POD Fulfillment — Print on demand

Items are printed only after an order exists. You tie up no capital in inventory, you do not have to guess which design will sell, and you carry no dead stock when a trend passes. In exchange, unit cost is higher than a bulk print run. POD therefore suits catalogues with many short-lived designs more than a handful of steady sellers.

Most can, as long as the marketplace exposes an order API. The first survey lists plainly which channels connect automatically and which still need orders entered by hand. Saying so upfront is better than promising full coverage and letting you discover a manual channel after rollout.

This is where print on demand most often breaks down. The fix is to lock the colour profile and artwork specification at the start, approve a physical sample before opening sales, and keep one factory per product line. If a factory has to change, the sample approval is repeated rather than carried over.

Artwork needs full resolution at the real print size, a cut-out background for apparel, and text converted to outlines so fonts do not shift in production. We send a template per product type up front, so your designs are correct on the first pass instead of going through rounds of rework.

Delivery depends on the shipping lane and the peak season, so committed days are agreed per market rather than quoted as a single number. For personalised goods, returns are usually limited to print defects and shipping damage — state this clearly on the sales page to avoid disputes later.