Draugiem Group launches Printful - an automated printing and fulfillment service for small online businesses
Jul 16, 2013
Printful is a startup focusing on fulfilling and shipping printed products such as posters, t-shirts, canvases, and more. Located in Chatsworth, California and launched July 16, 2013, Printful is co-founded by Lauris Liberts, also co-founder of Latvian social network Draugiem.lv. Printful has developed from within the Draugiem Group incubator, an umbrella organization which actively supports and develops new business ideas, currently having created 16 startups.
Printful offers automatic, on-demand printing and fulfillment services, to manage print orders for small and medium sized online businesses. As a white-label solution, businesses are able to ensure products such as printed posters and t-shirts from their brand. The option for one-off, on demand orders and no subscription fee eliminate large financial risk, offering small businesses and new websites a safe platform to monetize their content.
The idea for Printful and has evolved out of the experience gained from projects such as Behappy.me and Startup Vitamins, both of which offer quotes on different print products. The need for a quality partner for printing and shipping led to creating a system for their own needs. Now small businesses are able to outsource their printing to trustworthy partners, who meet the standards of the Printful founders. Printful differentiates itself from other drop shipping services in that it provides an API, which automatically sends orders to the Printful system to be fulfilled, thereby eliminating any manual input.
Unlike most printing companies, small order sizes are not penalized, but rather encouraged. The system lets any small site or blog monetize their content, or anyone with basic skills to be able to easily sell their digital artwork on posters or t-shirts.
Printful currently offers printing on several products, including t-shirts, posters, canvases, framed posters. Printful plans to offer more products with time, as well as to integrate with Shopify, the popular online e-commerce platform.
