Business & Ordering
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a fulfillment model where the printer ships each order directly to the end customer under the seller's brand, letting sellers sell custom apparel without holding inventory.
Dropshipping means the print shop, not the seller, holds the blank inventory and ships every order — a single hoodie, a single tee — straight to the buyer's customer, usually on the same 3-7 business day turnaround as any other decorated order. A price gets set in the seller's own storefront, an order comes in, the printer produces one piece to that spec, and a box goes out with no warehouse in between.
Dropshipping is how a one-person Etsy shop or a band selling merch off a Squarespace site can list a Comfort Colors 1717 pocket tee in eight colors without ever owning a single blank. The seller's margin is the gap between retail price and the printer's per-unit rate, which typically runs higher per piece than a bulk order, since there's no case-quantity discount on a run of one.
Vet a partner on per-unit pricing at low volume, not their bulk rate — that's the number that actually determines margin. Confirm blind shipping is included, since a box arriving with someone else's print-shop return address on it undercuts a seller's brand fast.
The mistake first-time sellers make: pricing a product off a wholesale case-quantity rate seen on a blanks site, then losing money on every single-unit order because the real per-piece cost at quantity one runs 30-50% higher.