hey what's up guys hope you're having a
good day in this video i wanted to make
you aware of two problems i've been
facing using printful to fulfill
hat orders okay i do sell a lot of print
on demand hats i know it's random i
never really thought i would sell
any print on demand hats honestly i
stumbled into selling hats uh by chance
really i saw an opportunity to present
itself this was years ago i jumped on
that opportunity made a lot of sales and
realized heck i should be selling more
hats after that because it was uh like i
said it was pretty pretty successful
that initial hat design that i launched
anyways the rest is history but in this
video there's really two things i want
to address one of them you really need
to know about if you're selling
embroidery in general not just hats but
embroidery on any product on printful
you need to know about this and the
second one is related to products going
out of stock
and alternatives having alternatives set
up so i've got three alternatives for
you to printful in case you are like me
and you've been seeing some of their
products going out of stock and putting
you in a tough spot so let's get started
quick reminder take advantage of the
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to have you in
alright so let's talk about the problem
here
the main problem that inspired me to do
this video
uh it's not a fun one to talk about
because it directly impacts our pockets
our profit right the reason we're doing
all this okay and that's why i really
need everybody to be aware of it
so if you didn't know already printful
charges six dollars and fifty cents for
digitization of embroidery files and it
is a one-time charge
per design all right and my
understanding of this having never
fulfilled any of these orders myself is
that this is common all right i had
talked to somebody who runs a uh print
on demand like i don't want to say
production company because it's really
like a small operation out of a small
warehouse
and he was saying that he has somebody
that he really likes they're
a graphic design artist that he really
likes the job they do he charges 15
per digitization okay so i had somebody
who's an expert in the industry who's
been doing this for years tell me he
pays 15 because he really liked the work
of that specific artist that he works
with so printful charging 650 in
comparison not that bad plus it's 650
now it used to be more it used to be
either 850 or 9 if i remember correctly
so but 650 is what it is i just need
everybody to be aware of that okay
so my typical approach is when i'm
pricing my embroidery products i try to
make ten dollars profit per sale okay
that way when this is like printful's
uh pricing that way the marketplace
takes their referral fee printful may or
may not take that digitization fee if
it's the first time that we order or
that somebody orders that design
6.50 is gone okay but if it's the second
time third time 50th time 100th time we
don't have to pay that all right so then
we get that as profit okay so ten
dollars profit is what i aim to make per
sale but here is the issue
lately and when i say lately i don't
actually know how long this has been
happening because i caught this
at least about a month and a half ago
maybe even two months ago and my
girlfriend marielle who also uses
printful and sells a lot on etsy
she noticed it but when she said it to
me initially i was like i think i've
seen the same thing but i kind of
brushed it off like no like
we shouldn't be seeing an error like
this happening and the error by the way
is that we are getting billed to
digitize files that are already
digitized so we've paid the 650
and we're having to pay it again
obviously this is not ideal
and i've bubbled it up to their support
but like haven't made any progress with
support they keep trying to tell me that
it's i mean honestly i don't even want
to get into it but
i've spent a lot of time like i'm a busy
guy i'm a one-man team for all the
youtube all the running my businesses
and everything so it's like i don't have
time to spend
with support helping them debug their
own system but i've spent quite a bit of
time here and we've made no progress and
they keep trying to tell me that
it's me and it's not it's for sure not
me like i've sold about 15 orders of
this one design and noticed it happening
at least three times right on record
where for sure it was an error
and then what i end up doing is
i edit the order
and all i do is i recreate the the exact
product with the existing designs that
are already digitized as you can see
here in this picture you see this down
here the green where it says flat
when you see that that means it's
digitized
so i recreate the order you can there's
a little edit button in printful so you
can hit change order then you can hit
edit all i do is i recreate the exact
order exact product and exact design
and then i don't get build the 650 that
i shouldn't be billed in the first place
right so the point of me saying this
guys is number one keep an eye out
nobody wants to pay an extra 650 per
order because that can literally make
you lose money if you didn't price your
products to account for that
digitization fee and if you've already
paid it well you should be profiting
right so pay attention if you see it
reach out to their support so they can't
say oh well it's it's you it's not us
because it's it's definitely them we've
seen it enough times now where it's for
sure them
and number three
edit your order recreate it inside of
the edit function
and delete the one that's charging you
the 650. so it'll literally show the
first product after you recreate it
delete the first row so that the second
row that you just recreated pops up and
that way you won't have to pay the extra
650. um as you can see here though like
all three of these files they're
actually the same design file
they had told me to re-upload it so i
re-uploaded it and then support after
telling me to re-upload it told me oh
it's because you uploaded a new file
that wasn't digitized i said no no that
only happened because you told me to
re-upload it so you can see we didn't
make any progress guys so i needed you
guys to be aware of that now problem
number two if you're still with me
this is something that i'm sure
everybody has
has had issues with right when you're
selling products in this case i'm using
hats as an example because i think hats
aren't as well stocked as like t-shirts
are so i've definitely seen a lot of
hats going out of stock uh i've seen you
know maybe not beanies necessarily but
this is just for the purpose of the
video i've seen some hats uh five panel
caps going out of stock i've seen some
snapbacks some dad hats etc when they go
out of stock
and you didn't make a sale it's okay you
just have to hope that you don't sell
the sku that's out of stock but of
course
you're going to make some sales that are
out of stock it's pretty much hard to
avoid this time year with the increased
demand that's going on on all these
platforms so what i just wanted to share
with you in this video
is that you have alternatives lined up
now depending on who you're currently
using to fulfill your hats
maybe printful is your alternative you
know what i mean if you're using printfy
as your primary
fine maybe printful is your backup
there is a lot of overlap now it may not
be the exact same hat
but unless you're advertising on the
front end to your customer that you're
selling a specific
model and type of hat like model plus
brand of hat unless you're doing that
these customers don't know you know what
i mean they see the end result in the
primary thumbnail and they say okay i'm
going to get a hat that looks like that
to my house
and so i mean what i'm really trying to
say is like don't sweat too much making
sure that it's the exact model you know
what i mean if you sell a a dad hat
that's black
and printful runs out and then you can
go fulfill it on the um unisex twill hat
right here
from printify
just do that don't think twice all right
it's not it's not going to be a problem
but you know i did want to make you
aware like the top two for hats in my
mind are printful and prinify for hat
fulfillment if one goes out of stock and
you need to
use a different production partner to
fulfill that order what i typically do
is like in this case i use printful for
most of my hats because that's just you
know that's my go-to initially
if i see an order come through that says
out of stock like they also email you so
you know i look at my side monitor
because that's where i've got my
printful email i see an email come
through oh this product's out of stock
so i go to the find the order in
printful hit cancel
and then i'll go over to printify find
an equivalent hat if it exists recreate
the order manually and then enable
shipping notification so that i get an
email when it gets shipped out from
prinify then i go to
amazon or wherever i'm selling
find that order manually upload the
tracking information because if it's not
synced with printify it's not going to
manually mark it as shipped and if you
don't mark it as shipped obviously you
get a late shipment against your account
that's not good i also wanted to make
you aware guys that
spod spreadshirt pod
they call it s-pod for some reason i
think this is like their drop shipping
kind of arm that integrates with shopify
they have some hats as well and i have
used them in the past to fulfill some
orders when i was like really out of
luck i think it was for a bucket hat
honestly
and then guten as well uh guten that's a
fun word to say
uh they also fulfill hat orders okay but
i have never actually used them for hats
uh i just checked before i recorded this
video and i found three different types
of hats that they fulfill looks like
snapbacks dad caps and trucker caps okay
and they are embroidery
so be aware that those exist
as far as pricing by the way i did
before i wrapped the video wanted to
mention that i had to use printify just
the other day for a in order what was
like last week honestly uh it took about
four business days to get it shipped out
and they didn't charge a digitization
fee so the all-in fee
for a design that like had never been
fulfilled by printify came to like 19
and change and it was on the unisex
twill hat and i don't have printify
premium so
that's actually would have been pretty
cheap it would have been like 16 bucks
and change to get that order fulfilled
through printify and you know all in all
from the customer i'd collected like 30
and change that would have been a pretty
healthy profit margin there so if you're
just starting selling hats
it's up to you guys like you may want to
consider
printify but you're also going to be
limited in your selection of hats
because printful has a massive selection
of hats and i actually prefer listing my
designs on all various types of hats
because people are weird and people have
their their uh
preferences when it comes to hats i
personally don't have very strong
preferences when it comes to hats i just
have like a couple hats that i like from
h m honestly not even hats that i
designed that i like to wear but anyways
guys that's it i will link to everything
in the description that i covered also
in the description will be a link to my
full print on demand course where you'll
find exactly how i make six figure print
on demand sales every single year thank
you guys so much for watching please hit
that like button subscribe if you're not
already and i'll see you soon