Web to Print providers - ideally without setup fees!

S

stressedbrian

New Member
Hi Folks,

I am wanting to add a range of products to our existing Ecwid shop that customers can add their own images to and preview them.

Using web to print it would appear that you can create custom templates for products, which are added to dynamic content in the shop and then the customer can upload their own images and see roughly what the final product would look like.

I have seen quite a few web 2 print companies but open to recommendations particularly on ones with low or no setup fees - some seem as high as $1000/£1000 etc.

There does not seem to be anyone that would integrate with Ecwid so it looks like we would be forming this shop from scratch!

We would be doing our own printing they would not need to go to customers via an external lab.

Any help much appreciated.
 
Are you talking about an online mock-up generator for people to upload their own image to a product?
 
Check out Pageflex
https://www.pageflex.com/

I see that Ecwid allows API - so it should be able to integrate with Pageflex.

Pageflex Studio is a Windows only application (so you need a PC) and you recreate the artwork in PageFlex, and lock down the elements that don't change. You do this by creating a PDF of all the elements that don't change - placing that in the background. The only thing you need to add is the elements that do change - like images - text etc.
 
Thanks Hankscorpio, that is very interesting is it back end windows only I take it, otherwise customers couldn't order if they were on mac or mobile?

Also sorry just to clarify these products would be customers facing to the general public, I'm not doing it for commercial customers for print runs etc. Therefore it needs to be userfriendly.

Just having a quick look at pageflex I feel it is more geared towards team setups for example a branch adding content to a head office created design for social media or print run etc. Rather than for ecommerce to the general public. My apologies if I am wrong.

As mentioned above brushyourideas.com is pretty much what I'm after but would be good to get a recommendation!
 
Not sure about the current market for these kind of things but from experience £1000 doesn't seem too bad.

A few years ago I worked with a company doing personalised gifts like T's, phone cases and mugs and they used a 3D mock-up generator.
It cost them around £20,000 to buy in to plus a monthly subscription.

It was a pig to use and never worked properly.
In the end it was dumped as it was Flash based. :ROFLMAO:

Why not use Brushyourideas?

Is it because it's Magento based or is it the cost?
 
Yes backend setup of variable items is Windows software only.

Once deployed on the storefront it can be edited on any platform, including mobile.

It can definitely be e-commerce for general public.


Brushyourideas looks quite good.
 
onto BYI just now the call center is somewhere in india the line quality is terrible and they are having trouble explaining to me and and understanding my english!

It looks pretty much exactly what we need though.

Indeed the prices have dropped massively but I don't want to pay say £1000 say and realise it doesn't really work for us!

the magento platform isn't an issue although I'm not familiar with it we would link through to it rather than integrate.
 
It doesn't inspire confidence when you'r dealing with an Indian call centre. :(

The problem I found with the generator I used was the lack of products available.
There are loads of different phone cases, mugs, garments and these were just a tiny few of the products we offered.
We had to give each product to the mock-up company to be created which took time and a lot of money.

There are quite a few companies doing this now so I think it's important to have a niche to succeed.
 
My understanding (and requirement) is that we create our own blank product template and that is uploaded to the system to be a dynamic and customer editable product (in our case mainly to allow the adding images).

We are lucky to have a niche but getting a system to take as far as beta testing to check for viability and functionality without high costs is proving tricky!

Any other company I'm just found is zakeke, a lot seem to offer the back end printing as well which we don't need.
 
From the looks of it zakeke offer 10 products for free.

From experience, once you start wanting custom products is where it gets costly.
 
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