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Choosing a print-on-demand supplier

Everyone compares price and lead time, which matter least. What really ties you down is that the supplier ends up deciding your sizes and your mouldings — and that shapes the whole catalogue.

What almost nobody checks, and it shapes everything

When choosing a print-on-demand supplier, people compare price and lead time. Those matter least. What really ties you down is this:

The six criteria, in order of importance

1. They print where you sell. A European order printed in America arrives late, through customs, with freight that eats the margin. Look at where their workshops are, not where their office is.
2. Their sizes. ISO, round centimetres, inches? That's going to be your catalogue.
3. Framing, and how. Do they frame? What moulding width, mat or no mat, glass or acrylic? Acrylic weighs less and breaks less, and in shipping that's money.
4. Packaging. Ask directly how they pack framed work. If the answer is vague, you know where the breakages are coming from.
5. Real Shopify integration. The order should leave on its own, with the right variant. If you're passing orders by hand it isn't print on demand, it's a job.
6. White label. No supplier logo on the parcel, and room for your own card inside.

The test you can't skip

Before publishing anything, order a sample of every size you'll sell, framed the way the customer receives it. Not one: one of each.

It's the only thing that answers three questions no spec sheet does: whether the paper colour matches your screen, whether the frame is what you pictured, and whether the packaging holds. It costs a few euros and saves you starting with the wrong supplier.

Real margin, with shipping inside

A beginner's error: comparing suppliers on print price. Compare them on landed cost at the customer's door — print, frame, packaging and freight to your main market. A supplier 15 % dearer who prints in your country usually works out cheaper than a distant one.

And the risk worth keeping in mind

With print on demand, someone else manufactures your product. If they raise prices, change the paper or close a workshop, you find out after it's happened. That's not a reason to avoid it — nearly everyone uses it — but it is a reason to have a second supplier tested before you need one.