What dropshipping companies can complement Printful for bulk orders?

Retail & Point of Sale

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner using Printful for print-on-demand apparel is seeking alternatives to handle a potential bulk order of 400-500 navy blue, 50/50 blend t-shirts for a fire department.

Key challenges:

  • Printful lacks the specific shirt blend/color needed
  • Pricing concerns for large quantity orders
  • Limited individual sales but unexpected bulk order interest

Recommended alternatives:

  • Print-on-demand platforms: Printify (multiple providers, offers 50/50 blends), TeeLaunch, and SPOD
  • Local screen printers/wholesalers: AlphaBroder, Gildan, and Bella+Canvas distributors for better bulk pricing and margins

Technical considerations:
Adding multiple dropshipping sources to Shopify is straightforward—connect new apps and assign products to specific fulfillment providers. Manual fulfillment can be mixed in for local vendors while still processing payments through Shopify.

For orders this size, moving beyond print-on-demand to traditional wholesale/screen printing is strongly advised to maintain healthy profit margins.

Summarized with AI on October 25. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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Hey everyone, I recently launched my first Shopify store (dropshipping t-shirts, hoodies, etc.). So far, I am having difficulty getting orders from individuals, but I am surprised by how much interest their seems to be for bulk orders. I am currently using Printful, and from what I have been reading, Printful has a good reputation, but is one of the more highly priced options. I may have an opportunity soon for potentially 400-500 shirts for a fire department. They will want navy blue, 50/50 blend t-shirts. I have having trouble finding this as an option on Printful and have started looking for other dropshipping companies that have what they are looking for. So, I have two questions:

First, can you recommend any dropshipping companies that you have worked with that I should check out?

Second, is there anything I should know about adding an addtional dropshipping source to my Shopify store?

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

1 Like
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HELLO ESSENTIALTED
Congrats on the launch! :clap: Printful is solid but not always the best for bulk. A few good alternatives to check are Printify (lots of providers + 50/50 blends), TeeLaunch, and SPOD. For big runs like 400–500 shirts, you’ll usually get way better pricing from a local screen printer or wholesaler (think AlphaBroder, Gildan, Bella+Canvas distributors).

Adding another dropshipper in Shopify is easy — you just connect the new app, then assign each product to its fulfillment provider. You can also mix in manual fulfillment if you go with a local vendor.

For bulk orders, I’d seriously consider going outside POD — it keeps your margins healthy and still lets you run payments/invoicing through Shopify.