Whether you want to promote a brand or boost team spirit, chances are you need to create a custom t-shirt. The choices to fulfill your order can be overwhelming. Start with the right printing and fulfillment service to make the process seamless.
Take a deeper look into the top 5 t-shirt printing and fulfillment services before you create your next unique print.
The Top T-Shirt Printing and Fulfillment Services
- Best for Reliable and Efficient Order Fulfillment: The Fulfillment Lab
- Best for E-Commerce Store Owners: Printful
- Best for Holistic eCommerce Services: Shopify
- Best for Cost-Effective Shipping: Print Bind Ship
- Best for Creative Small Business Owners: Etsy
- Best for Quick Printing Services: Printify
Best for Reliable and Efficient Order Fulfillment: The Fulfillment Lab
- Best For:Reliable and Efficient Order FulfillmentVIEW PROS & CONS:securely through The Fulfillment Lab's website
In the eCommerce space, there’s quite a lot going on for every retailer. You’re selling products to consumers who expect a fast turnaround, but how can you make the most of your business and get the fulfillment services you deserve?
When you use The Fulfillment Lab, you can take advantage of a 3PL service that leverages state-of-the-art facilities, processes, order fulfillment, warehousing solutions, inventory management options, shipping and more. As you take advantage of these services, you can foster greater loyalty amongst your customers, and you also get:
- Reliable 3PL services
- Support for startups and established small businesses
- Logistics and warehousing options
- The ability to grow your business
- Scalable fulfillment services
- Agile proprietary software
- Global fulfillment services (GFS)
- Integration of over 40 platforms, including Etsy, Shopify, Amazon and more
- Real time inventory tracking
- Quality customer services
While climate-controlled facilities are not available, you still have an incredible opportunity to streamline the options you have for shipping to your eCommerce customers. As you can promise better service for your clients, your business will grow that much faster.
Best for E-Commerce Store Owners: Printful
When you’re looking for a printing-on-demand partner, it’s wise to turn to Printful. This platform offers a unique customer experience that walks you through the process so there’s no confusion and you get the support that you need.
No matter what your line of work is, you can reach out to Printful to ask for printing of apparel, accessories, home decor items, promotional materials and more. There’s quite a large catalog to choose from, and every piece is printed expressly with your needs in mind.
There’s also a dedicated POD dropshipping tool that allows you to cut back on holding inventory, meaning that you can get back to the core of your business. You don’t need to handle fulfillment because Printful handles it for you, and the platform even integrates with the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market.
Best for Holistic eCommerce Services: Shopify
Shopify is a well-known e-commerce platform for online stores and retail. Anyone can set up an account to sell or manage their products.
Think of Shopify as an online source to build your brand, your business and start the process of selling products to your customers. It could be a great platform for your t-shirt printing and fulfillment needs. Using Shopify allows you to create and grow an online store for your business.
Best for Cost-Effective Shipping: Print Bind Ship
Print Bind Ship, is a large fulfillment company that specializes in apparel and promotional products.
What's unique about Print Bind Ship is their ability to provide extra customer care that you may not get with some of the more corporate entities. With Print Bind Ship, can you ensure that your product will come out looking professionally designed, and nothing will be shipped.
Print Bind Ship is a great provider for those looking for extra help and attention to ensure their design and packaging is top quality.
Best for Creative Small Business Owners: Etsy
Etsy is geared toward selling and purchasing custom, handmade or vintage items and craft supplies.
Etsy is its own storefront, so you don't have a standalone website if you choose to do your t-shirt printing and fulfillment on this platform. The benefit to this is that customers visiting Etsy are more likely to come across your online store without directly searching for it.
The categories on Etsy are endless. From jewelry to toys, furniture, and other home decors, Esty seems to have it all. Independent artists may be drawn into this service for 1-of-a-kind items they are looking to buy or sell.
Best for Quick Printing Services: Printify
Printify is a print-on-demand source that makes fulfilling and distributing your products fast and simple. With Printify, you can create your own designs, set up an online shop and share on social media without having to go through the hassle of managing your own shipping and fulfillment.
Small business owners and entrepreneurs can get started on Printify for free. If your sales are climbing, you also have the option to opt into their Premium or Enterprise plan for a reasonable monthly rate.
Seeking Out Flexible Shipping Solutions
The Fulfillment Lab is a company that works with small to medium-sized businesses, ensuring that each business can successfully ship to customers without the headache of packing boxes and slapping labels on each package. This is the most important part of the process, and it works in the background while you can get back to the core of your business. This is not a customer-facing enterprise. The Fulfillment Lab simply takes care of all your fulfillment needs in the quiet.
Other businesses are more focused on the customer-facing aspect of eCommerce. For example, you don't need to have thousands of customers and an established brand to use Etsy successfully. You can come and go as you please without cost holding you back, and there is flexibility in what you choose to list for sale.
Anyone can buy from Etsy. Looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift and don't know what to get? From handmade cards to jewelry, Etsy has a category for just about anything you could think of.
But flexibility within Shopify is apparent with the available customization opinions. You can choose exactly what you want certain aspects to look like, and there aren't extra hidden fees.
Perhaps the most flexible option for apparel fulfillment would be Print Bind Ship. With Print Bind Ship, you will work directly with their team to find a completely customized solution that would make sense for your product needs.
When customizing with Printify, you have fewer options, but this may make it less complicated to make decisions. Your choices are clearly displayed, making it easy to select what you are looking for.
If you are looking for a truly customized solution thats flexible, Print Bind Ship can offer real support as you work directly with their team.
Why Do Business Owners Need Plugins?
If you are looking for a greater amount of plugins, Etsy probably isn’t the platform for you. It doesn’t allow you to add additional plugins, and integration is not as simple.
Pritinfy has 400+ plugins for WooCommerce. They’re free and make it simple to fulfill all your logistical technical requirements.
The winner for plugins is easily Shopify. It offers nearly 4,000 different plugins through the app store and has more than 1,500 that are completely free.
How Can Small Business Owners Use Templates to Sell Their Products?
Etsy has more of a basic template set-up and won't allow for as many design choices as Shopify or Printify. Customization in Etsy's templates are similar in appearance to other platforms, possibly making it harder for your design to stand out in the crowd.
Shopify allows for full control in terms of designing your brand’s website. With over 70 already-made templates to choose from along with the ability to design your own, you are bound to find an eye-catching blueprint for your company.
But Printify offers over 500 designer-made templates and has a 5 out of 5-star rating, taking the lead in this category.
eCommerce Shipping Services on a Budget
The Fulfillment Lab offers the most complete fulfillment services with savings upfront and low pricing for your packages. Also, you can reach out to their customer support team to learn how to dovetail your budget with The Fulfillment Lab’s services.
There are 3 price levels with Printify. To start off, this service offers you up to 5 stores at no monthly cost. Upgrading to the premium plan allows your business to manage more stores on your Printify account for $24.99 per month.
Opening an account with Etsy will be free, but there is a low listing fee of $0.20 on each item you post. There is also a transaction fee of 5% on every sale you make.
With Shopify, you are able to start a 14-day free trial at no expense, but after that, you pay $29 per month for the Basic Shopify package. The next monthly plan is priced at $79 per month, and the advanced Shopify package comes in at $299 per month.
To sell on an online platform for next to nothing, Etsy and Printify are the 2 t-shirt printing and fulfillment services you should consider 1st. Opening an account and selling on these 2 platforms is very cost-efficient. With Print Bind Ship, your pricing is always competitive but will be custom tailored to fit your needs.
However, if you have a large custom order of t-shirts you are looking to fulfill, you might get more out of paying the extra price for Shopify, as the other 2 services may not meet your needs.
How Does eCommerce Support Help Small Businesses?
The Fulfillment Lab gives consumers dedicated support that makes it easy to learn about every step of the shipping process. Yes, eCommerce companies may have quite a large inventory and need extra support, but they can get that support from The Fulfillment Lab where all their questions are answered and the customer support team knows where every package of item is located.
Users of Etsy have access to a help center if you come across something you are stuck on. This feature provides answers to questions from previous submissions asked by other users. You are also able to schedule a call with Etsy staff if the questions you are looking for are not already posted.
Shopify’s help center prides itself on the 24/7 live chat and support capabilities they provide. You can find previously asked questions, articles and helpful video tutorials within their help center location.
With Printify, you are also able to access a help center. There you are able to search up any topics and find related questions relating to the problems you might have. You also have the ability to ask a question to the team, which states they will get back to you usually in under 5 minutes.
Blogging and eCommerce
Both Shopify and Etsy have pages set up geared towards helping their users start and create blog postings. Shopify and Etsy both have step-by-step instructions on how to go about making a page, with tips and tricks to ensure you are successful with your posts.
These 2 platforms express the knowledge that blogging will engage new customers and keep them coming. Printify on the other hand does not. For blogging purposes, it is clear that Shopify and Etsy are both winners, as Printify is lacking a bit in this category.
Find Your eCommerce Platform Today
T-shirt printing and fulfillment can vary in the quantity you are looking to produce, how custom you are looking to make your products and the customers you currently have through your business.
Make a list that highlights your brands’ features: what you sell, the size of your company, who your audience is, and use this when deciding what service you will use next. Don’t limit yourself to a single platform. It’s possible to manage more than one at a time if you think it is the best solution for your business!
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