This is a quick review of a few “print on demand” sites, talking about the sites themselves and their basic usability. In later reviews, I’ll talk about some of the products as I order them. I mention some stores as “newcomers”, because when I originally did some of these, it was around 2003 or before. Back then, all that really existed was Cafepress and Zazzle. Get off my lawn.
These review are as of late April 2013.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the ones I’ve tried.
A relative newcomer from what I can tell, RedBubble is easy to use and quick to get things going. They offer their downloadable templates right on the create a product page. The forum is there, but doesn’t seem as active as the “groups”, which is a nice place to submit your designs to (think, deviantART groups). I haven’t tried the same design on multiple products yet though, so not sure if that will end up with duplicates in the portfolio or not. Their focus is T-shirts, postage cards, iPhone/iPad cases, stickers/prints, and I think you can make calendars too.
RedBubble does lack an interactive editor that some of the other sites have, any work you do will need to be fully completed prior to uploading. Not necessarily a bad thing. The workflow of making a product for RedBubble feels quicker than other sites, likely due to not having to fudge with script-heavy editors. Just keep it in mind and watermark your designs beforehand.
Their accepted file types are PNG/JPG, depending on the item, so you don’t have to worry about optimizing vectors. Just the typical RGB -> CMYK color ordeal. They also have a link to the help pages on their create product page, that talks about what you have to keep in mind regarding their processes. More on that in another article.
Store link – http://www.redbubble.com/people/319media/portfolio
A design on a RedBubble T-shirt preview
Zazzle is one of the oldest and largest, with a staggering variety of stuff to put your designs on. Shirts, cases, posters, pillows, keychains…the list goes on. They used to offer templates (guide files, link here) but those are no longer updated with the newer product types. Their community forum is pretty active, which can be useful if you need help. Their product creation is a few more steps, but still easy to use. If you use the same design on multiple products, notes are made in the store listing and groupings created. (example) You must use the same picture file for this to happen it seems, otherwise you’ll have to create a manual category/grouping yourself.
Zazzle accepts bitmap graphics (JPG,PNG, etc) and also accepts vector in AI and PDF, however I haven’t tried those yet, so I’m not sure what the potential issues/limits are.
The printable area of the shirts and hats doesn’t seem particularly large, although it seems larger than Cafepress. The newcomer stores like RedBubble, Spreadshirt and MySoti all seem bigger. The sheer amount of products you can put your designs on makes them worth a try.
Store link – http://www.zazzle.com/sabretooth
Spreadshirt I’ve given a little less attention to, mostly because their editor seems to hate Firefox (at least the version I use). I’ve found it works without issue in Internet Explorer 9, so I’ll be going back to it a bit more. I’ve uploaded both bitmap and vector designs, but have had a hard time getting the vector ones accepted. This is likely more due to me making things in Photoshop or otherwise as bitmaps, then trying to convert to vector, rather than any issue they have, though.
( Update Jan 2016 ) I am in the process of closing the Spreadshirt store, pending the resolution of tax issues. They like to play tax collector and withhold 30% of your earnings, even if all your information is correct and you give them your SSN number.
I do have a very old Cafepress store, but given the amount of negative feedback I’ve seen on them, I likely won’t be doing much with it any time soon. Their cookies also expire far too quickly.
I’m giving MySoti a look, but will do that more after some in-depth reviews of the others. They also tend to log you out pretty quickly, which is kind of annoying. Their previews seemed to show a very large printable area, so I’ll give them at least a test buy in the future. They also give you a template file, as well as some color tips on it.
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If you want to read more reviews on these types of sites, and more insights into the actual T-shirt and item printing process, I found this article very helpful – http://tshirtspotlight.com/shopkeeper-resources/how-to-start-your-own-t-shirt-shop/
