Teespring was inspired by a viral move in 2011. Founders (Walker Williams and Evan Stites-Clayton) were seniors at Brown University, and a local favourite bar was closing, leading to an outpouring of emotions on social media. Their entrepreneurial minds kicked in, and they created a platform to sell T-Shirts expressing support for the bar. Interested parties signed up and made pre-orders, and when 200 orders were received, the shirts were made and shipped out.
You can already see that Teespring differs significantly from other Print On Demand fulfilment services. When using a POD provider, you create your custom product and publish it to your online store, where customers can go to place an order for the unique item.
In the regular POD platforms out there, when an order is placed for the item in your store, it is routed to the POD provider who fulfils the order by making the product and shipping it directly to the customer.
However, Teespring differs from other POD dropshippers in that when a customer places an order, Teespring does not swing into action to make the product. That is, Teespring does not print and drop ship individual units. Rather, it uses the concept of crowdfunding.
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After creating your custom product, you’ll state the number of units that are expected to be sold. It is only when that minimum quantity of orders is received that Teespring will swing into action. Thus, when customers place orders for your Teespring custom product, they are simply placing pre-orders.
That Teespring is an all-around solution that also ships products means that it offers dropshipping services, which allows you to sell your custom products without the hassles of holding and maintaining inventory.
Without the hassles of inventory management, dropshipping is a popular choice for entering eCommerce; add the lure of selling unique products with your own designs, and “POD + dropshipping” platforms are increasing in popularity.
But with so quite a number of POD dropshippers in the market, the big question is what makes Teespring different. That is, is it worthwhile to use Teespring for creating and selling custom products? In the first place, is Teespring legit, or is it just another scam?
Yes, Teespring is legit. It is not a scam company because they have been online for a very long time without a problem. And they are featured by reputable sites like Forbes, Techcrunch, Huffinton etc.
This Teespring review will examine Teespring in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
Teespring is legit. There are many scam stores out there that are ripping people off by collecting payments from unsuspecting customers but not fulfilling their orders. Thus, before using any online payment, it is wise to determine that it is legit.
So the big question is whether Teespring is legit or just a scam. The short answer to that is: Yes, Teespring is legit. The longer answer is that Teespring is 100% legal, has industry-wide recognition, and has a track record of fulfilling orders with real and functional products.
Our first check of a legit online store is usually legality. This is because stores that are 100% legal are less likely to be scams. Thankfully, Teespring ticks this box. The website is owned and operated by Teespring Inc, which is a 100% legal company duly registered in the US. Suffice it to say that scam stores will not seek company registrations.
Another check of legitimacy is visibility and industry-wide recognition. This is because scam stores operate in the shadows. Thankfully, Teespring ticks this visibility box. The Company is featured by some of the biggest names in the lifestyle world. For example, by virtue of its integrations with marketplaces, Teespring partners with the likes of Google, YouTube and many others.
Also, Teespring was featured in Forbes Magazine in 2014 as a company that’s “minting new millionaires selling its T-Shirts”. Suffice it to say that a scam store will not make it to Forbes.
Another check of a legit store is its operating record. This is because time most often than not reveals true identities. Scam stores are usually short-lived; with time, their scamming activity is exposed, and with such exposure, they disappear. Thankfully, Teespring has a robust operating record. It’s about 8 years in business and is still relatively young, but enough time for scamming activities to be revealed. However, it has only waxed stronger; and raised capital to build state of the art facilities.
The ultimate check of a legit store is fitness for purpose. This is because scam stores do not fulfil orders, but the legit store will fulfil orders with real and functional products. Thankfully, Teespring ticks this box. You can actually use the store to create and sell a custom product. It’ll make real products and deliver them to your customers (as far as you meet your sales target). With that; there is no doubt that Teespring is a legit platform for buying or selling customized products.
Teespring is safe. It is also important to determine that an online platform is safe. While a legit store will not rip you off, if it is not safe, sensitive information that you share with it will leak out, and you’ll be exposed to all the scammers out there. Thus, the ideal online store must be legit and safe. In this regard, it is safe to say that Teespring does well.
This is because Teespring follows generally accepted standards to protect users’ data, both during transmission and afterwards. For example, Teespring uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology, which is the industry standard data for ensuring the private connection between a buyer’s device and a seller’s servers.
With SSL, there is a private connection for data exchange; and the data is encrypted using bank-grade encryption protocols, so even if it is captured, it cannot be read by hackers. Thus, it’s safe to say that Teespring is safe.
In custom product e-commerce, what you can sell will be limited to what your POD fulfilment service can print on. Thus, if you’ll want to have a wide range of products, you’ll want a POD provider that supports a wide range of products. Thus, the product range is an important metric when looking at POD providers.
In this regard, the name Teespring will suggest that the company is exclusively T-Shirts. However, the name owes to the company’s early days. Teespring started (and continued for a long time) exclusively with the Tees, but will later add other products.
Currently, the range of products that Teespring fulfil is:
When using any platform, you’ll want a hassle-free experience. Thankfully, Teespring offers that. You can literally transform your creativity into quality products in a few minutes.
The steps involved in using Teespring can be compressed into signup, create, and sell. For obvious reasons, Teespring like to add “count profit”.
Where costs are involved, you’ll want them to be as low as possible. Thankfully, Teespring does very well in this regard. In terms of service costs, Teespring is a dream service provider as it is absolutely free to use. You’ll not be charged when you sign up or create your storefront, and you’ll not be charged to create a custom product or to have it listed. There’s no upfront cost whatsoever to use Teespring; you only need to register as a member, which as mentioned earlier is pretty straightforward.
Teespring only makes money when you make sales. Its profit is factored into the base price of the product. Thus, the base prices are important considerations because, with a high base price, there’ll not be much room to set a selling price to bring in ample profits.
You can set any selling price, so the temptation is there to go high so that you can make as much profit as possible. However, your custom item should be competitively priced. So, to extent market prices will determine your selling price. Thus, you’ll want base prices that are as low as possible so that there is still ample profit.
In this regard, you will find that Teespring is priced a bit on the high side. For example, at the time of writing this review, the base prices for some of the Teespring products (without pricing discounts) were as follows: Basic Tees – $10.57; Long Sleeve Tees – $13.82; Tank Tops – $13.32; Hoodies and Sweatshirts – $20.21; Totes – $12.25; Mugs – $8.00. If you look at the product pricing of other POD providers, you’ll find that Teespring is a little pricey. It should be noted that the base prices are not inclusive of shipping costs.
The question of whether Teespring is worthwhile is simply asking if you can make money with Teespring. To this, Teespring answers that “people around the world are using Teespring to become their own boss, generate passive income, and achieve their ideal lifestyle”. If you want numbers, Teespring adds that its users make an average profit of $10 per sale.
Yes, despite its relatively high base prices, you can still make money with Teespring. Take, for example, the basic Tees whose base price is $10.57. Teespring suggests a selling price of $21.99, which makes for a profit of $11.42. First, fancy T-Shirts in the open market will go for about $25, so even after factoring in shipping charges, the customer is still getting a good deal. The good part of Teespring is that you get to keep 100% of your profit. So to push more sales, you may choose to blow away the competition by bringing down your selling price.
In the online customers’ review channels, you’ll easily find testimonials of persons who have used Teespring to earn a fortune. And these are limited to the self-published testimonials by Teespring; you’ll find many such reviews in independent customer review platforms and independent industry watchers. For example, Forbes Magazine once ran an article that Teespring is minting millionaires and that many other users are earning 6 figures.
It’s been mentioned that Teespring will only swing into action if the sales target is met, but not before processing payments. Once the orders are processed, your profits will be made available for withdrawal. For this, you’ll want convenient payment methods so that there’ll be no hassles with receiving payment.
Teespring does well in this regard. It supports PayPal, Payoneer, direct deposit, and mailed checks. With these options, you shouldn’t have problems with getting paid.
Purchases from Teespring are very different from regular purchases from brick and mortar, in that you cannot simply walk out of the store with your purchase. Even if Teespring were not this unique POD service where the product is made only after a set quantity of orders are placed, (that is if products were already available at the time of order placement) the products will still need to be moved from the store’s fulfilment centre to where the customer will receive the delivery.
Thus, shipping is an important consideration in online purchases. The most important shipping considerations are shipping destination, delivery time, and shipping cost.
Customers will only use online stores that ship to their locations; else receiving delivery of their order may be cost-prohibitive. As such, the ideal stores will be those that ship merchandise to worldwide locations. When using a POD and drop shipping service to sell products online, the locations you’re able to serve is determined by the locations that the fulfilment service is able to serve. Thus, you’ll want a platform that is able to ship merchandise to worldwide locations.
Thankfully, Teespring does very well in this regard. Teespring is able to ship to over 180 countries worldwide, covering every region of the world, from North to South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Thus, with Teespring, you’ll be able to sell your custom products to people everywhere.
After placing an order, no one will want to wait forever to receive it. Thus, the ideal online store should feature fast delivery. When using a POD provider to fulfil your orders, your delivery times are determined by how fast the provider delivers. Thus, you’ll want POD delivers that fulfil orders fast.
Normally, delivery times of POD providers consist of production time (how long it’ll take to make the custom product and dispatch it for shipping) and shipment time (how long it’ll take to reach the customer after it ships). However, the operating model of Teespring adds another layer to these times, which is the sales campaign period.
This is because Teespring gives sellers a period within which to launch a campaign to sell their product, and it is only at the end of the sales campaign that Teespring will begin production. Sales campaigns last 3 – 21 days. So if someone makes a purchase at the beginning of the sales campaign, there’ll be about 21 additional days of waiting.
However, you’ll find that, once the sales campaign is over, Teespring has very fast delivery times. It is able to offer relatively fast delivery because it uses UPS and DHL. The actual delivery time depends on where the order is fulfilled, and the country the order is shipping to. Teespring has both US and EU fulfilment centres.
For US-fulfilled orders: delivery to the US takes 9 – 12 business days, and delivery to Canada and other international countries take 12 – 15 business days. Rush delivery may be available to US locations, and it takes 2 – 5 business days. For EU-fulfilled orders: At the time of writing this review, only countries who are part of the European Union are able to receive EU-fulfilled orders.
Delivery to the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden takes 7 – 12 business days; and delivery to other countries (that are part of the EU) takes 10 – 16 business days. It should be noted that these delivery times are not just shipment times, but inclusive of production times. That is, they start counting when production begins.
Shipping costs add to item purchase cost for the total acquisition cost of any online purchase. High shipping costs can turn off customers by making even items that are acceptably priced too expensive to acquire. Thus, whether you are buying directly from Teespring, or simply using it to fulfil orders placed in your online store, you’ll want it to offer shipping costs that are as low as possible.
Shipping cost varies depending also on where the product is fulfilled, where it is shipping to, the type of product, and more. For example, at the time of writing this review, shipping rates for some of the US-fulfilled products were as follows:
Also, shipping rates for EU-fulfilled products were as follows:
The above shows that Teespring has competitive shipping rates. It must be said that additional charges (custom etc) will apply for international orders.
It’s true that customers sometimes have a change of heart after placing an order and will want to cancel or modify it. Thus, they’ll want stores that can allow them to effect these changes to already place orders.
In this regard, Teespring says that it allows order cancellation or modification as long as the order has not gone into production. There’s a link provided in your order confirmation email, which you can use to edit your order.
Also, sometimes customers are less than satisfied with their online purchases, so they want a store that allows them to return items for a replacement or a refund.
In this regard, it should be remembered that Teespring is not a regular store; rather all items are made-to-order. As such you shouldn’t expect to be able to return any item for a replacement or refund. However, Teespring says that “depending on the situation, you may be eligible for a replacement”. These “situations” that will qualify you for a replacement have to do with quality issues (e.g. receiving damaged or low-quality items).
However, the window to lodge a claim is 30 days from receipt of the item. That is, you have to contact Teespring about the “quality” concerns within 30 days of receiving delivery. You’ll also have to provide detailed pictures showing the errors. In certain situations, you may be asked to return the item before a resolution can be processed for you.
No matter how well a platform operates, there’ll be customers who’ll have issues with their orders. Also, some people may just have questions, that they’ll need answers to. Thus, the ideal online store should have an effective Customer Support service for handling customers’ questions and complaints.
Teespring does well in this regard. First are its self-help articles. On the Teespring website, you’ll find FAQs that give answers to many of the questions that persons have asked in the past. There’s also the Teespring blog which churns out helpful articles where you’ll find answers to many questions.
However, if you’ll need to directly contact a support rep of the company, Tespring supports a Live Chat and an e-mail service. For the email, there is an online contact form that you’ll find on the “Contact” page of the website. Teespring promises a response time of 24 business hours.
There is also Live Chat support which also can be accessed from the website, for both Buyer and Seller support. The chat is available from Monday to Friday, between the hours of 9:00 am – 5:00 pm (EST). However, there is no support for telephone service; and this is disappointing as many customers will love to call in and speak directly to someone.
There are many things we love about Teespring, the most significant being:
The first thing about Teespring that jumps at most people is that there are no upfront costs. Who does not like free-to-use services? In subscription-based stores, when the sales do not come in as expected, you’ll lose whatever service fees were paid. However, there are no such risks in Teespring.
While Teespring advertises that it helps entrepreneurs make money by simplifying the process of selling custom products, what we love most about it is that it is beyond business. Its crowdfunding model makes it ideal for fundraising.
Organizations like Churches, Research institutes, and Charity organizations can also use Teespring to raise funds. Individuals can also use Teespring to raise funds for different causes. This is simply done by creating Teespring custom items, which anyone who wants to give can subscribe to (purchase).
What this means is that Teespring is not for only sellers. Persons can buy directly from Teespring; but the catch is that Teespring will only process “bulk” orders and not individual orders. It also means that businesses can use Teespring to promote their brands. This is simply by obtaining a stock of items customized (with the brand) to be given to customers.
Teespring claims that it “assists you every step of the way from product development through online selling, order fulfilment, and consumer service.” However, creating sales campaigns to increase revenue will still require a significant amount of leg work.
Thankfully, Teespring has a lot of resources to help you in driving sales. This includes guides for promoting with the social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram), Facebook advertising and Google Shopping.
There is also the option of using the Teespring boosted network, which is able to make your product available to millions of shoppers around the world via integration who some of the most engaged marketplaces.
What we didn’t like about Teespring is the sales target that it requires and all its implications, such as strong marketing, lost sales, less earning potential, etc.
The operating model of Teespring requires that after designing your product you’ll set a target of the quantity you expect to sell. If this sales target is not met, Teespring will not make (or ship) the items, but will simply take down your product.
Thus, you’ll have to engage in a strong marketing campaign. If online marketing and driving sales is not your strongest point, you’ll quickly find Teespring tiring. Thus, Teespring will appeal to bloggers, social media influencers, and those with strong salesmanship.
The really bad part is the lost sales if you do not have subscribers reaching your target. For example, if you had set a sales target of 50, and only 47 persons submit pre-orders before the sales campaign comes to an end, Teespring will not fulfil the order. Following the calculation that users make an average of $10 per sale; that is a profit of $470 gone.
It should be noted that “lost sales” is not the only thing you’ll have to cry about. If you do not reach the sales target, all the time and effort put into the sales campaign will be down the drain. If you had used paid ads to promote your product, all of that will also be lost.
Also, it is not like you’ll have forever to promote your product and drive its sales. Teespring typically allows 3 – 21 days period for sales campaigns. Many will consider this period relatively short. More so, it puts pressure on you knowing that the clock is ticking and that if you do not reach the sales target, all your effort (and any money spent on the campaign) will be wasted.
One thing that was really annoying was that even when you meet your sales target, there is the risk of having fewer earnings. This happens because for many products, the higher your sales target, the lower your base price (the more you’ll earn). So while you’ll want a high sales target, you’ll also know that you need a realistic sales target that can be met.
If to be on the safe side, you set a low sales target, of say 20; you’ll get a base price corresponding to 20 items irrespective of whether you end up selling 100 units. However, if you had stated a sales target of 100, you’ll have gotten a relatively lower base price. This means that there is the risk of understating your sales target and being short-changed.
Thus, you’ll need one or two things about optimization when using Teespring; you need to find that optimal sales target. That is; fear of not being able to reach your sales target should not cause you to understate your sales target and get a poorer deal; but at the same time, seeking the best deal should not cause you to overstate your sales target and be unable to reach it.
Is there any one thing that people will not have one or two complain about? We doubt. However, the amount and frequency of the complaints tell you something about the functionality of the thing in question. So in reviewing online stores, we look out for what real customers that have used the store are saying about it. For this, we look at the top independent review platforms.
Looking at Trustpilot.com, we found that Teespring (at the time of writing) has an average rating of 3.5 out of 5 (rated by 17,541). This is not too bad a rating, especially if you consider that 61% of the 17,541 reviewers gave Teespring an excellent 5-star. However, some complaints (all from Trustpilot.com) stood out, which are as follows:
Some reviewers complained of having to wait for longer than expected/ advertised to receive their orders. For example, Ross Westmore says “Still waiting!!!” The review continued that “I ordered a tank top a month ago, still waiting for delivery, no contact details, no chance of a refund, out of pocket $50 …”
As mentioned earlier, production will not start until the sales campaign is over. Thus, customers buying from Teespring should understand that they are placing pre-orders, and should expect this to take some while.
By far the most prominent complaint in the review platforms is poor customer service. Reviews citing poor customer service include frustration at not finding being able to talk (via phone) to a support rep, live chat being anything but live, email response time being too long, bots responding and not real persons, responses obtained not helpful, and more.
For example:
There were also a few quality complaints. This range from poor material to poor print. For example:
However, it must be said that there are many reviews of customers who compliment Teespring on their quality. Thus, in our opinion, though there is the occasional off-quality, poor quality does not come out as a problem plaguing Teespring.
Teespring is a legitimate platform that you can use to buy or sell customized products. However, it differs significantly from other POD fulfilment services. Orders placed in your store are not immediately routed to Teespring for fulfilment; rather, you’ll set a “sales target”, and it is only when orders are placed to reach this minimum target that Teespring swings into action to make the products and ship out.
This operating model brings with it some undesirables. For example, you’ll launch a vigorous sales campaign so as to reach your sales target; you’ll have a limited time (3- 21 days) to round up your sales; the sales campaign window leads to a relatively longer delivery time, the possibility of not reaching your sales target, leading to your orders not fulfilled leading, leading to a waste of all your sales campaign effort; and more.
However, there are many things to love about Teespring – it offers a relatively wide range of products, it is absolutely free to use, and it offers some resources to help each of your sales targets.
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I only wish I could give it a negative star. I have sent three emails reference a order that was to arrive between May1-5. Not one response. I did a google search to find a customer service number and it listed four. Two to a recording that has no option to speak to anyone and the other two were actually to the BBB (LOL). The tracking number they gave me just says shipped to the country of origin and it has been that way for over a month now. I can't say how the customer relations rep treated me because they won't answer my email. THIS IS A COMPLETE SCAM. DON'T GIVE THESE CROOKS YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY.
I ordered one 5x t - shirt and y’all changed my credit card $ 129.95.
It was only so post to be $ 29.95 I believe. I would appreciate if y’all
Could take care of this ASAP.
Thank you
Timothy Atkins
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