Should a print shop or decorator use Shopify for customer stores?

A print shop can use Shopify, and plenty do, but Shopify does not know what a print zone is, what 300 dpi means for a left chest logo, how a 2XL surcharge works, or that a purchase order should raise on your SanMar account when the order lands.

Those gaps are the daily work of a decorated goods order. Brandfora models a print zone as a real area at real output size, measures the uploaded file against it, and refuses the checkout if it will not print, offering upscale, vectorize or a better file in the same panel. Price lists carry quantity tiers, size surcharges and decoration charges, and read markup and margin both ways, so a 60 percent markup shows as 37.5 percent margin next to it. Artwork lands in the customer's art locker with a vector and, for embroidery, a DST with stitch count and a matched thread palette. When the order is placed, the purchase order raises on your own supplier account number.

On a general store platform each of those becomes an app, a plugin, a custom field or a person. The person is usually someone opening artwork after payment and calling the customer back for a better file, which costs a phone call, a slipped ship date and sometimes the order.

Brandfora also integrates with Shopify rather than arguing with it: build the store in seconds here, push it to Shopify when a customer wants to live there, and keep the order in your cockpit. We integrate because customers asked, not to compete. The caveat: if you sell one fixed catalog to the public with no artwork step and no supplier purchase orders, Shopify on its own is the simpler answer and we will tell you so.

The compare page has the specifics with dates and sources.