Fuel: Print on Demand

April 1, 2022

Update (4/1/2022): Fuel used to be fantastic for its price offerings, but today prices rose as much as 30% on some items. As someone who buys blanks for a living by units in the thousands, I know the rates they can get them for. Super unfortunate that we will be taking our business elsewhere now for majority of our items. Update (1/8/2022): I want to to love this POD vendor so badly since there rates and interface are good, but it seems like every month theres a new issue. Lately they have been sending emails to our already massively jammed email inbox when something is out of stock, and they only give you two days to respond. They used to just put it in the "error" category and it was so much easier, we would swap it for a new garment on our own. Instead, we miss some of the emails, don't realize orders are cancelled, and then customers are mad they have to reorder (and we had no idea for weeks). Also - they are way behind the ball compared to other POD vendors when it comes to adding more variety. For instance, they only have 2 "low tier" hoodie options, when for most sellers those are the most profitable items. I have asked for over a year for them to offer a mid tier/top tier hoodie blank. Also - don't even thick about doing hats or beanies with them - they take weeks to produce and by the time they get to production, the color is 9/10 times out of stock. We just today switched to a new vendor for hats and beanies because this was a daily issue. Update (12/9/2021): Quality seems to have improved, have had under a .5% return request rate over the past few months. My only complaint still is the major out of stock problems we face with items like hats, select colors of blanks, etc. Lastly, and most importantly, they have a very limited selection compared to every other POD vendor. They only offer 2 hoodie blanks... like come on there are hundreds of blanks out there that could easily be stock, especially a "better quality" one compared to Gildan. We still have to use other vendors to get those nice hoodie items, and therefore charge our customers who buy multiple items for shipping twice since it cannot all be done on FUEL. Update (6/19/2021): Quality is not good, had an issue last week and this week. Made a 13 item order, and 8 of them are faulty. Not sure how 8 faulty items are able to sneak by quality control, that must not even exist. Print on them is off centered, front and back, as well as sizing wrong on many of the items. Should not have to worry that my clients are going to make a big order and half of it be faulty. Get what you pay for, now looking for new POD vendor. Update (6/16/2021): Finally, things are mostly back to normal. Shipping is back to normal speeds, MOST items ship within 7 days. Sometimes faster. They did just raise shipping prices which is unfortunate but its the way of the world. Going to keep my rating at 4 stars permanently until they expand their product offering in the categories that matter to the influencer business such as sweatpants and shorts. Also, limited products in the hoodie section (top sellers for influencers). Wish they had a garment like Independent Trading Co or another midweight hoodie, the blanks are only a few dollars more wholesale. A lot of their competition offers it and sadly we have to use them for those products, and therefore have to charge our customers for shipping twice, damaging the customer experience. Would love everything under one roof. Another feature that is needed, custom neck tags. Our business is going to be at the point within the next 3-4 months where we require custom neck tags to uphold the brand identity as we hit new follower milestones, so hopefully they adopt it soon or we will have to jump to a new platform that can accommodate our growth. Update (6/4/2021): Fuel seems to have fixed the MAJOR issues they were having with production, hopefully that does not happen again. If it does, will definitely be my last straw with their service. That being said, they have returned to normal fulfillment times. It seemed like only when I mentioned that I was so unsatisfied that they started to care about giving me updates about the 30 day delays. I had to ask for refunds for old orders when as a company that should be automatic. They need to focus more on being customer centric and I think then they could become a top POD company, but they are long from there. I should not have to ask about refunds for things that should be so obvious especially when we do over 10,000 products a year with them. They also need a wider selection of products to compete with the other POD companies. For hoodies (top seller) they only sell "low tier" hoodies, and do not sell shorts or sweatpants of any kind. Those are major staples in our industry and are now getting those made by the thousands by an overseas vendor and using a 3PL. Wish I could have everything in one platform. Update (5/6/2021): Wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but we officially hit having orders that are 30 days old, which is completely unacceptable. No clue how it takes 30 days to put an item in a printer. We have started to shop around for a new vendor, but the process of transferring all our orders would be a pain. They refuse to issue refunds for super old orders as an apology which is crazy, so I decided to refund the customers that are this overdue at my own expense, and eat the cost of the item since I still want them to receive it and provide good customer service. Hopefully they can return to normal turnaround times soon or else we will be forced to leave Fuel out of respect for our customers. Original Review: Quality: Not bad for the price. The print comes out right 98% of the time. We have shipped over 7,000 items from them this year and I would say we had issues on about 100 of them. Shipping: Shipping, especially international, can be super slow. Some international shipments take at least a month for delivery. Domestic can be quick, depending on where it ships from and if it is DHL ecommerce or USPS Priority. Turnaround time: This is my biggest complaint. Sometimes they ship stuff out in one day, sometimes it takes a month. We currently have 8 orders that are almost 30 days old. That is not acceptable for any business, and I wish they would recognize that and give some refunds like any other proper business would do. Customer Service: Respond pretty quickly, but sometimes they have a hard time understanding what I am asking for. I think the customer service is international based. The App: The app must be accessed through Shopify, you cannot access it on a standalone website. The system is relatively dynamic, but when you try to change existing items, etc, it gets pretty complicated. Luckily their FAQ gets updated somewhat frequently. Overall: If they could just fix their turnaround time, or at least be sympathetic to their customers when they get promised from customer service that are not kept, they would be able to compete with the big players in POD. I work with other clients that could bring them thousands of orders per year each, but I am refraining from bringing them over to the FUEL because of turnaround times.

April 28, 2021

Avoid at any cost. Read and don't dismiss these comments. Worst POD vendor I've used. Poor mgmnt. Incapable of processing orders in the order they receive them. Orders frequently get "stuck" in their system or so Max says. They don't care appear to care about small companies. They likely process orders from their bigger clients first. They perform maintenance without warning and then cause massive shipping delays. Shopify should be ashamed for allowing this app on their platform. Take your money elsewhere. Lot's of POD apps out there and Fuel shouldn't be on your list of options. Shopify clearly doesn't vet the vendors providing services on their platform or this company wouldn't be allowed on it.

April 23, 2021

Avoid this app. There are better POD companies out there. Quality, shipping time, support and every other thing is horrible.

April 21, 2021

Very poor customer service, they don't even reply to you even after 24 hours. You have to wait a long to get a reply. Their app doesn't work it won't show tracking detail for the orders i complained about and they promised to give a tracking details sheet and still not given it to me its been 3 days. Their production time is 5-12 business days and the orders of the march are still in production. Please don't use this vendor they will promise you that don't respond to you properly and take huge time to reply. They deserve negative stars.

April 19, 2021

VERY VERY BAD, Too many orders have not been produced even though it has been more than 20 days......

April 16, 2021

From so good to so VERY BAD. Used them for 6 months, started off great, loved their low prices and highly responsive customer service. Over the past month they have gone from so good to HORRIBLE. More than 2 weeks delayed in production (with no communication), sending out wrong sizes when they do finally produce something. Waiting to get last few orders out of production then will never use them again.

March 30, 2021

I can not satisfy with your service. Very Slow, Delay without notice. Refuse and refund at the end of handling time. Not only one time you make me disapointed.

April 26, 2021

From SO GOOD to so VERY BAD. Before 03/20 everything are ok but from that until now production time takes too long time, customer support are very bad. they don't even reply even after 24 hours. I won't using it anymore

Jan. 28, 2021

I made sample order 22.12.2020 received 28.1.2021. My customers won't wait for their orders to arrive over a month without a huge load of complaints. Print quality was totally horrible and I also bought many different products to test fabric quality and I must say that I would not pay even one dollar for these items. This company has a long way to go if they want to provide quality apparel with good prints. But surely their prices tells the story, with the cheap prices you get cheap products. One star for good customer service.

Nov. 9, 2020

I tried to test this company but on two several occasions, they canceled my order due to the shirt not having the inventory. When I contacted the customer service, which by the way is responsive - they advise me to make sure to check the inventory before placing an order and get this - it would still publish on your site. So basically, POD concept is I get to not predict what people would order. I rather pay extra than to get this headache.

Oct. 27, 2020

I used this app to supply teams with fan gear and player gear. hoodies and tees were always late. Always flawed or wrong colored. The claimed the stains were from pretreatment and would wash out it did not. Another order had the arms folded on to the print while it was still wet. ink on sleeve and ruined print. Some orders did not ship for nearly 3 weeks. DTG advertised at 2.5 business days. I was told every single time that they are completing that rate on 85-90 percent of orders. Over 10 orders with angry customers. Not just regular customers, sports mom customers who paid money to be left waiting. DO NOT USE THEM IF YOU PLAN ON SELLING TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY ESPECIALLY. All orders were shipped to central Indiana late, from Indianapolis supposedly.

Oct. 16, 2020

I placed an order on Sep 20th, and it's Oct 15th and still showing "shipped". What a joke. Don't waste your time. They lure you with the low prices, but you pay for it in reputation and returns.

Sept. 23, 2020

Initially, I would've given them 6 out of 5 stars. They were prompt, the orders were on time (and insanely fast), and the prices were outstanding. Then orders started getting wrong....and the wrong items were shipped....and they were taking longer and longer....until finally I am having to sever my relationship with them altogether. There are still positives about this app - but the fundamental aspect of a fulfillment center is to fulfill orders...and Fuel simply cannot do that. Customers were waiting 4-5 weeks with no end in sight for orders - until I started having to refund customers their money. Hopefully they get their act back together - but for now, you should avoid at all costs.

July 28, 2020

Did my first order for my store. Took a good 1 month to deliver and upon arrival very bad quality of print

July 25, 2020

Thought this app would be a great provider for our company. Placed an order for a couple hundred dollars for some samples, multiple shirts had defects in their printing. A lot were already chipped straight from the box, prints weren't centered or aligned correctly, some shirts looked like they had run out ink as the colors were faded. Certainly not the kind of products we would want our customers to receive.

July 25, 2020

We have now done over 3000 orders in the past 2 months and they are terrible, shirts routinely take 1-2 months to deliver and customers get PISSED. There is a 1-3% error rate of misprinted graphics, crooked designs and bad prints, half prints etc. Use CustomCat, our orders have been shipping in 2-3 days and much higher quality with better automation.

July 21, 2020

I have worked with several POD providers in this pandemic..! This is the worst company ever. i just place the order on 6th july...my order still in production. all other POD providers do their fulfilments between 2-6 working days..! I never ever use this. very disappointed. You should really manage your resources to provide a better service than this.

July 17, 2020

Very bad! Terrible support! No ones support me. More than 30 days hasn't shipped yet, Wrong color, bad quality shirt

July 13, 2020

I ordered a hoodie with my graphic as a sample. You sent me a Fruit of the Loom T-Shirt. I waited over a week for this crap. How did your system process screw this up? The colors didn't even print well. I might as well buy my own DTG or sublimation setup. Disappointed!

July 12, 2020

Stay away from this junk service if you don't want your business to crash!! I have used a lot of services from different providers but I have not seen a bad service like Fuel. They don't even care about your complaints or suggestions, they simply take your money and do what they want, and you suffer the disastrous consequences of their bad way of doing things.