SkylarStyle review for Printful: Print on Demand

May 11, 2020

I hadn't had many issues with Printful up until this Pandemic happened. Unfortunately it seems that this pandemic has caught them off guard and now they are in over their heads. They went from the normal 3-5 business days to 7-10 business now I've recently been informed that is has been extended even further to 15-20 business days. That's almost a whole month in real time to a customer. No customer wants to wait that long. If they were ordering something from China or somewhere else overseas then that's to be expected but not from somewhere on US soil. I was told that during this time they're only operating out of 2 of their facilities with minimal staff while they've closed the other facilities. I'm like, "Hello, you guys are a fulfillment company... closing your facilities should not be an option when you have thousands of customers depending on you to fulfill their online orders!" Our customers are placing orders with us everyday and we're submitting those orders to Printful everyday so it's only making them even more backed up with orders... everyday! I also, hate how they will fulfill orders in a random order meaning they will fulfill an order that I submitted a a week ago when there are still lots of orders that I submitted a week before that waiting to be fulfilled. That makes no sense to me and it's not fair to the customers still waiting while another customer who ordered a week after them gets to receive their order before them. What happened to first come, first served? When I ask them to please fulfill my older orders because they are top priority, they give me some lame excuse about their policy then all of a sudden I have to cancel an order from 2 weeks ago because they refused to do what I asked. Great customer service means listening to your customers and trying to handle their orders the way they would like you to do so. We are the ones in direct communication with our customers. Printful doesn't know when a customer is threatening to cancel their order if it doesn't get fulfilled soon so that's the reason I'm reaching out them to in the first place. Doesn't seem like they care if you're not a huge customer to them. Overall, there has to be a smarter way for them to operate business. As big as they are, I would think they would know how but I guess not. They went from extending to 7-10 (3 day time span) to 15-20 (5 day time span) business days in less than a month. They had the nerve to tell me that they have everything under control... well it sure doesn't look like it. Men lie, women lie but numbers don't. Having things under control would not result in the fulfillment times getting longer and having to disable sample orders so they can focus on fulfilling the regular orders. Since no one knows when the pandemic will ever be over, what's next 25-30 business days?? Printful needs to fix this issue fast. I can't keep having to cancel orders and losing money because customers are tired of waiting. 5/11/20 - My reply to Printful's reply from 5/9... Just like I guessed it, their fulfillment time has now been pushed back even longer to 20-25 days. I encourage anyone who is thinking about using Printful for t-shirt fulfillment right now to ask yourselves if you are ready to have your customers wait a whole month for the t-shirt(s) they ordered? Printful has not been consistent whatsoever since the Pandemic started. The moment you have updated all of your customers on one extended time period, Printful comes right back and extends it even longer then expects you to go back again and inform all of your customers about the newly extended time frame. This is not fair to my customers who start to feel like they are being "BS'd around" because they are being told one extended time and patiently waiting then being told a week or so later that the fulfillment time will be even longer. That doesn't help the future of my company one bit nor does it help me gain repeat customers. Who wants to put the trust and reliability of their company in the hands of another company who isn't upholding their end of the bargain? Nobody that's who! It really feels like Printful is using this pandemic as an excuse to prolong fulfillment instead of prioritizing getting orders out in a timely fashion. As you see in Printful's response that they are working hard to get the orders out in a timely fashion well from my experience, there is absolutely NO truth in that statement... it is completely false. I'm so tired of having to email and message all of my waiting customers and inform them of the new and even longer extended fulfillment times. It has caused some customers to cancel their orders and demand refunds and I can't afford to keep doing that. I'm in the business of making money not losing it all because the fulfillment company is taking forever to fulfill the orders. I recommend anyone looking to sell t-shirts online to either find you a local print shop with DTG printers who can fulfill your orders quickly or invest in your own DTG printer and fulfill your own orders. I'm personally looking into both of those options. It's not cool to be at the mercy of a large fulfillment company, not have any kind of control over how quick your orders get shipped out and not be a priority whatsoever. I'm so over it.