Printful has exploded in popularity recently, as more and more people realize that they can use their Amazon Merch designs to make even more money by selling them on additional products & marketplaces.
Their user interface is very intuitive & easy to use, their support team is great, and most importantly there are no recurring fees to use Printful.
This means that as our print on demand production partner, they only make money when we do, so they have an extra incentive to make us, their sellers, successful.
Additionally, they reward their top merchants with volume discounts where if you cross the threshold for accumulated monthly sales, you receive a discount on all products sold the following month.
Currently this is the structure:
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The highest I've been able to achieve thus far was a 6% volume discount following my best month of profits to date: August 2018 (click to view income report).
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That meant that in September, every product I sold was discounted by 6%!
If you're new to Printful, don't be overwhelmed when you initially log in - I'll walk you through the "hotspots" of their site that sellers should be aware of.
By the way, they've been making lots of improvements to their website lately, so don't be surprised if things change a bit over time.
Let's walk through the main navigation:
My Printful
The My Printful dashboard shows you a sales breakdown for your eCommerce stores, including a breakdown of orders by status:
- Waiting for fulfillment
- Being fulfilled
- Action required
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Pay attention to "Action required" as this is where you'll be notified if products go out of stock or your design violates Printful's content policy (there could be other reasons, but those are the primary 2 I usually see).
They also use this dashboard as the default view where they show you upcoming webinars, blog posts, shortcuts to popular screens & your affiliate summary.
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Orders
Stay on top of your orders across all sales channels where you're using Printful to fulfill them.
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You can easily find specific orders using the Search feature to query on order ID / customer name (the two parameters I search on most often).
You can also sort orders by store.
This is useful when a customer emails you requesting a cancellation or address change (it's not as uncommon as you might think).
You'll also want to hunt down personalized orders that came in through Etsy on the Orders dashboard & perform the customization before completing the order.
Look for the blue "P" next to orders where personalizations were requested.
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File Library
Here you can access all of the files you've uploaded to Printful:
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This screen is for file management purposes primarily - if you're going to add new designs, you would most likely do that during the product creation process which typically begins on the "Store" tab.
Store
The stores you integrate your Printful account with are listed here.
The screenshot below is from my demo account:
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My primary Printful account currently has the following stores integrated:
My process for creating new products on my Amazon seller accounts involves keeping browser tabs open to both my Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk Printful stores & Seller Central accounts.
When I create a new product via the Printful Stores > Add Product wizard, I wait until the new product is no longer "Suppressed" before pushing a new product - this way I avoid getting throttled.
(Amazon doesn't want their catalog spammed with new products)
I push new products to Amazon all day while I'm at my computer - all you need is a GTIN exemption & you'll be able to expand your catalog of print on demand products over time.
When I'm not at my computer I'm still able to push products to Amazon from my phone via the Gearbubble integration - check out this YouTube video of mine where I walkthrough the process in more depth.
Billing
Here you can manage the following things associate with your Printful account:
- Volume discounts
- Payment history
- Billing methods
- Printful wallet
- Currency
You'll need a billing method on file so that Printful can charge you for the materials before they will fulfill any orders on your behalf (I've used PayPal & credit cards).
Personally, I keep a primary credit card & a backup charge method on file. PayPal is my backup backup plan.
During my best month of sales I had actually managed to max out my business card's credit limit because of how many sales I received (I'm planning on doing an in-depth writeup about this experience in the near-future).
I would also recommend utilizing the Printful wallet feature.
I set my account up to "Auto recharge" in increments of $100 which means I'm billed less frequently, helping to avoid fraudulent charge triggers by your credit card provider.
You'll also want to add your VAT information in the Legal Info section if you're VAT registered in Europe - otherwise Printful will charge VAT on your behalf. If you're VAT regsitered & don't let Printful know, you will pay double VAT.
Statistics
Printful created this new Statistics tab right in time for tax season in 2019.
It offers sellers a more in-depth look into their eCommerce product sales that were fulfilled by Printful.
Here are the stats for my best month of sales ever using the Printful + Etsy integration, where I sold $17,873.72 on Etsy in a single month including selling $5,093.56 in a single day.
Warehouse
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Similar to how we create FBA inbound shipments where we tell Amazon that we're sending in a product to be fulfilled by Amazon, Printful also has warehouses capable of acting as a 3PL (3rd party logistics provider).
They have warehousing available in the following locations (as of April, 2019):
- Charlotte, NC (United States)
- Riga, Latvia (Europe)
I've never used Printful as a 3PL, I'm all-in with Amazon FBA at the moment which allows my products to be Prime eligible (increasing the sales potential).
Affiliate
This is the home of Printful's referral program.
They pay a 10% referral fee from every order made by customers you refer - so please sign up using my affiliate link if you're not on Printful yet :)
I don't promote Printful because of the affiliate program incentives - I genuinely believe it's the best non-Amazon Merch POD production partner out there.
Settings
There's a broad set of general controls available here:
My Account: Update the account owner credentials.
- Notifications: Control when/why you receive notifications
- Users: Add other users to your account (such as virtual assistants to upload designs for you)
Stores
- Notifications: Control when/why you receive notifications, including push notification controls from the Printful App: Google Play | iOS
- Orders: Control which fulfillment centers are used to fulfill your orders - sometimes they offer promotional rates at certain warehouses, such as the newer Mexico fulfillment center. You can also control your order import settings & control unsynced item import settings
- API: Printful offers additional controls via their API hooks for custom integrations. Check out their API documentation here
- Shipping: Control the shipping methods available to fulfill orders that come through your stores
- Packing Slip: Brand your packaging for free by uploading a packing slip design
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- Returns: Control how returns are handled - this allows you to override the default setting of letting Printful handle returns on your behalf
- Order Pack-Ins: Include pack-ins with your orders:
"A pack-in is something extra you can add to your orders, like a flyer, sticker, business card, or button. It costs $0.75 per order, and $0.85 per day to store" - Amazon Regions: Authorize Amazon regions. The same way that you must open a new Seller Central account to sell on Amazon.co.uk, you would also have to open a new Printful store and integrate it with your .co.uk account
- Amazon GTIN Exemption: Acquiring a GTIN exemption allows you to create product listings on Amazon without requiring a UPC code
Help
Printful support is available via live chat on their website, as well as via email at support@printful.com.
You can check out their frequently asked questions here for support on general issues.
And last, you can always ask me questions on Facebook in the Ryan's Method Passive Income Facebook Group (or in the comments below)! My response time is probably faster than Printful support :)
Thanks for checking out my article - if you haven't done so already, sign up for Printful »
