Print on demand business is a great way to earn money over the internet.
However, if you are new to the industry, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of apps and software in the market.
And choosing the wrong one could mar your business right from the very start.
But not to worry, in this article, we will take a look into the features of two of the most popular POD platforms – Printful and Print Aura.
Let’s dive right in.
What Is Printful?
Image source: Printful
Printful is an order fulfillment and print on demand service that allows you to get a handle on all of your customized product designs and orders.
With an easy to use interface and high quality products, it’s a great option for beginners or even for experienced retailers looking to expand their Print on Demand (POD) offering.
With Printful, launching your online store is as easy as it gets.
You get to invest in an online store, but with low risk and without investing in printing equipment, storage, or inventory.
The platform takes care of the printing, packaging, and shipping, thus allowing you to focus on creating great designs and marketing your products when they go live.
To get started, you only need to create a free Printful account and connect your online store with a few clicks.
Printful connects with a number of e-commerce platforms so you can choose the one that suits you best.
Once you are registered, you can sync your custom designs with a bunch of products available on Printful, which they’d prepare, pack, and ship whenever you get an order.
You can also opt for their warehouse and fulfillment services instead.
In this case, you will have to send over your physical products, which they will store, and then pack and ship to your customers whenever they make an order.
These two modes aren’t mutually exclusive; you can always do both.
Here’s how it works:
Let’s say a customer, John, visits your store and orders a product that he likes.
This could be one of the customized products on Printful with your design on it or one of your own physical products in their warehouse.
Because your store is synced with Printful, John’s order is automatically placed with them and they charge you for the fulfillment as soon as the order is confirmed.
If this is a product with your design fulfilled by Printful, they prepare, pack, and ship it.
On the other hand, if the item John ordered is a product you stored in Printful’s warehouse, the process is similar. Printful will still pack it, ship it, and charge you for its fulfillment.
The only difference is that you will make a higher profit.
You will also have to take into account a monthly storage fee, which depends on the size and quantity of items.
In both cases, Printful fulfills the order and sends it to John, with your brand name on the packages.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
Getting started with Printful
To get started with Printful, go to the website’s homepage and click the signup button to take you to the signup page.
Image source: Printful
Fill the fields appropriately and hit ‘Sign up’.
After signing up, you will see a window that highlights the steps that you will need to take to create a basic store.
Image source: Printful
If you are not ready for a store yet, you can choose to order products directly or try Printful’s warehouse and fulfillment services.
However, if you want to use Printful as your dropshipper and production service, you’ll need an actual online store.
In order to create one, choose the ‘Create a store’ option.
Stores are usually created on e-commerce platforms, so choose the platform you want to use, register there, and then follow the instructions.
Don’t worry about getting lost in the process.
Aside from the fact that using Printful is not so technical, you can also seek help by checking out the help page.
Once your store is created, get back to Printful’s ‘getting started’ page.
Now, it’s time to design your products.
After you select the ‘Design products’ option, choose a product you want to create, adjust colors and sizes, and create a text-based design or upload ready-made files.
Image source: Printful
On the following page, edit your product’s title and description, adjust your profit, and after a few moments, the product will be added to your store.
If your platform doesn’t support product push, you will have to create them manually.
First, you will create a product on your platform and then sync it with Printful.
Then the next step will be to set up billing.
You will need a valid payment method saved to your Printful account so that you can receive orders.
To do that, click on the ‘Set up billing and payments’ option on the ‘Getting started’ page.
Once you are there, insert your billing information and save the payment method.
Image source: Printful
Once you have created your basic store, there will be three more steps to make it even better.
You will have to customize your store, add tax, and set up shipping.
Each step is as important as the other and you will need to spend more time researching them before proceeding.
On Printful’s FAQ page, you will get more info on how to go about these three steps and once you are done, you have successfully set up your Printful account.
Integrating Shopify with Printful
Connecting your Shopify store to Printful is easy.
Before connecting the two platforms, though, you will need to create accounts on both.
In order to register on Shopify, choose one of their payment plans or start out with a free trial.
There are three plans available for Shopify in different price ranges.
Image source: Shopify
The major differences in these plans are the numbers of features such as staff accounts, shipping discounts, credit card rates, and much more.
Once your Shopify account is set, go on to your Shopify page and search for Printful in the Shopify app store.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
When you’ve gotten Printful on the app store, you can either log in to your existing account or create a new one.
Once you’ve logged in, you will be prompted to install the app and you will be connected.
Now you can start adding products directly from Printful to your Shopify store with their product push generator.
Integrating Etsy with Printful
To get started, create a seller account on Etsy.
Image source: Etsy
There are two steps you need to take before you connect your Etsy account to Printful.
First, if you set up a new Etsy account and don’t have any active listings, you will need to create and publish your first listing to your Etsy shop.
You can simply create a dummy listing, which you can delete later, but it’s important to do this before connecting to Printful for the integration to work. It costs 20 cents to create an Etsy listing.
Second, if you are selling print on demand products on your store, Etsy’s policy asks you to list your production partner. In this case, Printful is your production partner.
To add, simply go to the settings tab in your Etsy account, select the production partner option, and hit the ‘Add a new partner’ button.
Image source: Cutting for Business
Enter Printful as the name of your production partner.
If you don’t want your customers to see that Printful is your production partner, you can toggle off the button under the field.
But you will have to add a description that will appear in place of your production partner.
Then add your address, business description, and answer a few questions about your partnership.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
Once you have your first listing published, and Printful set as a production partner, head over to your Printful dashboard.
Under the store’s tab, select ‘Connect to an e-commerce platform’ and opt to connect to Etsy.
Image source: Etsy
When you hit the connect button, it will redirect you to the Etsy sign in/up page.
When you are logged in to your Etsy account, click ‘Allow Access’ to let Printful connect to your Etsy store.
After a while, your Etsy store will be connected.
If you already have existing products on your Etsy store, they will automatically push through to your Printful store after connecting.
If you have products on your Etsy store that you fulfill yourself or use another service to fulfill, you can simply mark it as ‘ignore’ in Printful.
Now, you can start adding products directly to your Etsy shop with Printful’s product push generator.
Integrating Amazon with Printful
To connect Amazon with Printful, you need a Printful account and an Amazon professional seller account.
Image source: Amazon
It might take Amazon up to two weeks to approve your account.
Once you have signed up on Amazon, head over to your Printful account and, in your dashboard, go to ‘stores’ to connect to an e-commerce platform.
When you opt to connect to Amazon, it opens up the integration setup page.
To connect with Printful, you will need a Global Trading Identifier Number (GTIN), exemption, or a registered trademark brand with Amazon.
Registering your brand for a trademark and then registering it for Amazon is complicated and time-consuming if you don’t already have a trademarked brand.
The process of getting a GTIN is easier and less complicated.
So if you need to get a GTIN, check the box provided for it during the integration process, then enter your Amazon name in the exact format it shows on your account.
Next up, you need to choose the Amazon regions you want to sell it.
Printful allows integration for the North American and European marketplaces.
Once you hit the ‘Authorize’ button, it might ask you to log into your seller’s account, so do that.
In the next step, Amazon requires you to submit a brand support letter to approve GTIN exemption.
Image source: Second Half Dreams
Printful has pre-created a form for you to fill out that will automatically generate the letter, so you will then choose if you are the owner of the brand you are applying for, or if you are selling on behalf of another brand.
Download and print the letter, then sign and scan it.
Once you’ve done that, submit your letter.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
When you’ve submitted your letter, you will wait for Amazon’s approval. It might take a few days and once the process is done, you will receive an email with the confirmation.
Then go back to Printful, select your Amazon store and you are ready to start adding products.
Integrating WooCommerce with Printful
Before connecting your WooCommerce with Printful, you’ll need to make sure that your WooCommerce is up to date.
Some of Printful’s features don’t work with older versions of WooCommerce.
Once you have confirmed that your WooCommerce is updated to the latest version available, first enable REST API in your WooCommerce setting from your admin panel.
Image source: The Blogsmith
In order to use WooCommerce API, you need to make sure that the permalink is not set to the default value.
Next up, install the Printful plugin.
Once the plugin is installed, be sure to activate it.
Image source: WooCommerce
And there you go, the integration process is complete.
Now you can access the plugin from your sidebar.
Next up is to connect your store to Printful and sign in to your account.
Mockup Generator
Image source: Printful
There are two types of files that you can create with the mockup generator – product photos and print files.
Now Printful has two generators:
The product push generator and the mockup generator.
When adding products to your store, you use the product push generator, but the print files that you create with the mockup generator can also be used when adding products to your store, so that way you don’t have to create the designs twice.
Push Generator
Image source: Twitter
The push generator lets you add products from your Printful account to your store easily.
This tool is available for most e-commerce platforms, but there are few exceptions where you will need to add the products manually.
To use the push generator, go to the ‘Add products’ page and select the product plus your preferred variant.
Add the product name, description and tags, and proceed to set your pricing.
Third-Party Integrations
Printful integrates with many third-party eCommerce platforms, most especially print on demand and dropshipping platforms. You can integrate to both eCommerce platforms, marketplaces, and custom integrate with the API.
Some of the eCommerce platforms you can integrate with include Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, WebFlow, Ecwid, BigCommerce, Prestashop, Big Cartel, Gumroad, and Magento.
For eCommerce marketplaces, you can integrate with Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Wish, and Storenvy. These eCommerce platform and marketplace integrations aren’t free. You have to pay the fees associated with using them.
For instance, to integrate with Shopify for dropshipping products, you have to pay for Shopify pricing in addition to Printful pricing.
Printful Pricing
Printful had a couple of pricing plans earlier but very recently, they made the service free for all, that too with additional features.
So Printful is free. You only need to pay for the products, and shipping. Check out the pricing page for the latest on product and shipping costs.
Printful helps you design and sell products online with ease. Try it today!
Image source: Printful
What Is Print Aura?
Image source: Print Aura
Print Aura is another print on demand fulfillment company that you pay to do all the grunt work for you.
The company supplies you with the product, does the printing and shipping, and leaves you with just the design and business end of things.
Getting started with Print Aura
Getting started on Print Aura is easy.
Image source: Print Aura
All you have to do is go to the signup page and fill out the information listed there, then submit it.
You’ll get an email, and you can use the link there to activate your account.
Once you have signed up and logged in, the next thing to do is set up your brand.
On the branding page, fill out all the branding information.
Image source: Print Aura
After you are done setting up your brand, you are going to want to choose a platform like Shopify, Etsy, or BigCommerce.
If you are not sure which platform to choose, you can click on the integrations page to look at some of the integrations that work with the platform as well as different platform comparisons.
So after you have chosen the platform that is right for you, you can set up an account on that platform and come back to Print Aura to install the app and integrate it with whichever platform you are using.
Integrating Shopify with Print Aura
To connect Shopify with Print Aura, first, go to the integrations page on Print Aura.
If you don’t already have a Shopify account at this point, click on the Shopify logo and sign up for any plan of your choice, or a free trial.
Once you are logged in to Shopify, go back to your Print Aura integrations page and click to install the app.
Enter your store’s URL and install the app.
Image source: Print Aura
Once you are done, you can now manage products that you already have in print or add new ones.
Integrating WooCommerce with Print Aura
Before you connect Print Aura to WooCommerce, first double-check that you have the recent version of WooCommerce available, and make sure you don’t have any plugins in maintenance mode.
Then select WooCommerce from the ‘My stores’ dropdown.
Download the Print Aura WooCommerce plugin, then upload it to your WordPress and activate it.
Once the installation is completed, you will get a new menu, Print Aura API.
From the user’s menu, generate your new API keys and update your profile.
Go back to the WooCommerce page under Print Aura, enter your URL, paste the API keys, and install.
Image source: Print Aura
Third-Party Integrations
With Print Aura, you can integrate with a few eCommerce marketplaces and eCommerce platforms. For marketplaces, you can integrate with Shopify, Etsy, and Storenvy.
For eCommerce platforms, Print Aura integrates with WooCommerce and OpenCart.
In total, Print Aura supports just five integrations which is very low when compared to Printful. Note that Printful supports a total of 23 integrations.
In addition to the third-party integrations, Print Aura also features a Print on Demand API. With this RESTful API, you can easily import custom products from the Print Aura catalog into any compatible website.
Print Aura Pricing
It is completely free to sign up and use Print Aura’s services, and you are only charged for service fulfillment.
Image source: Print Aura
Print Aura vs Printful – Pros And Cons
Printful Pros
- No setup fees
- No recurring subscriptions
- Integrates with many third-party eCommerce platforms and marketplaces
- Features an API
- White label shipping
- Supports test orders
- Mock-up tool
- Branding options
- Marketing services
- Warehousing services
- Multiple fulfillment centers
Printful Cons
- No refunds for lost or damaged items
- Some products are expensive
Print Aura Pros
- Free to sign up
- No subscriptions
- Supports integrates
- Supports an API
- Mock-up tool
- Branding options
- Allows order of sample products
Print Aura Cons
- Few integrations
- Only one fulfillment center (USA)
- No live shipping rates
Printful vs Print Aura – Similarities And Difference
Similarities
- Both Print Aura and Printful are print on demand platforms
- Both platforms support Shopify and WooCommerrce
- Both POD platforms are free to register; you only pay for the base prices of items
- With either Printful or Print Aura, you get support for third-party integrations
- Both offer sample product discounts
- Both print on demand services features an API
- They are both white label print on demand platforms
- They both support brand customization
- Both Printful and Print Aura feature a mock-up generator tool
Differences
- Printful integrates with more eCommerce platforms and marketplaces than Print Aura
- Printful has more fulfillment centers than Print Aura. Notably, Print Aura has just one fulfillment center while Printful has four
- Printful offer more marketing services than Print Aura
- There are no live shipping rates on Print Aura while you get live shipping rates
- Printful offers warehousing services while Print Aura doesn’t
Printful vs Print Aura – Which Is Better?
Printful and Print Aura are both good platforms to use for your print on demand and shipping services.
Both POD platforms have several common features that make them reliable for would-be users, and their products fall within reasonable price ranges, although Print Aura is cheaper.
Overall, Print Aura does trail behind Printful which would be my choice for a POD business.
