Printful / Start a Print-on-Demand Online Merch Store

Printful review quick take: A print-on-demand platform helping artists start online stores with no inventory or upfront costs. Start earning money with your very own branding and product-based e-commerce business.

What is Printful?

Printful helps creatives start online stores with a print-on-demand dropshipping service. With Printful, you can sell custom clothing, canvas prints, accessories, and home decor without holding inventory or shipping items yourself.

What is print-on-demand? Print-on-demand is a service where businesses can order custom printed materials such as business cards, t-shirt screen printing, and other custom printing. The company prints the item and ships it directly to the customer.

What is dropshipping? Dropshipping is a business model where you sell products from other vendors. This means you don’t need to stock inventory; you only need to ship orders when customers place them.

Printful takes both of these models to help people create a product-based business without upfront costs and inventory. You can start selling immediately with hundreds of product options to choose from and offer worldwide shipping. Printful, founded in 2013, has shipped more than 38 million items, with customers selling over $928 million.

How Printful Works for Creators

There are no fees to sign up and no minimum order requirements with Printful.

• Use free design tools to test your ideas.
• Earn extra income with no upfront costs or investments.
• Reach customers around the world.
• All orders are printed and shipped with your branding using custom labels and promotional materials.

Easily start your online store with a wide variety of products to print your art, images, and ideas and sell.

• Fill your online store with as many products as you like without keeping inventory.
• Get demand printing services as products are sold.
• Use fulfillment services from printing, warehousing, and shipping.
• Products shipped to the buyer all under your brand.
• Printful charges for fulfillment.

Shipping: It takes 2-7 business days to create a product and fulfill an order. Shipping times depend on product availability and destination. Warehouse facilities are in places like North Carolina, Los Angeles, Toronto, and more.

Returns: You must set your own return policy and let customers know to contact you directly.

What Can You Sell on Printful?

Print on quality products for any occasion, such as:

• t-shirts
• pillows
• phone cases
• hats
• mugs
• and more.

How to Make Money with Printful

The money you make is the difference between the price the customer pays and the cost of the product and fulfillment services.

To start your own print-on-demand shop, do the following:

1. Have an online store or e-commerce marketplace.
2. Connect Printful through the e-commerce integration.
3. Create your designs or upload your artwork.
4. Select products and fill your online store with as many items as you wish.
5. Set your own retail price as high or as low as you want.
6. Promote your brand and store using social media, a personal blog, or a YouTube channel.

To make money, you must work to promote your shop and brand to others. Printful will handle the printing, shipping, and logistics to get your product into the hands of your buyers.

Payments

It’s up to you to set up a method for customers to pay you in your store. You should set up a third-party payment processor. Check out options like PayPal or Braintree. You can use the Shopify payment processing solution if you have a Shopify store.

Minimum Requirements

Printful requires you to have your own web store for smoother and automatic service. You can sell your Printful products on Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, and more. It’s your choice.

Learn how to start a blog and e-commerce website.

Fees

• Free to sign up.
• No subscription fee.
• Shipping fees depend on the item, quantity, and destination.

Who is it best for

Printful is best for the entrepreneurial artist or anyone looking to start a branded online store without managing inventory or fulfillment.

Printful Review for Sellers

Printful is a legit company helping thousands of people with their online printing business.

While researching online for our Printful review, we learned it has a 4 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot. Many online store owners sing the praises of the company for its quality, responsiveness, and fantastic service. However, there are negative reviews posted by customers who are printing items for themselves about the lack of customer service.

There are additional services offered by Printful that may be beneficial. For those looking to start a brand, you can take advantage of branding services and design help to build your product catalog.

If you do not want to deal with customer service, you may prefer print-on-demand services such as Redbubble, Teespring, Society6, and Zazzle.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Simple setup to easily connect to many e-commerce platforms.
• Printing and fulfillment are done for you.
• Access to all customer data and connections.

Cons

• No customer service support to buyers.

Printful Alternatives

Some Printful alternatives include Etsy and Merch by Amazon