Hey everybody!
I’m Wes from Printful!
I’m here with Vince, and we are at our Charlotte, North Carolina location.
And I’m going to be talking with him today about Warehousing & Fulfillment.
So, Vince, if you could just give us a brief rundown of what Warehousing & Fulfillment
is.
I can do that!
It’s a big step for Printful.
A lot of our customers may already be familiar with our on demand production, integrating
with their online platforms.
Now they can actually send us products that we cannot fulfill or will never produce.
It will be integrated directly with an existing online store, and we’ll store them here
in our warehouse and fulfill them on demand.
Great!
So if I was selling shirts through Printful, and then had another item, like a specialty
pen or something like that.
Right!
Very common, customers have us already set up as their on demand supplier, but they also
want to sell something else on the side.
So what they can actually do is send us those additional items, and we’ll store them here
in our facility.
If they receive an order for a t-shirt and that novelty pen, we can fulfill those together
for that same recipient, and get the orders out relatively quickly, even if it’s combined
with something that is printed on demand.
Very cool!
So it’s not just limited to our already existing customers, right?
If you don’t use Printful at all, you can still use it?
Absolutely, yes!
Some clients maybe only sell products that they hand-produce; they have them manufactured
somewhere else.
They can still sign up with us, utilize our technology that already exists for direct
integration with their online store, so we automatically receive the orders.
Really take a hands-off approach to fulfillment.
Whereas maybe they are going through a manual process right now.
They can completely avoid that, and utilize our services to fulfill any of those orders.
Let’s say I want to utilize this service.
Do I just mail you a bunch of books, or do I have to get that approved first?
There is a bit of a process.
You have to actually get your items approved before you can send us anything.
We are trying to avoid getting anything in house that might be either perishable, hazardous
material, or anything ultra fragile that might be susceptible to damage.
So if you submit a request for an item, we’ll get back to you and let you know that it’s
acceptable to send it.
And then you can begin the process from your dashboard to actually set up a shipment and
have those products mailed to us, and we’ll store them in our inventory.
Very cool!
We actually have tutorial videos on how to get your products approved and connected to
your store.
You can find those on our Youtube and in FAQs, and we’ll leave links with this video as
well.
Can you ensure the safety of the products?
Someone’s mailing you the goods, so they are here, out of their hands.
What does that look like?
Yes, that’s a very common question.
Some clients will send items that are of a higher value, and keeping those safe is very
important to us.
All the items are stored within our facility, which is under a 24 hour surveillance, they
are kept safe.
We do take a very good care of all of your products.
If anything were to be damaged in transit on its way to us, that’s something you would
need to work out with whichever carrier you sent the products with.
But once they are here we take full responsibility for the items.
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So how do the fees work?
Is there a fee to store it and then ship it?
What’s the calculating factors for those?
Right, so it’s important to understand different ways that we charge for this service.
Obviously, there will be a monthly storage fee.
The minimum is 25 dollars per month, but we calculate it based on the square footage of
the product that you are sending to us and how much space it takes up.
The more of an item you send us, the lower the cost is per square foot.
But then another charge you need to keep in mind is for orders that are fulfilled, picking
and packing orders.
There is a fee to fulfill, as well as a fee per item.
We list all of that right on our site, so you can see ahead of time how much you’re
going to pay.
Make sure you send us a fast-moving product, so you’re making the best possible margin.
OK, great!
So there is actually a calculator on the site, where I can plug in the dimensions, and weight,
and all that stuff?
Exactly!
It will estimate what your monthly storage will look like and give you an idea of what
it’s going to cost to keep those items in-house with us.
Do I have to ship the stuff personally myself to you?
Let’s say I’m getting something like stickers made by a company.
Do they have to mail them to me, and then I mail them to you?
What is the process?
For these items, as long as you have the item approved in advance, it is perfectly fine
for you to have a manufacturer ship those items directly to us.
We will process them the same as if you sent a shipment to us directly from your own home.
In any case, those items can be mailed directly to us from an outside manufacturer, a friend,
a family member.
As long as it’s addressed properly and the items were approved in advance, there is no
issue at all.
So what if I have a couple of different products that I want to warehouse here.
Can I mail those all in the same packaging, or how does that work?
Yes, absolutely!
As long as your items where approved in advance, you can mix items within a single package.
We will open them, we will pull out each item, verify the weights and the dimensions of each
product to make sure you are being charged correctly.
Even if it’s a variety of different items, different colors, different sizes, or just
totally different products, they can all be sent in the same package.
You do not have to individually box and ship each item.
Where is Warehousing & Fulfillment available at right now, as far as Printful goes?
We have it available in the US, and it’s also available in Europe.
So you can fulfill international orders through Warehousing as well.
Great!
So if I have a base in Europe, I can split some products to Europe and here.
Correct, yes!
Some clients, who maybe see a bigger base in Europe, might want to send some products
there as well.
That is completely an option!
The only thing to keep in mind is that you are charged based on how many of our facilities
you are going to utilize for storage.
Talk to me about some of the advantages of using Printful for Warehousing & Fulfillment.
You know, that’s actually a great point!
Since Printful is really a technology company at its core, we have already set up integrations
with so many platforms online, where a lot of clients are already selling products.
Now you have the ability to have those orders directly sent to Printful for fulfillment.
Whereas using other fulfillment options, you may not be able to use any direct integration.
You are doing a lot of manual work to get those orders fulfilled, or you are using a
platform where they control the pricing, they control how much you can sell the item at.
With Printful you can still set your own pricing, you are in complete control of your profit
margin, and you have a direct integration with an ecommerce platform that you already
are comfortable using.
Vince, thank you so much for sitting down with us and talking about this new exciting
venture with Printful!
If you have any more questions about Warehousing & Fulfillment don’t forget to hit up our
support team (support@printful.com).
We also have a great FAQ section and tutorial videos about Warehousing & Fulfillment.
So check those out, and we would love to help you out as far as that goes.
Thank you so much, don’t forget to subscribe for more content like this!
Hey, Wes from Printful here!
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