6 Print on Demand Services for Your eCommerce Business (2024)
Have you ever dreamed of selling your designs online?
Maybe you have a passion for art and would love to see your creations printed on a canvas. Perhaps you’ve always been interested in fashion and want to produce your own clothing line.
In the past, making a business out of your creative skills wasn’t easy. Often, it meant paying for a space where you could open your store and making everything from scratch.
Fortunately, the age of the internet has changed all that.
Today, you can sell virtually anything online, through social media, your own website, or a marketplace. There are even people to help you fulfill orders.
What is Print on Demand Selling?
POD or Print on Demand companies belong to the “dropshipping” environment for online selling.
These dropshipping merchants handle the hard work of delivering items to customers on your behalf. You choose a merchant you want to work with, and they handle creating, storing, and delivering products. You don’t even need to order any stock in advance.
Print on Demand dropshipping services deal with everything from printing your products, to packaging and shipping. All you need to do is design your items and find customers.
Some POD services integrate with your website builder, allowing you to create a unique brand. Other solutions are similar to online marketplaces. You list your products alongside other options online and attract the attention of an existing audience.
Choosing the right print on demand company to work with is how you keep your stress levels low and your profits high.
We’ve put together this quick list to help you make the right decision.
1. Printful
Probably the go-to print on-demand solution for many companies, Printful makes selling your designs online simple. You can choose from a wide variety of products to add your designs to on Printful, including custom clothing, home décor, and accessories. What’s more, most products are usually ready to ship to a customer within 2 to 5 days.
Printful is a leader in versatility for print on demand production. You can access direct-to-garment printing, embroidery, sublimation printing, cut-and-sew, and so much more. There’s even the option to add tear-away tags to your clothes. Printful also features a built-in mockup generator for quick insights into what your designs might look like.
Best for Printful is worth a look if you’re looking for a reputable company to help you get started with design-based dropshipping. There are lots of printing options, and you get a great shipping experience for global locations.
Pros:
- Quick shipping to locations worldwide
- Excellent rates for clothing and shipping
- Mockup generator for testing your designs
- Lots of printing options to choose from
- Excellent user-friendly interface
Cons:
- Not the least expensive options on the market
- Some Shopify and WooCommerce customers have issues with shipping settings
2. Printify
Printify is another POD selling tool similar to Printful. This company offers tons of way to take your designs to market. You can print on leggings, t-shirts, sweatshirts, home accessories, and more. What’s more, Printify benefits from a global vendor network.
The vendor network means you can choose the vendor that’s most suited to your needs, and access cheaper products and shipping as a result. Just pick the partner you want to work with, and they’ll handle order fulfillment on your behalf. You can even sign up for Printify’s premium package to get a 20% discount on all of your orders.
Best for Printify will stand out to design companies looking to scale. If you start to sell a lot of products, the premium membership will save you a lot of money. There’s also a wide selection of global providers to choose from to help you get the right price.
Pros:
- Wide network of global vendor partners
- Fantastic premium option for companies selling a lot of products
- Hundreds of product options to choose from
- Cheaper wholesale items than you might get from competitors
- Reliable customer service
Cons:
- Doesn’t integrate with every website builder
- Fewer options to make your brand stand out
- Some vendors are more reliable than others
3. TeeSpring
If you’re looking for a POD dropshipping service that will make selling easy, TeeSpring has you covered. This excellent company started life as a company just selling custom T-Shirts. Today, you can customize a wide selection of products from Teespring, including socks, home décor, accessories, and more. TeeSpring stands out for its ease of use –especially for beginners.
Creating a mockup of the products you want to sell is very straightforward. Once you know that your design will work well, you can use the TeeSpring team to deliver products to customers in no time. TeeSpring even offers access to a “boosted network” so you can get a head start on finding customers to sell to.
Best for: Teespring is a good option for beginners to selling online. The Boosted Network feature means that you can find buyers faster. Plus, the Teespring tool comes with a great mockup generator, so you can see how your product is going to look.
Pros:
- Great built-in mockup generator to see how your designs will look
- Fantastic ordering process with lots of custom products
- Easy to find customers initially with the Boosted network
- Simple and intuitive user interface for businesses
- Lots of opportunities to sell new products
Cons:
- Some limitations of how much of a product you can customize
- You have to pick a campaign time limit for each product
- Lots of competition already on TeeSpring
4. Gooten
Gooten is one of the better-known websites for print-on-demand ordering. If you want to get involved with creative dropshipping, and you want lots of options, Gooten is the choice for you. This site gives you the freedom to brand your products; however, you choose and connect with vendors all over the world. You can even sell other people’s designs on Gooten to expand your product portfolio.
If you’re looking for a service that will let you run your store like a pro, Gooten has you covered. This service even integrates with some of the most popular platforms on the web. You can sell through Shopify, eBay, and Amazon with Gooten. There’s a wide range of products to choose from, including tote bags, home accessories, and kids’ clothing.
Best for Gooten is great for its versatility. It can integrate with your existing websites and checkout tools, or help you to access new sales opportunities. Gooten is also a great choice if you want to build a bigger product portfolio.
Pros:
- Lots of different product options to choose from
- Easy-to-use interface that’s great for beginners
- Integrations with leading platforms for eCommerce
- Automated order tracking features included
- Options to sell other people’s designs
Cons:
- Not much support available for marketing your products
- Pricing can be a bit confusing at first
5. Lulu Xpress
Lulu Xpress is a unique kind of print on demand service for companies interested in dropshipping. Unlike many of the other companies discussed so far, this brand concentrates on printing high-quality books. If you’ve ever wanted to be an author, or you’re interested in producing your own guides, then Lulu Xpress can help.
One of the best things about this company is how quickly they can deliver your products to customers. Production takes as little as 2 to 5 business days, and you can ship items to people all around the world. What’s more, Lulu Xpress gives you plenty of options for exploring different kinds of books too. You can even connect your account to Amazon, or Barnes and Noble
Best for: Authors and creative people who want to create their own books. You can design guidebooks, novels, or even picture books depending on your interests. Lulu Xpress will handle all the hard work for you, and delivery is quicker than expected for most!
Pros:
- Excellent customer service from start to finish
- Perfect for writers or authors that want to create their own books
- Access to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and more
- Access to the Lulu Xpress marketplace to help you find customers.
- Quick shipping to locations around the world
Cons:
- Only suitable for printing books
6. Custom Cat
One of the world’s favorite dropshipping companies for print on demand, Custom Cat, is available in two different forms. You can access the “lite” version for free, and access lots of great low prices, like $9 t-shirts. Or you can sign up for a monthly subscription. The monthly subscription comes with much lower prices so that you can increase your margins.
If you’re looking for a company that will help you to grow your brand rapidly, and you already know how to sell high volumes, this is a great tool for you. Custom Cat also has no minimum order requirements, and you can enjoy things like high-resolution printing which you might not find elsewhere.
Best for: Custom Cat is best for high-volume sellers. If you’re familiar with Shopify, this could also be a great option for you because the service integrates directly with Shopify stores. There are tons of printing options to choose from too.
Pros:
- Great selection of printing options to choose from.
- Lots of different products to explore so you can build a full portfolio
- Fast turnaround of about 2-3 days on most orders
- Excellent premium plan will help you to create higher margins
- Integrates with Shopify
Cons:
- Doesn’t work Shopify alternatives
- Monthly plan can be a little expensive
Which Print on Demand Service is for You?
In this post, we compared six different POD services, and you may now feel overwhelmed; so which one should I choose for my business?
But instead of giving you one option, we give you two: Printful and Printify.
While both platforms provide solid ways of getting started in the POD business, they have some differences.
Fulfillment
Printful handles everything, including printing, packing, and shipping the products. They have a warehousing fulfillment service as well. Printful connects with many eCommerce platforms, so you can start selling quickly.
Printify operates with a print provider network that includes the whole world. Printify also handles the entire printing, packing, and shipping process, but they do not offer the warehousing option.
They also offer more products than Printful.
Platform Costs
Both services are free to get started.
With Printful, you pay the costs of manufacturing and shipping. They also have an upcoming monthly subscription service with their Growth or Business plans. With these plans, you can access lower product prices and other perks.
With Printify, you pay for the products and shipping. However, if you have outgrown your free account, you can opt into the Printify Premium plan (USD 24.99/month), which is charged monthly or annually. With the subscription, you get 20% off on most Printify products.
Shipping Times and Costs
The fulfillment and shipping times and costs differ between these two services.
With Printful, creating the product and fulfilling the order takes two to five business days.
The shipping time depends on the product: a t-shirt in the United States ships in 2-5 business days, and a single item will cost $4.69 (additional products cost less). The timeframe, however, is an estimate. The shipping follows the fixed pricing, which you can find on their website.
Printify’s production time is estimated to be 2-7 days, almost the same as with Printful. However, the shipping costs and final delivery time depend on the selected third-party printing provider.
Printing Service
Printing differs between these two players.
Printful handles all the printing in-house, while Printify uses third-party partners to do the printing. Printful has also invested a lot in printing technology.
To see how the printed products look in real life, you should order samples. The terms, options, and costs of ordering them vary between Printful and Printify, so make sure to familiarize yourself with them first.
Other Differences
The most significant differences come in how many currencies are supported and how well each service integrates with eCommerce platforms.
With Printful, you can sell in 13 currencies. This number is substantially more than Printify, which supports five currencies.
Also, if you are looking for more eCommerce integrations, Printful is a winner with over 20 integrations. This figure includes eCommerce platforms and major marketplaces. With Printify, the number is 10.
Printful or Printify – The Final Decision Factors
In conclusion, it’s a tie between these two platforms.
If better currency support, better integrations, or more predictable costs and shipping times matter the most, Printful is the answer.
However, if you’d like a wider variety of products to sell, then Printify is your choice.
Choosing Your Print on Demand Service
Finding the perfect print on demand service can help you to create a robust creative business in no time.
With one of the suppliers above, you could be shipping your designs around the world faster than you’d expect. What’s more, you get to reduce many of the stresses associated with starting a business from scratch.
Print-on-demand services give you a low-risk way to launch your own company in today’s eCommerce market.
Once you get started, why not learn how to increase your chances of future sales with a great email marketing tool?
Which POD solution will you be using this year?
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