What should I keep in mind when selling on Shopify?

Once you’ve set up your first Shopify store, here are some key things to keep in mind as you move forward in your print-on-demand journey.

You don’t need technical skills to set up your store

If you want to focus on selling and getting your brand out there without the technical aspect of setting up a personal storefront, Shopify is the way to go. Go to themes.shopify.com to view their extensive catalog of premade themes, including a selection of highly customizable free themes.

There are costs associated with selling on Shopify, but they are low

Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, after which you’ll need to select from a range of monthly subscription plans priced between USD 39 and USD 399 per month (save 25% with the annual plan).

For beginners, the basic plan provides sufficient features to set up your storefront. Additionally, regardless of your choice, you’ll only pay USD 1 per month for the first 3 months.

You can purchase a domain to promote your brand

By default, your store can be found at mystore.myshopify.com, where “mystore” will be replaced by your store’s name. For a more professional look, you can purchase a primary domain, since this is how customers will find your store. 

You can look up your domain name choice and find purchase options here, or alternatively by using a service like GoDaddy.

Some plugins may be incompatible with Printify

Certain Shopify apps can interfere with how Printify handles products, orders, and shipping. In particular:

Shipping / rate apps (e.g. Advanced Shipping Rules, Better Shipping, similar checkout or shipping overrides)

• Can conflict with the Printify Shipping Calculator and cause incorrect or missing shipping rates.
• We can’t guarantee compatibility with these types of apps.

Bulk editing tools

• If they change product or variant IDs or SKUs, Printify may no longer recognize the products, and orders might not route to Printify correctly.

To stay safe, avoid changing IDs/SKUs on products connected to Printify and test any new app with a few products/orders before using it store‑wide.

You can adjust your order import settings

By default, your Shopify orders are automatically imported into Printify. After that, these orders will go to production according to your selected order approval settings in Printify.

You should also review your order processing settings in Shopify, go to “Settings” → “General” → “Order Processing”:

• If you want orders to be sent to production automatically
  • choose “Automatically fulfill the order’s line items”
  • orders will be sent to production upon import ignoring your order approval settings in Printify
  • clicking Request fulfillment in Shopify order view will have the same effect
• If you want orders to follow your Printify order approval settings
  • choose "Don't fulfill any of the order's line items automatically

Avoid using Shopify’s exchange functionality for Printify orders

When operating a standalone store such as Shopify, you control your store’s return policy. If you plan to offer exchanges, remember that products cannot be returned to Printify. Instead, you could resell the items or use them for giveaways. Note that using Shopify’s exchange functionality does not create a new order on Printify; as a result, your customer will not receive a replacement product.

To handle an exchange, you have two options:

• Same product cost: If the replacement product costs the same as the original, create a manual order for the customer directly in Printify.
• Different product cost: If the replacement product costs more or less than the original, refund the customer in Shopify and ask them to place a new order for the desired product.