Deep Sea Dreams review for Fuel: Print on Demand
Sept. 14, 2021
The company is great, the customer service is great and their printing quality control is great. Nearly 900 T's sold and less than 1% have had an issue related to their printing! I am very happy. But here is an issue I raised before once which I don't think they clearly understand. Due due todays logistical supply issues, often certain colors are not available. When a specific size and color are not available you get an error message on that order. At this point you have to notify the customer and then provide them with a list of colors for that size which are available. This takes going into their inventory popup, selecting the style of shirt and scrolling through a list of nearly 30 colors and 6 sizes. You then have to open another window with a sample of colors available and mark the colors off for the customer, then send the customer an email asking to please select another. It takes at least a half hour to do this and then send an email, once you get a reply then you have to go back in the apps orders program and change the color to resubmit the order. This is a big pain and time is money when you go through this process. Their site and process designers could easily create an automated reply which lists ONLY the colors available for that particular size and style shirt. This list would also need to show the actual sample colors available. Thus this could then be quickly sent (forwarded) to the customer for them to choose a replacement. My one year anniversary using Fuel was the end of May for the record they produced nearly 800 shirts for me and maybe 6 had issues with poor printing and perhaps 3 where due to my design (lines letters too small etc. Every time they quickly replied an the problem was solved by sending out a new shirt! Again my only issue is the cost for the second design image at $5 as I want to keep costs down as low as possible. December 9th, 2020 Since I restarted my store using Fuel at the end of May, as my main POD supplier, Fuel has printed me nearly 600 shirts / hoodies! About 4 of these shirts had issues with the image alignment / quality control. Additionally only 2 had issues with delivery (but these were to outside USA ) My biggest complaint is the following, in an attempt to keep the costs down and offer customers shirts at less than $20 each Fuels charge of an additional $5 for a second print on the same shirt is to me, high. Anyone can find the wholesale costs of the shirts offered and when one orders a second print, your buying the shirt again. The 5 dollar additional cost is significant and causes you to have to raise the price of the shirt 25%. It would be great if they could have some type of flexible plan that addresses these issues. I hope Max sends me an email with some ideas or offers to address this. July 20 Since May 26th, 2020 I have had over 200 shirts made by Fuel. I have yet to receive one complaint from a customer regarding quality issues (knock on wood). That says a lot! My only complaint, is that the charge for a two sided design is $5 extra. Which Is like buying the T shirt twice (I buy whole sell for special tees produced buy me so I know the cost). The $5 extra charge cuts deep into the profit margin if you are trying to keep your shirts under $20 with free delivery. I hope Fuel will reach out to me and perhaps come up with a better price? June 11 Received quick communication from Max Bhala and Fuel after raising a few concerns. I got my questions answered and for now things are going good. As those who are developing businesses know customer service is indeed the most important aspect in building and retaining customers. [email protected]
