There are many perks of being an entrepreneur, from creating a career on something that aligns with your values to all the flexibility that comes with becoming your own boss. Another great advantage is that you get to take part in all the decisions related to your work. Still, when it comes to an ecommerce business that uses print-on-demand, all the decision-making can be a bit overwhelming, especially when it is the first time you are using the Fuel POD app in Shopify.
We know that your top priorities include having all your orders fulfilled correctly and on time, but some unforeseen things can still happen along the process. These mistakes can seriously affect your business, like damaging your online store reputation and losing potential sales.
The good news is that they all are easily avoidable, and to make your life a little easier, we made this list with the top 5 most common mistakes Fuel customers make with our best tips on how to avoid them. So keep on reading to easily recognize them and find the easiest way to solve them.
We know there are several different print-on-demand companies for selling custom products. Still, Fuel POD offers the lowest prices in the market to get you the best profit margins, paired with cutting-edge technology to ensure your customers receive high-quality products always. Our print-on-demand services include DTG, sublimation, and embroidery in over 40+ products. Simply the best Shopify option in the market for getting the best print-on-demand products.
When you are creating your orders, double-check the products were created using the Fuel app. Otherwise, our system will ignore it, and it will get canceled.
To avoid committing this error, always make sure your order has at least one Fuel product before sending it to us for fulfillment. We love to be part of all your orders!
Alongside this mistake, make sure you have selected Fuel as your vendor, or our system won't catch your orders, which will result in the order not showing up, even though you can see it in your Shopify orders. If you are wondering how to set Fuel print-on-demand as your vendor, check this link for an easy step-by-step guide to find out how.
Having basic graphic design knowledge is one of the essential skills you need for starting a successful POD business on any ecommerce platform. And for an excellent product design, you need to have a great print file.
When using DTG, the printers will print all the colors shown in the design, so you usually avoid adding a background color unless it's a part of your design. But the second most common mistake we encounter is that transparencies are often not considered.
It is essential to remove all negative space around your design. If it is not removed, the negative space will be included in the image when it is sent through the artwork processing system, and it will affect the placement of your design when it is printed on your selected item.
So, the best practice, in this case, is to crop the negative space from the artwork, leaving only a few pixels wide on all sides to achieve the perfect print file. Trust us; you don't want an unsatisfied customer due to your design's incorrect placement in one of our print-on-demand products.
One of the most frequent causes of delays in fulfilling orders is when your billing method fails. If payment fails, the orders won't move to production.
If you are having issues with your billing method, you can reach out to your bank institution or PayPal for clarification and check if everything is good with your account. Our system will automatically retry the payment every 24 hours. We accept PayPal and all major credit and debit cards to make this process as easy as possible for you.
Learn more about how to switch your payment method here.
Another one of the top problems we see is when our customers edit products in an existing order without checking if it is already in the production process. You need to use the Fuel app to make any modifications to your order, and before making any changes, you must check it is not in production yet. If you change it after it enters production, our system will automatically ignore the changes.
Also, similar to this mistake, if you delete a product that is part of a processing Fuel order, it will result in an error. The order will remain on hold without an existing product from our catalog.
If you prefer to review your orders before sending them to production, a good tip is to process orders manually, or you can select the cooling-off period option. You can choose how long you want your cooling-off period to be from when orders are received to when they are put in for production.
Just be careful when switching it to manual because you can forget to process your orders. In that case, our system will automatically cancel the order 45 days after its creation.
One of the critical details our customers miss is that they forget they can't sell copyrighted designs without due permission or payment of rights. To stay clear of copyright infringement issues, we recommend you check this guide about what you can print and which things we do not allow.
According to our customer support team, another one of the main mistakes our customers have to deal with is invalid shipping addresses; this mistake is not entirely up to you since it depends on the buyers to enter their complete details correctly.
Sometimes our system will catch the mistake and will put the order on hold until it is corrected, or it can be shipped to the given address but will result in delivery issues. If this is one of your most usual problems, you can review the addresses through the UPS Validator or use Google Maps to make sure everything is correct. Read this article for more detailed information on updating the shipping addresses on orders.
We know there are many print-on-demand sites you can go to fulfill your orders, but Fuel is the best Shopify print-on-demand app because we have the industry's lowest prices paired to the best quality and we can offer you excellent tools to scale your business, so you can focus on maximizing your profits.
If you have any different concern, you can always visit our help center or hit our incredible customer service team via email or chat for more information.
