Combining strategy and art to boost growth
Path to success: selling products with original art
UMAI clothing is an anime-inspired streetwear brand. What sets them apart from competitors in their niche is their original art on t-shirts, hoodies, wall art, and accessories.
Shortly after launching UMAI, Ryan, the owner, partnered with Ivan, an experienced graphic artist. His design influence had an instant impact on UMAI—they saw a 15–20% growth in the first two months.
Leveraging on-demand fulfillment to focus on the strategy
Ryan always used on-demand fulfillment. With his first brands, he sold products through overseas providers, which presented logistical challenges—orders would take weeks to deliver and often got lost.
“We’re able to test designs and make designs all the time. And if they don’t work, it doesn’t really matter, we’ll just make another design. We’ll keep making art. We don’t have to lose money doing it with the bulk order.”
With Printful fulfillling their orders, UMAI can keep growing the business and creating art without worrying about the logistics and cost of ordering in bulk. And they have more time to focus on business strategy.
Fueling growth with the support of Printful’s team
In 2023, the Printful team did a thorough analysis of UMAI’s communication channels and customer journey with the goal of increasing average order value, conversion rate, and monthly sales.
Ryan was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the results—after following advice to build an active customer email list, UMAI’s email open rates have increased by up to 50%.
UMAI growth following strategic improvements
$62.7 average order value
(14% increase)
$130K in monthly sales
(30% increase)
11% conversion rate
(8% increase)
The unlimited growth potential of on-demand fulfillment
With Printful handling fulfillment on-demand, there’s no limit to the art they can sell or to how much they can scale.
When it comes to advice for people who want to grow or launch their apparel brands, Ryan stresses that on-demand fulfillment is a smart move.
“If your brand scales immediately like ours did, you won’t be able to keep up with those sales and orders. We wouldn’t have been able to increase ad spend or anything. So Printful is good for immediate growth of a brand.”