Our second best selling non-apparel product is the mug. Ripe for all of your witty coffee banter. We especially like these from Oh, hello sugar. Mugs also saw a significant increase in sales around the holidays, which just goes to show, it’s still a popular gift idea (Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and other upcoming holiday ideas?).
Making mugs at the Printful HQ
What this means: While the American Apparel 2001 t-shirt remains our most popular, the Anvil with TearAway label is at a close second. This means that brands are taking the initiative to make their t-shirts even more customized with their own inside label, giving them additional brand visibility and the ability to market themselves as a serious brand name.
56 New products added
That averages out to more than 1 new product per week. We keep adding new products based on your suggestions and needs. We’ve also more than trippled the amount of stock we keep in the warehouse, improving fulfillment speed.
29 Products discontinued
This year one of the biggest headlines in the printing industry was that American Apparel – one of the most popular manufacturers, filed for bankruptcy. As a result, they stopped producing many of the products that we had been carrying. This meant a scramble to find replacement garments, which likely also affected you.
Products discontinuation is a common event in the apparel manufacturing world and isn’t limited to American Apparel. Companies, including Alternative Apparel and other, will stop manufacturing a certain garment if they see that there isn’t enough demand for it.
Another reason for removing some products can be, for example, a high damage rate. If we can’t be sure that we’ll produce a great-quality garment for you, then we don’t want to risk it. Quality is important to us, and remains one of the biggest challenges of growing so quickly – keeping up the small startup-level quality while becoming ever-bigger.
260,000 t-shirts shipped – Enough to clothe the population of Buffalo, New York
Printful has shipped out enough t-shirt this year to clothe the population or Buffalo, NY
In 2015 Printful has shipped out over 260,000 t-shirts around the world.
44,324 posters shipped – Enough to cover the square footage of the colosseum
Printful has shipped out enough posters to tile the floor of the colosseum.
That’s over 6 acres.
$15,951.27 in attempted fraud
Fraud is a real threat. We use additional fraud detection software like minFraud and Sift Science to help identify and catch fraud, both for ourselves and for Printful users. This is the amount that we were able to catch and retrieve, and the amount that we’ve been able to give back to Printful users who otherwise would’ve been cheated out of their hard-earned money.
$211,163 in redo’s
Quality control is a new department that was introduced this year to make sure that products that go out are given a thorough look-over. Because since you can’t see the products, it’s up to us to make sure that it’s top notch. As a result, we’ve reprinted over 12 000 items this year that we deemed unfit for your customers. It has cost us $211,163, but we’re happy to do it for you.
Cyber Monday – the biggest sales day of the year
In 2015, Cyber Monday had a very impactful role
There are a few conclusions we can make by taking a look at this graph comparing 2014’s cyber 5 sales statistics with 2015’s sales statistics.
A) Cyber Monday is easily the biggest sales day of the 5. Make sure you plan for it accordingly.
B) Online sales are only increasing. Keep it up and solidify your sales strategy.
Take a look at our review of 2015’s Cyber 5 results here.
63,150 support interactions
Our support team has grown exponentially. We now have 9 people working on Customer Service alone, as well as different employees jumping on board, like programmers answering more technical questions, or new employees getting to know Printful.
We have 5 customer service reps in California, and 4 in Latvia (our HQ in Europe), which lets us cover 24hr service. Take a look at the stats for this year.
Email conversations: 41,960
Calls taken: 5,978
Chats: 15,212
Total interactions: 63,150
Our most “appreciated” support masters, Rachel, Martins U. and Daniel.
These are our most appreciated support staff, those, who after having helped someone, have been left an “appreciation” note. So if your support query is answered by one of them, know that you’ll get great service! And if you appreciate someone’s reply, give them some appreciation, so that we can feature them next year, too!
Moved to a 5x bigger HQ
Printful HQs through the ages
We’ve been moving to bigger facilities on average of once per year. In May we moved to our latest office in Chatsworth, California, which is 5x bigger than our previous HQ in Burbank, at 35,000 square feet.
Part of the fulfillment team in front of the new gigantic HQ
Doubled printing capacity
We started out the year with 8 Brother Printers, and we’re ending it with 16. And that’s only for t-shirts, not even mentioning our sublimation printers, embroidery machines, cut and sew machines, and more.
All those printers…
New services
- Design services – If you have an idea for a design, but don’t have the skills or software to make it, we can help! Or if you need help preparing your files to comply perfectly with Printful’s guidelines, we can help you prepare them too.
- Photography services – you can save time in launching your store by using our photography services. We’ll print out your product, take photos of it on site in our photo studio, and send you the photos digitally so that you can get started launching your store. And your printed product will be in the mail.
- Printful for celebrities – if you are/manage a celebrity brand name and want to get started selling merch online but don’t want to do the heavy lifting, we’ll take it off your hands and take care of every single detail of selling online ,on a revenue-share basis.
Newly added product categories
Goals for 2016
- Launching iPhone cases
- East Coast printing facility (on average faster shipping to East coast customers by approx. 2 days!)
- Adding more products to the Design Maker
- Additional sublimation products, like skirts (woop!)
What are your goals for 2016? Share them in the comments!
