost could increase the total expenditure and make it expensive to acquire the item. Thus, you’ll want shipping cost to be as low as possible.
Just as it is with the shipping times, the different Print Providers in the Printify network also offers different shipping costs. The good thing is that you’ll find Providers that offer very low shipping rates. For example, at the time of writing this review, ArtsAdd was shipping almost every product free of charge to all locations.
With different rates on offer, you can choose the provider that best suits you. For example, DJ and Fifth Sun are two California-based providers in the Printify network. However, to ship Hoodies: DJ takes $7.50 (and $3.00 for the additional item) to ship within the US; $9.00 (and $4.00 for additional items) to ship to Canada; and $11.00 (and $4.00 for additional items) to ship internationally.
On the other hand, to ship Hoodies, Fifth Sun takes $9.00 (and $2.00 for additional items) to ship within the US; $19.00 (and $4.00 for the additional item) to ship to Canada; and $28.00 ($4.00 for the additional item) to ship internationally.
Many times, customers are not totally pleased with an item ordered online and will want to be able to return it to the retailer and get a replacement or refund. Thus, before using any company to fulfil orders for your online store, you’ll want to consider the return policy of the company. What follows is the returns policy of Printify.
It should be repeated that POD orders are custom items which are only produced after the order is placed. Thus, returns of POD orders are usually stricter than returns for regular (non POD) orders. Generally, items are non-returnable. That is, in situations like size disputes (where a customer had ordered the wrong size) or buyer’s remorse (where the customer changes his/ her mind about the order), Printify will not accept requests to return the order.
The only situation where returns request will be accepted is where the issue is caused by a technical error on the part of the Print Provider. That will include where a wrong item or a clearly bad item is delivered.
This means that simply not being pleased with the quality and outcome of the produced order might not be enough to get a return. Printify makes it clear that you should do your research when selecting a Print Provider from their network because the different providers have their own tools and procedures which translates to prints of different quality.
However, if you have an issue with an order, there is a Merchant Support Team that Printify has created to help. It’s advised that Merchants having issues with orders should contact the Team, and not the Print Provider. You’ll have to provide photographic evidence to establish the technical error on the part of the Print Provider; the Merchant Support Team will investigate the issue, and if it is determined that a technical error has occurred, you [your customer] will be eligible to return the item.
Even when your order is determined to be faulty, you cannot simply request a refund. Printify will submit your order for reprint, and another will be produced and sent to you [your customer] as a replacement. It is only when the replacement item is also found (by the Merchant Support Team) to be faulty that refunds will be issued.
Granted, the returns policy of POD providers are stricter than those of non POD retailers; however, some customers will be a little disappointed that they cannot get a refund at the first time of asking even when it is determined that the item is faulty.
It also does not help that when refunds are to be issued (after a replacement has been sent and is also found to be faulty) the refund is issued as store credits. It’s not news that most customers prefer refunds as cash transfers to their accounts so that they can use another platform for their subsequent if they choose; however, with the store credits that Printify issues, the customer cannot go to another platform but is bound to using the funds for purchases in the Printify platform.
You won’t want a return process that is cost-prohibitive, where you’ll be put off returning an item to a retailer because of the related costs. Thus, you’ll want e-commerce platforms with the cost of returns that are as low as possible.
The lowest cost of returns is zero (that is free return shipping). Thankfully, that is what Printify offers. If it’s determined by the Merchant Support Team of Printify that a customer’s order is faulty, the Print Provider will be liable for all expense to get a replacement to the customer.
If an item is returned to Printify because the shipping address is deemed incorrect or insufficient by the courier, a reshipment can be arranged after the updated shipping address is obtained. However, the reshipment cost is borne by you [your customer]. Such reshipment cost includes the original shipping cost of the item and a $4.00 service fee. It should be noted that if such returned items are not claimed within 2 weeks of their return, they will be donated to charity.
As a seller, you may have questions about the services of the POD drop shipper that you’re using to fulfil orders in your store; while your customers may have certain issues with their orders placed in your store. Whatever the case, you’ll reach out to the platform, and you’ll want answers and solutions. Thus, you’ll want a platform that makes provision for handling customers’ questions and complaints.
Printify does relatively well in this regards. The first step to getting help from Printify is the “Help Center” on their website. It contains a lot of self-help articles that’ll provide answers to many of the questions that you may have about Printify and its services. You’ll find articles about getting started, creating custom products with Printify, choosing a Print Provider, moving your online store from a different Print Provider to Printify, sample orders, and more.
If you don’t find the answers you need in the self-help articles, you may contact Printify directly. You can do this by clicking on the message-style button from any page of their website. It’ll open a contact form which allows you to drop your inquiries/ complaints. You may also send the platform an email directly using your email account. With either approach, you’ll get a response via email.
Printify takes about two hours to respond to support submissions. This is relatively good response time, as there are e-commerce platforms that’ll have you waiting for up to 48 hours for feedback. However, it doesn’t help that the channels for directly contacting Printify are unlimited. For example, there is no support for telephone service, live chat, or such channels as Skype.
Printify is legit and also safe. The ideal online platform should not only be legit but also safe. That is, the platform should safeguard the sensitive information that you share with it. When using Printify, you’ll submit your personal information as well as your credit card details.
Except you’re not from this planet, you’ll not want this information to leak out to unauthorized persons (especially online fraudsters).
Printify says that they do a lot of things to keep customers’ data safe on their end, which includes physical, electronic and managerial procedures. Printify does not provide the details of these procedures, but they do advise that you can contact them (privacy@prntify.com) for more information on the efforts to ensure the safety of data. However, in the years of Printify’s existence, the platform has not experienced a data breach. Thus, it’s safe to say that Printify is safe.
Printify is relatively young in the POD fulfilment business but currently stands as a legitimate go-to destination for fulfilling orders of customized items in your online stores. Printify is not exactly a POD fulfilment service; as they do not print or sell any product. Rather it is just a platform where you can find different POD fulfilment providers.
Being a marketplace, the product catalogue of Printify is huge. You can use the platform to fulfil orders for customized apparel, shoes, accessories, pieces of jewellery, and home items. You can use Printify free of charge and still have access to its full range of services.
Orders can be shipped to different parts of the world, and you’ll find Print Providers that offer very competitive product costs, shipping costs, and delivery times. Printify integrates well with the major e-commerce platforms and is easy to use. You won’t have any problem with setting up, creating customized products, or publishing them to your store. But if you do meet bumps on the road, there’s a very responsive customer support department that you can reach out to.
However, it’s not all smooth sailing with Printify. Since it’s simply a marketplace, Printify does not have control over the outcome of production. So when using the platform, you might have to do more work (due diligence) in finding appropriate Print Providers. It also does not help that sample orders are not discounted; and that refunds are only issued as store credits.
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This "review" that Printify paid you to write couldn't be further from the way that they actually operate. This is extremely misleading, and I strongly urge everyone to to conduct their own research on Printify. They stole hundreds of dollars from me, and their customer service department is a joke.
Printify is terrible. Do not use. Trust me. Horrible customer service. Refused to refund a canceled order they messed up on after they said they would!