Extremely disappointing experience
Extremely disappointing experience — my first bulk order completely changed my opinion of this company. I really wanted to have a positive experience with PrintDoors because my first impression of the company was actually phenomenal. Their team was responsive, reassuring, and made me feel like I had found a production partner I could potentially grow my business with. Unfortunately, after trusting them with my first bulk customer order, my opinion changed completely. I run an online business, so when I use a production partner, I am putting my own brand reputation in their hands. My customers don’t know the manufacturer behind the scenes—they know MY business. That means I need to be able to trust that the products being produced and shipped directly to my customers meet a reasonable and consistent quality standard. This order left me dealing with exactly what I was trying to avoid. My customer contacted me after receiving the products and gave me extensive feedback about the quality. Among the issues she reported were noticeably different shades of pink between coordinating products using the same artwork, concerns about the quality/material of the mouse pads, an extremely strong odor from the tote bags, and towels with a material/feel that was nowhere near what she expected. The most upsetting part was hearing my customer tell me that she had purchased these products for upcoming vendor events and felt embarrassed to present several of them. As a business owner, that is devastating to hear. I now have to repair that customer relationship and potentially refund products because I refuse to leave my customer paying for items she’s genuinely unhappy with. What makes this experience even more frustrating is that I had concerns BEFORE this bulk order was completed. I encountered an issue involving their system/payment process and felt pressured to make an additional payment despite explaining that there appeared to be a problem on their end. I continued forward because I was repeatedly reassured and wanted to give the company an opportunity. I wish I had been more cautious. I am also extremely concerned about a finished product arriving with such a noticeable odor that my customer immediately complained about it. If you’re operating a print-on-demand/dropshipping business where products ship directly from the manufacturer to your customer, quality control is EVERYTHING. We don’t get the opportunity to inspect these products ourselves before our customers open the package. That’s why we’re trusting the manufacturer. This experience has already caused me to remove ALL products from my own store because I cannot confidently continue selling something when I don’t know whether the quality my customer receives will represent my brand properly. And that’s probably the biggest lesson I learned from this entire situation: Sample your products. Test your suppliers. And don’t assume that a great customer-service experience before ordering automatically means you’re going to receive the same level of quality after you’ve paid. I genuinely wanted PrintDoors to become a long-term production partner for my business. I was prepared to continue sending orders through them if this first bulk order went well. Instead, my first bulk order resulted in an unhappy customer, quality concerns across multiple products, products being removed from my shop, and me having to spend my own time trying to repair a customer relationship that should have been strengthened by this order. I have contacted PrintDoors directly and requested that they review the affected products and provide a meaningful resolution. If they take responsibility and properly resolve the situation, I will update my review accordingly. But based on my experience with this order as it stands today, I cannot confidently recommend using them for bulk customer fulfillment without ordering and personally inspecting samples of every single product first. For another small business owner considering them: please test everything before trusting any supplier with your customers. Your supplier may be invisible to your customer, but their mistakes won’t be. Your business name is the one attached to the package. -Pinktilesociety