I am starting a clothing brand, I actually have a few questions!
If someone buys something from your website, will they see it came from printful on their receipt?
Do you have to pay for all the clothing first, or when a customer buys a item, it will just take out the cost of production?
Do customers have to pay for the fulfillment fee or is that on my end?
Hey there, happy to help answer these for you.
Yes, they would possibly see that it was produced and shipped from Printful unless you opt to add your own branding to the products. You can learn more about how Printful offers this service here.
You don’t pay for for the cost of the product until after you’ve sold it, so the funds from the purchase will be processed in conjunction with paying for the product to be produced.
Fees will be paid by you, but can be calculated into the mark-up of your product. Here’s more information on what you can expect for fees with Printful.
I hope that helps! Congratulations on your exciting new venture into selling apparel under your own brand. I’d love to know more about your business. In case you haven’t seen it, check out this guide to selling clothing online to get you inspired!
If I can assist any further, just let me know!
Am I able too receive all the clothing first then manually sell clothing myself?
Hello again,
Yes absolutely. Printful offers significant discounts for ordering products in bulk (at least 25 items). You can read more about their offer here.
If you plan to sell in person, definitely look into getting Shopify POS to make in-person sales fast, easy and integrated right into your existing admin.
If I can help any further just let me know!
Teemu from EAS Project here, hi!
We only recommend you purchase the goods first from Printful and not allow for them to ship directly to end-customers. Depending on where your company is registered, if they ship the goods directly they use in EU strictly B2C VAT schemes for reporting their B2B sales. This means VAT is calculated ONLY for cost to you, not on final consumer price.
The EU regulation does not have a reconciliation mechanism for that and it means you will participate in their underreporting and underpayment of VAT.
A little elaboration. Better late than never, right? This is applicable for sales to EU end-customers by a non-EU established seller.
The big Print-On-Demand (POD) companies do not allow you to choose the production facility. In fact, they pride themselves with producing close to the end-customer. This earth sounding statement does however create compliance issues with EU deliveries. One of the companies has actually replied that “because they are such a new business model the basic VAT regulation does not apply as such to them”. Good luck with that.
So the basic premise is, that if they invoice you from their X country facility you will be considered to be storing goods there. And that requires you to have a VAT registration in that country, estimated by EU commission to cost 5 - 6k minimum per year. Tax admins will overlook this to a degree, but you decide it at your risk.
The bigger issue is, that without any registrations in EU, they will produce where they want and use the amounts they invoice you for reporting the sales VAT on your behalf. Significant under-reporting and underpayment by any logic. Plus, if you claim to be collecting VAT at checkout, there is no mechanism for you to actually pay the unpaid VAT to the EU tax admins. Even if you try to be compliant, you will be participating in underpayment of taxes. There is a word for that but I can’t remember what it is…
It does not stop there, but that is the simplest case.
We provide cross-border compliance to close to thousand companies by now. We are registered as tax advisors in multiple countries. Since we cannot do it for many, not all PODs, we will simply exclude them from your reporting. Not the optimal solution. But neither is their operating model.
If you still need full automation, just check out our Shopify solution here: https://apps.shopify.com/eas-eu-compliance
Teemu, EAS Project