Jeff here for Pod Insights, your source for print on demand resources, tips, and industry news. In this episode, we’ve got the April 2023 Print on Demand update, including an update on the Etsy listing workflow, as well as terms of service updates from Printify, and we’ll also talk about niches for the rest of the month of April. So stick around and let’s dive into the April 2023 print on demand update.
Etsy News
Well I was hoping by now I’d have some fantastic Etsy news, but unfortunately I have not seen an update on the Etsy site updates page yet. If you missed last month’s update, what I’m referring to is that in a previous site update article, Etsy referred to a forthcoming feature allowing what they called “global pricing” for listings, which I’m interpreting as some type of product price differentiation by country or region. There has not been any update on what the exact feature will be or when it will be available, so hopefully I can share some good news in the May update about this.
In the meantime, I can give a little more information about Etsy’s listing workflow changes that were the subject of that previous article. I received the update in my main Etsy shop a couple weeks ago and published a video showing the new listing workflow, so check that out if you haven’t seen it and don’t have it in your shop yet. Not all seller accounts have received the update yet, because my POD Insights account is still showing the old listing workflow. The new workflow rearranges some of the listing information into sections, with links across the top of the listing editor so you can jump to each section. This is helpful for making a small update to an existing listing because you can jump right to that section rather than scroll. However when creating a new listing, either from scratch or finalizing a listing published from your POD platform, you still need to review each section. One thing that I don’t care for is that they’ve batched together some listing details and placed them in pop-up windows that you need to click on to open, rather than just showing you everything on the page. Specifically, a new section called “Core Details” includes information about the product type, who made it, and any production partners. However all you see on the main page is the product type. It’s only once you click on the Core Details button that you then see all the other information, which is something that we as print on demand sellers need to update for every new listing. This is where we indicate that another company produced the item, that it is made to order, and select the specific production partner. I find it annoying that these details are in a pop-up now because it’s easy to scroll right past it and forget to make those updates, and I don’t personally find opening a popup to be more efficient than having all the fields right there on the page. But otherwise, the updated workflow doesn’t seem to have any other major frustrations. There are some details rearranged and located in different parts of the flow, but everything is still there somewhere.
Print Provider & Industry News
This month I have an update from Printify – they’ve updated their Terms of Service (TOS) for sellers. I don’t see anything in there that is significantly different from what I’ve experienced while interacting with Printify, but it’s good to review the updates. I will link to the TOS on their site in the blogpost for this episode in case you didn’t receive the email notification.
The most significant updates are around the topic of issues with orders, including orders that were scanned as delivered but not received by the customers, late deliveries, cancellation requests, and situations that can be considered for refunds. I looked through the policies and didn’t see anything that is different than what I’ve experienced already, so I believe they are just documenting how they’ve already been handling these scenarios so they have something to fall back on if a seller disagrees with their handling. The TOS states that if you have an issue with an order you need to submit a request to Printify within 30 days of the product delivery date.
With regard to cancellation requests, it states that Printify cannot guarantee the availability of cancellation once an order has been submitted to production. You can submit a cancellation request if the customer requests cancellation and Printify will determine if the order can be cancelled, but there is no guarantee. This is consistent with my experience. It also states that Printify does not provide refunds for orders still in transit, unless the merchant support team has deemed it to be lost in transit. With regard to how long you have to wait before an order would be considered lost, the TOS states that if an order has not been delivered in 30 calendar days for US or regional EU orders or within 45 days for international orders, you need to contact merchant support within 1 week to request a reprint or refund. In at least a couple instances last year I do remember being told that we had to wait until 30 days after the shipping date before we could consider it lost. In the past I had experienced something slightly different – in 2021 I remember Printify support asking me or the customer to contact the shipping carrier and have them attempt to trace or locate the package and if they were unsuccessful it would be considered lost, and I received this response without having to wait 30 days. So it appears they are trying to be more consistent with this one since last year.
If tracking indicates that a package was delivered but the customer states it was not delivered, Printify will investigate each case individually and reserves the right to refuse a refund or reprint. In these cases in the past I’ve experienced a similar scenario where the merchant support team has asked me or the customer to contact the shipping carrier to ask them if they can trace or locate the package. In cases where the carrier responds that they cannot locate the package, I have been able to get a refund. However there is no guarantee that will be the same outcome every time, according to the terms of service. It’s also a good idea to wait at least a couple of days after the packaged is scanned as delivered because sometimes it is scanned in error and then it gets delivered the next day. And in other cases it may have been delivered to a neighbor in error, so the package may turn up within a day or two.
Lastly, Printify reserves the right to refuse a request for reprint or refund if the reasons are due to issues with the print file, improper placement, limitations of the product, bleed areas, print files that do not follow design guidelines, and any other reason not eligible for a refund or reprint. While that sounds pretty vague and general, it also says all cases will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
So again, I personally didn’t see anything in the updated TOS that I haven’t already experienced in my interactions with Printify. It seems to me that they are documenting the way that they’ve been handling these situations so in theory we shouldn’t experience any significant difference. But of course, I recommend reviewing the updated TOS for yourself to check for anything that looks new or different to you.
I don’t have any other Print Provider news for this month, but I do have an update from Kittl, the design and graphics editing tool. Not only has Kittl launched an AI image generator, but they’ve recently added mockups into the design interface as well. The AI image generator is something I mentioned and took a quick look at in my recent video about sources for POD graphics, so check that video out if you want a preview. The mockup feature is more recent and I’ve only been able to test it a little bit. Right now the features are pretty basic and the selection isn’t huge, but if they make some enhancements to it I think it’ll be a pretty great mockup generator if you use Kittl. In the design editing view, there is now a mockup button in the top right corner. It will pull the design you created into he mockup tool where you can select from apparel, mugs, tote bags, and more and it automatically places your design on the item. You can move it around and resize, as well as select the color of the product. It’s very easy and I love how they integrated it right into he designer view so you can go right from downloading the print file straight into your mockups. There are just a couple improvements I see that would make it near-perfect. One is the selection of mockups, it’s somewhat limited for each product right now. The other is a little more control over the mockups – specifically, the lay-flat apparel mockups have a white background only, so you have to download them and then add your own background if desired. It would be amazing if you could change the background to something else right in the mockup tool. The only other thing would be the ability to rotate the design as well as resize it. Right now you can resize, but not rotate it. On most products, it looks fine, but there are a couple mockups, including one of the tote bag mockups, where the product is not completely level in the image however your design is placed on it level, so it doesn’t match the angle of the product. If they make these improvements and continue adding more options for each product I would have to consider using this instead of Placeit because it’s so easy having it right there where my design already lives. Check it out if you use Kittl!
Your Questions
Just one question from the YouTube channel for this month, and it is about updating your stock status if you use Printify. Specifically, how often should you review the stock status of your products on Printify and make updates on Etsy?
Let me give you a little bit of backstory to this question before I answer it, because if you use Printify and you’re not aware, there is no continuous, ongoing syncing of information between Printify and your Etsy account, at least not for your product listings. Of course, your orders are syncing every day. Every time you get an order, it will automatically import to your Printify account. But as far as your product listings go and the details in there, Printify is different than printful. So if you’ve used Printful before, you might have been expecting that everybody does this the same way, because if you use Printful, once you publish a product, printful automatically has this whole syncing of information between Printful and Etsy. So let’s say you’ve listed a t-shirt on Etsy and you use Printful to do it. If one of the product variants, like one size of one color, is out of stock with Printful, they will automatically update your listing to show that that variant is out of stock. And then when it’s back in stock, they will automatically change it back so it shows as in stock – very handy and saves you time. However, Printify does not do this. Printify just has no automatic updating of your listing information. So that means you probably have some listings in your Printify account that have individual variants that are out of stock that you are still offering for sale in your Etsy shop, especially if you have lots and lots of listings. I personally have over 300 active listings in my Etsy shop, and I know that some of them have variants that are out of stock and I’m still showing them as available.
So, getting back to the question then, the question was, how often should you review stock status of your products and update your Etsy listings? In case you didn’t notice, I did not sound too worried about the fact that I know I’ve got some products listed for sale on Etsy that are currently out of stock, and the reason for that is simple. Basically, it’s because on Printify, for most of the products I sell, there are multiple print providers that offer the same products. For example, I sell mostly Bella Canvas 3001 t-shirts, and I use Monster Digital as my primary print provider. But there are several other print providers on Printify also located in the US. Who offer the exact same sizes and colors of that t shirt. So if I make a sale for a black extra large t shirt and Monster Digital is out of stock, chances are pretty good I can just go get that fulfilled by a different print provider. And if the only print provider that has it in stock is a higher price than I want to pay, I still fulfill that one order, and I use that as the trigger to go back and update my Etsy listing. And also, you don’t have to let Printify fulfill that order either. If you have accounts with Printful or Gelato or Guten, you can look outside of Printify and have it fulfilled wherever the lowest price is. All you have to do is cancel the order on Printify and place one manual order with whoever you want to fulfill it. You just have to remember that you’re going to have to manually go mark that order complete and upload the tracking information when it ships. I don’t have to do this super often. And that’s another reason why it doesn’t concern me too much, because this doesn’t really come up that often. It comes up more in the fourth quarter with high order volumes, but for most of the year, it really doesn’t come up that often. Okay, so that’s personally how I handle it. I really don’t actively check for the bulk of my listings. But I did say almost all my listings, so that means there are some things that I do more frequently check. So personally, what I do is about once every two weeks. I think it probably averages to twice a month. I should really have a reminder on my calendar or something to do this every two weeks, but I think I do it every two weeks. I go into my Printify account and I filter my listings, on the my listings page. You have a few ways to filter it. Unfortunately, right now the stock status is not one of the things that you have as a filter. But what I do instead is there are a couple of products, like specific products with specific print providers, that they are the only one that makes that product. So, for example, I sell some embroidered hats and on Printify in the US, those are coming from MyLocker. So if those are out of stock, then I’m really out of luck because nobody else can make them. So what I do is every couple of weeks I go to my my products page and I use the filter for print provider and I filter it so that I’m only looking at my listings with my locker and I don’t really use my locker for anything else. So pretty much all of those listings are going to be hats. And I just take a quick scan to see if any of them are showing as out of stock. If they are, then I will make the updates to my Etsy listings to show which ones are in stock or out of stock.
So that’s the answer to the question – it’s not quite as straightforward maybe as it should be. If you could filter things on Printify using stock status or if they could just automate it for you, I would love that. That would be a lot more straightforward. That’s one thing I do think printful has an advantage over Printify there, that they automatically do that for you. But I appreciate that question! Keep them coming. You can submit a question by commenting on any video video on the YouTube channel, or you can email me directly by going to the Contact Me form at the bottom of the homepage of podinsights.net.
Niche Ideas
Just a couple of things I want to mention here for niches and seasonal trends as we’re going through the month of April and we’re getting into May. Of course, as I mentioned in the March update, now really is the peak time to make sure your Mother’s Day listings are all out there, because mid April is when we start to really see that rise in shopping, search trends or search volume for Mom or Mother’s Day. All of those related phrases. So for Mother’s Day in the US, now is the time to make sure all of those listings are out there and updated. Also, don’t forget that if you’re creating new designs for Mother’s Day, you might be creating designs that you could very easily just change the word mom to dad. Of course, that doesn’t work for every design theme, but there are going to be some that are more generic that you could pretty easily just get a Father’s Day design out of the exact same one. And in the US, that comes pretty quickly. Right after Mother’s Day in the month of June, it’ll be Father’s Day before you know it, so don’t forget to get those updated as well.
I talked about adding warmer weather products to your shop as well as we head into spring and summer. But I’m going to call out something specific for the UK. So if you’re a seller in the UK or if you sell in the UK, then you probably already know that coming up in May, May 6, specifically, we have the coronation of King Charles. This is one of those events that it’s likely to bring with it a spike in sales for royal themed designs and phrases and sayings and things like that. So it could be a good time to do a little keyword research around those types of phrases and sayings and things like that. Of course, do your trademark research. There is a UK government trademark search tool and I’ll link to that in the blog post for this episode. If you’ve never used it before, it’s very easy to use. I actually think it’s easier to use than the one for the US. I’m sure there’s probably rules about images of royals themselves. So just whatever you’re doing design wise, be safe from a copyright and trademark standpoint. But there might be some opportunity between now and that May 6 coronation event, so keep an eye open for that. But I wanted to mention this one because I thought it might be a good opportunity to make some designs.
All right, that’s it for the April 2023 PrintOnDemand update. I hope you found some helpful information in this monthly update. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform. Head over to Podinsights.net for the blog post for this episode, and of course, visit me on the YouTube channel. Thanks for listening.