Print-on-demand
Products made from your artwork only after someone orders, so you can sell physical goods without buying stock upfront.
See it
What it is
Print-on-demand makes a physical item only after someone buys it. You upload artwork and list the product; a service such as Printful prints the shirt, poster, mug, or tote bag and ships it to the customer, so no finished stock is sitting in your garage.
Reach for it to test artwork, run a small merch line, or offer a wide catalog without paying for a production run upfront. It trades that low inventory risk for a higher per-unit cost and less control over packaging, production speed, and the final print.
Gotcha: the mockup is not the product. Order samples, account for print areas and color shifts, and publish realistic delivery windows because manufacturing happens before shipping even starts. Returns also need an explicit policy: a printer may replace a defective item without taking back a correctly made shirt that the customer ordered in the wrong size.
Ask AI for it
Build a print-on-demand storefront integration with the Printful Orders API. Sync printable variants into the local product catalog, map each store variant to its Printful variant ID and artwork file, and show size, color, mockup, production estimate, shipping estimate, and retail price on the product page. After payment, create exactly one Printful order from the paid order using an idempotent fulfillment record, save the external order ID, and consume Printful webhooks to update production and shipment status. Block checkout when a mapping is missing, surface fulfillment failures to admins, and never mark the order shipped until a tracking number arrives.