DREAM ON by Jasmine Lorimer review for Printful: Print on Demand

Jan. 4, 2022

My experience with Printful has been like a toxic relationship. A wave of good times and total nightmares. We've had problems with products (one time my customer received a bag that said "coffee, squats and Jesus" - not something I sell) and other times it was crooked or misplaced prints. Despite selling over $50K in the last 6 months however, the company has shoved my business aside. They've hired inadequate shipping couriers and failed to provide a solution when over 20 of my orders were completely lost over the last 2 weeks. Their only solution to this ongoing issue is for me to upgrade to the Pro Membership for $65/mo, where I can choose a reliable courier myself, which for the bare minimum (the expectation for shipments to reach my customers, as per their entire business model), seems unreasonable. Before the current shipping fiasco, and right after my first big round of sales, I was offered the Executive discount, which isn't much - a dollar or so in savings, per sale. Since I sell in spurts each time a new product is dropped, this doesn't allow for me to stay consistent with sales numbers. A month or so after my first product drop, I was approached by a high level account manager (Samanta) who wanted to "check in" and see why I wasn't making the same sales that I had originally made within the first week - I explained my business model and she continued to press me, letting me know that she'd like to see $15-$20K in sales moving forward in order for me to keep my Executive discount. She said that this wasn't a hard and fast rule but a negotiation for me to keep the existing rate. This felt gross to me since I hadn't asked for the discounted rate in the first place - it was applied as a courtesy in what I assumed was an attempt to create an ongoing business relationship. Being given sales targets as if I was a low-level employee of this 3rd party app left a bad taste in my mouth, and as soon as I expressed that, I was met with hostility and a lot of ego-driven passive aggressive responses. Multiple emails followed with her mentioning my "unwillingness to cooperate" until I asked her not to email me again. I chose to look past that until the recent shipping incidents and the lack of cooperation from the Printful team. It seems that they will only do what it takes to protect their bottom line, even if that means that your business suffers the consequences. They seem to be using the poor delivery performance as leverage to move me into an expensive Pro Membership as they understand that it's my only option to provide positive customer experiences. They have acknowledged the shipping issue and refuse to make changes. They do not care about your business and they do not care about your customers. Unfortunately I am still with Printful until I find a solution to move my products to a new fulfilment service - a lot of the damage to my business' reliability through the eyes of my customers has already been done. Save your business's reputation and all of the stress that will inevitably occur in dealing with this company - please go elsewhere. (Shout out to Mariam though, she is seemingly the only good human at that company)