How a print on a shirt can help entrepreneurs leave more brand footprints; with Raitis Purins of Printful

Jim James: 00:00:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of The UnNoticed

Jim James: 00:00:02

Entrepreneur with me, Jim James.

Jim James: 00:00:05

And in Riga, Latvia, I'm going to try and pronounce his name properly—Raitis Purins.

Jim James: 00:00:10

Raitis, how have I done?

Riatis Purins: 00:00:12

Hello, Jim.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:13

Awesome.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:14

Glad to be on your show, Jim.

Jim James: 00:00:15

Look, it's fantastic.

Jim James: 00:00:16

And I don't speak Latvian, but we are going to talk today about how

Jim James: 00:00:21

merchandise can extend the value of a brand and create brand ambassadors.

Jim James: 00:00:26

So you are the Marketing Director at Printful, and I'm even wearing a full

Jim James: 00:00:30

complement of Printful merchandise today.

Jim James: 00:00:33

Tell us, how does Printful and merchandise help an entrepreneur to get noticed?

Riatis Purins: 00:00:38

So, if you have an idea—we can put that on a shirt, hat,

Riatis Purins: 00:00:42

mug, Jim—like, whatever you can imagine.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:45

So when we have eased the barrier for anyone who wants to start doing that.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:50

So previously, you had had to order a hundred mugs, 50 mugs.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:54

In our case, just one mug, one shirt, it's up to you.

Riatis Purins: 00:00:58

And basically, that's what we have done, making that much, much easier.

Jim James: 00:01:02

How have you done that?

Jim James: 00:01:03

Because you're absolutely right.

Jim James: 00:01:04

In the past, promotional items, you had to have a minimum order,

Jim James: 00:01:07

and it made the cost so high.

Jim James: 00:01:10

How are you managing to make merchandise affordable and

Jim James: 00:01:14

accessible to entrepreneurs?

Riatis Purins: 00:01:16

So, we actually solved our own problem couple of years ago.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:20

We'll celebrate our 10th birthday next year.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:22

So we just celebrate nine.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:24

So, before Printful, we had an e-commerce store start with vitamins.com.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:28

Again, Google it's still, still live.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:30

And anyone we're able to actually order their own motivational quotes, get shirt

Riatis Purins: 00:01:35

done, learn, fail, experiments, stuff like that so you can put on the wall.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:40

And with posters, it's easy.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:42

You can now cut any size of the poster.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:44

If you have a printer we can print any colors, so it's

Riatis Purins: 00:01:48

easier to do that on the mat.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:49

But when it comes to the mugs, to t-shirts, different colors, different

Riatis Purins: 00:01:53

sizes, hoodies, and we wanted to also offer that to our customers.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:57

It was 10 years ago.

Riatis Purins: 00:01:58

So we're starting looking around, 'Is there anyone who can do that high

Riatis Purins: 00:02:02

quality, quickly, fast through API and not just submitting some emails, stuff

Riatis Purins: 00:02:07

like that?' So there was no one around, we were able to actually do that.

Riatis Purins: 00:02:10

And so 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago, there was idea of Printful,

Riatis Purins: 00:02:15

that we can offer anything on demand.

Riatis Purins: 00:02:17

We purchased the right equipment.

Riatis Purins: 00:02:19

We started figuring out the process how to actually do that.

Riatis Purins: 00:02:22

And as I'm saying in some way, Printful was made by developers who didn't

Riatis Purins: 00:02:27

want to leave their computers to actually print something in a t-shirt.

Riatis Purins: 00:02:31

So, and they wanted to do as lean as possible that no one has to move, so

Riatis Purins: 00:02:36

we can also offer the lower price.

Jim James: 00:02:40

So that's fantastic - solving your own problem.

Jim James: 00:02:42

And now Printful is a quite a large company.

Jim James: 00:02:44

And one of the issues that I was looking to solve when I was looking for a print on

Jim James: 00:02:48

demand was local fulfillment to save costs of shipping and also time to delivery.

Jim James: 00:02:55

Do you want to explain about Printful's worldwide footprint

Jim James: 00:02:58

now for implementation?

Riatis Purins: 00:03:00

Yes.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:01

So we started in the USA.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:02

I'm from Riga, Latvia, but as we know, the biggest market is there.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:05

So we actually opened our first facility in the USA.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:09

Now we have there three locations, California, Dallas, Texas,

Riatis Purins: 00:03:13

and, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:15

So we have three facilities areas.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:17

That's our biggest market.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:18

But as for us to actually provide a good service, shipping is really

Riatis Purins: 00:03:23

important and logistics' important.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:25

That's why I know everyone buys on Amazon because they can do

Riatis Purins: 00:03:27

their job quickly and faster.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:29

For us to provide a good service, so we needed a new facility.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:32

So we opened a facility in Europe.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:34

Have one in Riga, Latvia, because we are from here.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:36

We have in Spain, in Europe also, in the UK, Birmingham.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:40

So as it's much harder to ship there from Europe, so we can be fast and quick.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:45

Have also location in Mexico to serve the US market expanding there.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:49

Have Canada, and we also now have partners in Japan, Brazil, and Australia.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:55

So, basically, we are all over the world.

Riatis Purins: 00:03:57

So more than ten locations.

Jim James: 00:03:59

Yeah, which is fantastic.

Jim James: 00:04:00

So it means that one can design a product like my hat, for example,

Jim James: 00:04:03

and have it made anywhere around the world, wherever the customer's closest.

Jim James: 00:04:07

Now let's just talk a little bit about how an entrepreneur, any business owner, can

Jim James: 00:04:13

go online and design their own product.

Jim James: 00:04:16

Do they need to go to Canva or Photoshop, and upload an,

Jim James: 00:04:20

a design that's already made?

Jim James: 00:04:23

Or can they use the platform itself?

Riatis Purins: 00:04:25

So you can use our platform, just our platform.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:28

So printful.com.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:30

We have a design maker.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:31

So probably if you are a company owner, you really have your own logo

Riatis Purins: 00:04:35

or some brand asset, you can just come to our website, upload it, pick the

Riatis Purins: 00:04:39

right product, pick the right color.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:42

We have all the features.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:43

Okay, not all the features, which Canva has or Photoshop, but we

Riatis Purins: 00:04:47

have the most popular ones like fonts, some, some, basic designs.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:51

I know you can switch them to right to left, stuff like that.

Riatis Purins: 00:04:54

So just come to our website, upload your own logo, pick the product,

Riatis Purins: 00:04:59

and just hit couple of times next, and you can order your own merch.

Jim James: 00:05:03

So just tell us, then, Raitis.

Jim James: 00:05:05

What kind of merch do you have available?

Jim James: 00:05:08

Because that's another issue, isn't it?

Jim James: 00:05:10

Sometimes the range of merch is very limited with some POD suppliers.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:14

So we have more than 400 unique products.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:17

And we have included their colors.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:19

So, for example, we have a t-shirt which is available in

Riatis Purins: 00:05:22

30 colors, different sizes.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:24

So that's basically the most popular product - t-shirt.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:27

When it comes to merch, you think about t-shirt immediately.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:29

So that's the most popular product.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:31

But besides that, we offer, like, just look at Jim - hat, mug, phone cases.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:36

We have also other non-apparel products, like bottle, phone

Riatis Purins: 00:05:40

cases posters, and framed posters.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:43

So we have apparel products like shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts,

Riatis Purins: 00:05:47

different kinds of...

Riatis Purins: 00:05:48

we have all lower print products, like, when you think about t-shirt, it's

Riatis Purins: 00:05:51

something printed or embroidered on you.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:53

So we also offer printed and embroidered items.

Riatis Purins: 00:05:56

That's also could be leggings, bikinis, shorts, swimwear.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:00

Even bags, backpacks, like everything you can imagine.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:05

Like just come to our website and see...

Riatis Purins: 00:06:07

Even beanbags, by the way.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:08

So, pillows, it's like even hard to remember all the products offers.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:13

So basically, what you want is there.

Jim James: 00:06:15

Well, Raitis, so having, you know, made a number of items myself, I

Jim James: 00:06:18

really like how you can deploy the same brand assets across different products.

Jim James: 00:06:23

Just tell us then about the sort of minimum orders, because that's often a

Jim James: 00:06:28

stumbling block for people that want to start merch ranges, which, as you say,

Jim James: 00:06:34

now almost become an e-commerce store.

Jim James: 00:06:36

Tell us about some of the practical issues facing, for example, the

Jim James: 00:06:39

minimum orders or minimum stock values.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:42

So, our minimum order volume is zero.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:46

So if you can come to our website, printful.com, and just see, you

Riatis Purins: 00:06:50

can register, play around, and no one will ask you to pay for it.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:54

You can play around with design maker, different products, we

Riatis Purins: 00:06:57

offer that and it's easy to do.

Riatis Purins: 00:06:59

But when you want to purchase something, our pricing is made that it's for

Riatis Purins: 00:07:02

one item with at least one design.

Riatis Purins: 00:07:05

So, for example, a cheapest t-shirt costs less than 10 pounds.

Riatis Purins: 00:07:08

So, it's there, it's available for anyone.

Riatis Purins: 00:07:11

And yeah, if you want to order 25, we also order on a bulk discount

Riatis Purins: 00:07:16

if you need that kind of amount.

Riatis Purins: 00:07:17

But the idea that it's one.

Riatis Purins: 00:07:19

And the magic part, like, if you want to offer that to your customers—you

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:23

mugs, hats, phone cases, and

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:29

it'll just stay on your website.

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:31

And as soon as someone will buy only then Printful receive the order, will ready

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:37

the item, only then start printing it and send to end customer in your brand.

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:42

So basically, there's no Printful mention.

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:44

Probably your listeners have received something from Printful, but they have

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:48

no idea that it came from Printful.

can publish five different colors:

Speaker: 00:07:50

It came that from the small e-commerce store.

Jim James: 00:07:53

And I think that's a really great point that you're

Jim James: 00:07:55

only making it when it's sold.

Jim James: 00:07:57

So you're holding no inventory, no stock.

Jim James: 00:08:00

That has a sustainability impact as well, doesn't it, Raitis?

Riatis Purins: 00:08:04

So, yeah, it's one of the factors, it's much more important

Riatis Purins: 00:08:08

than when we started nine years ago, that everything what we are printing, or

Riatis Purins: 00:08:13

making, creating in our facilities already sold so there will almost no waste goes.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:19

If it's bulk printing, you could order 25 t-shirts, but maybe they'll never be

Riatis Purins: 00:08:24

worn, because, like no one will buy that.

Jim James: 00:08:26

Just explain, then, from a, if you like, a marketing

Jim James: 00:08:29

strategy perspective, how can merchandise play a role for a company?

Jim James: 00:08:35

Because in the past, we've always thought of it as kind of

Jim James: 00:08:37

a giveaway, maybe at a trade show in exchange for a business card.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:41

There are different ways.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:42

So it depends from your business.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:43

As I'm saying, anyone can use Printful.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:45

Of course, you can always use a mug or t-shirt as a giveaway on social

Riatis Purins: 00:08:50

media, but it's also the way how you can, basically, finally, put

Riatis Purins: 00:08:54

your brand outside your website.

Riatis Purins: 00:08:56

Because pretty often it's something you see on a website, but you never

Riatis Purins: 00:09:00

basically feel it or touch it.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:02

And that's a way I can give it to your super fans.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:05

Not probably every of your customer, but super fans, they will be happy to

Riatis Purins: 00:09:10

wear your product and be the ones who will walk around the city and basically

Riatis Purins: 00:09:14

show that, "Okay, this is, I know this is my billboard in some way."

Riatis Purins: 00:09:18

And, as one of the probably most common audience, I want like, I

Riatis Purins: 00:09:22

know that musicians are not maybe entrepreneurs, but in some way they

Riatis Purins: 00:09:26

are, because they want to be, they want to earn money with their music.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:29

And one of the ways they are, I know, playing concerts and

Riatis Purins: 00:09:32

people are buying tickets.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:34

And merch it's basically comes naturally in their mind.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:37

It's one of the first things they want to do.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:39

And they don't know how many people actually buy their merch, and

Riatis Purins: 00:09:42

through on demand, that it's one or a couple of items, it's just the

Riatis Purins: 00:09:46

way how we can prolong the brand.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:48

People want to support you, they will actually just be happy to

Riatis Purins: 00:09:51

wear a product, making it live.

Riatis Purins: 00:09:53

So that's the best part.

Jim James: 00:09:55

I love that.

Jim James: 00:09:56

And I think you've mentioned something there about having a store.

Jim James: 00:09:59

Do you want just to explain how an entrepreneur, a business,

Jim James: 00:10:03

can monetise their merch?

Jim James: 00:10:05

What are the integrations with some of the e-commerce websites?

Jim James: 00:10:09

Because that's another outlet, isn't it, to generate revenue?

Riatis Purins: 00:10:13

Yeah.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:13

We would say that Printful is, we are not the t-shirt printing company.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:17

So there's a lot out there.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:19

So that's the easiest part, to actually print something in their

Riatis Purins: 00:10:21

product and then send to someone.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:23

So we are, first of all, we are IT company because we have created

Riatis Purins: 00:10:26

integrations of different platforms.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:28

Like everyone knows—Shopify, Etsy, and then WooCommerce, Magenta,

Riatis Purins: 00:10:33

or other e-commerce platforms.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:35

So Shopify is the most popular one, but we have 20+ integrations ready.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:40

So we have created that, it's easy.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:42

You can actually set up your Shopify store with Printful in

Riatis Purins: 00:10:45

couple of minutes, if you want.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:46

Just go to the Shopify and then Printful, find each other's app, connect together,

Riatis Purins: 00:10:51

then upload design, push couple of buttons, pick the right product.

Riatis Purins: 00:10:56

And as we call it, we push the product in Shopify store, then it

Riatis Purins: 00:11:00

appears on your Shopify store, like no one sees that it's from Printful,

Riatis Purins: 00:11:04

and it's connected automatically.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:07

So, and then someone sees on your Shopify store your product, buys

Riatis Purins: 00:11:11

it, we immediately receive the information, and only then we

Riatis Purins: 00:11:16

are charging you for the order.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:17

So we received it, we start a fulfillment, and at the time already

Riatis Purins: 00:11:22

some of these have paid you as well.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:24

So basically, you are earning from every order.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:27

It's almost that you can't lose if someone buys your item.

Jim James: 00:11:30

That's fantastic, isn't it?

Jim James: 00:11:32

Because from a, as you say, from a cash flow point of view, you are

Jim James: 00:11:34

selling it before you've bought it.

Jim James: 00:11:37

Almost like a stock option trade, isn't it?

Jim James: 00:11:39

It's fantastic.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:40

Yeah, almost like that.

Riatis Purins: 00:11:41

So there's some delay because this payment processing happens,

Riatis Purins: 00:11:44

but it's almost like that.

Jim James: 00:11:46

Wow.

Jim James: 00:11:46

That's fantastic.

Jim James: 00:11:47

And what about the sort of trends that you're seeing for companies, for example,

Jim James: 00:11:52

for localisation of merchandise, are you seeing any ways that companies, maybe,

Jim James: 00:11:58

that are multinational, taking the same merchandise but making it, you know, more

Jim James: 00:12:03

appropriate to their local customers?

Riatis Purins: 00:12:06

Actually, not so much out of that.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:08

Our goal is that, for example, if you offer a t-shirt with your

Riatis Purins: 00:12:12

design and someone buys that in the USA or Australia, you will receive

Riatis Purins: 00:12:17

it from the nearest location.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:18

So basically, that's our goal—to actually offer a quick as best of fulfillment.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:22

I think a while ago, I asked like, is there any likely product preferences?

Riatis Purins: 00:12:27

Like, of course, there's some seasonality that hoodies start

Riatis Purins: 00:12:30

trending faster in some place where it's gets colder quicker and faster.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:34

There's, you know, marks, which is always popular when it's colder, stuff like that.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:39

With our clients in Spain, they want t-shirts with pockets because that's

Riatis Purins: 00:12:42

how they put the cigarettes because it's not easy to carry cigarettes in

Riatis Purins: 00:12:46

your swim shorts, something like that.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:49

But there's not so many things.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:51

So it's more about design, which you can adjust.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:54

It's about the language about the trends.

Riatis Purins: 00:12:57

Of course, for example, the time we enjoy as a merch company is

Riatis Purins: 00:13:01

when the US election happens.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:03

So that's basically every day before US election someone says something, and

Riatis Purins: 00:13:08

you can easily put that in a product.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:09

And then, it's a pretty big deal in US election.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:12

So people want to basically show who they will support during the election.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:16

So that's every day you'll see designs.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:19

It'll never be trendy in Europe because we don't care about that.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:22

And we're often, basically, social-cause, also, is a big thing.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:26

Like in Europe and in the world, globally.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:28

The war in Ukraine, as it all was a pretty popular thing that..

Riatis Purins: 00:13:32

Okay, not a proper thing, not the correct word.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:34

So that's, what's pretty trendy that people created stores, you ordered

Riatis Purins: 00:13:38

something and some of money there goes a donation to Ukraine as well.

Riatis Purins: 00:13:42

So social cause is also a big thing.

Jim James: 00:13:44

Yeah, you've hit on a really good point there

Jim James: 00:13:46

about sort of the topicality of merch and then what POD allows.

Jim James: 00:13:50

Can you give us an idea of the timeframes, because some of those things

Jim James: 00:13:54

are very time sensitive, aren't they?

Jim James: 00:13:56

How long does it normally take then, Raitis, to design and then actually

Jim James: 00:14:00

have a product ready to be delivered?

Riatis Purins: 00:14:02

So for me, it will take longer to design because I'm

Riatis Purins: 00:14:05

not a designer, but I try to do something with our design maker.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:08

But a magic part of print on demand that you can easily test your ideas.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:12

Maybe someone will go viral on a TikTok, as it's now a big thing.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:16

And then we'll bill the company, fulfilled, doesn't matter if one order

Riatis Purins: 00:14:19

or a thousand orders, it'll be still the same time, as quickly as possible.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:24

So in our case, so what we promised that we will fulfill any

Riatis Purins: 00:14:27

item two to five business days.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:29

In most of the cases, is around two, three business days, it's basically fulfilled.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:33

It's ready to ship out.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:35

And it depends on from the location, so probably if I order

Riatis Purins: 00:14:38

something to Riga, Latvia, usually I'll receive in less than a week.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:41

So it's much challenging maybe to compete with Amazon, but remember, you are not

Riatis Purins: 00:14:46

competing with price or competing with the design because that item will never

Riatis Purins: 00:14:50

be available on Amazon or someone else.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:53

So you are selling uniqueness.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:55

So basically, additional value.

Riatis Purins: 00:14:57

So in our case, I would say in most of the cases, up to the week.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:01

Your order today, you'll receive in a week.

Jim James: 00:15:03

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Jim James: 00:15:04

That means that you can really do some last minute work.

Jim James: 00:15:06

I just want to touch briefly then on people making designs, and

Jim James: 00:15:10

perhaps maybe not having them for e-commerce, but maybe for their own

Jim James: 00:15:14

promotional stores and internal.

Jim James: 00:15:16

How do people get the images that they've created in order to share them

Jim James: 00:15:21

with, for example, their teams, or their sales teams, or their marketing teams?

Jim James: 00:15:24

How do people liberate the images of the designs from

Jim James: 00:15:27

Printful into their social media?

Riatis Purins: 00:15:29

So, we also have a promo maker.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:31

So we have the mock ups.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:32

So we actually offer you anything that we can offer that you can use that on

Riatis Purins: 00:15:39

social media to actually drive traffic to your website, that you can actually show

Riatis Purins: 00:15:45

how the design will look in real life.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:48

And as we called it, "Mock-up."

Riatis Purins: 00:15:50

So you don't have to actually do the photo shoot.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:52

So basically, I can go to the website, in couple of minutes I can start selling it.

Riatis Purins: 00:15:57

And I can send you a link to Jim and he'll able to actually buy in a minute.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:02

So we are continuing to work to basically lower the barrier on

Riatis Purins: 00:16:05

entering to actually start selling online, to actually access own merch.

Jim James: 00:16:09

That's really amazing, how sort of low cost and how

Jim James: 00:16:13

quick you are making this, Raitis.

Jim James: 00:16:15

So can you give us an idea of the scale of the customers that you've got now?

Jim James: 00:16:20

I mean, are all your customers big companies or are they small?

Jim James: 00:16:25

And how many items are you making, for example, for a month?

Riatis Purins: 00:16:29

So, most of our customers are small customers.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:32

Actually, those who get 10 orders a month.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:34

Because for those who are bigger ones, then, very often makes sense to

Riatis Purins: 00:16:37

actually do that on bulk more often.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:39

But we also work with bigger larger brands.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:41

For example, we have Coca-Cola working in us.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:43

We print merch for SpongeBob as well, because we can offer customization.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:49

Because every design or website can be unique.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:52

So if you want, you can even add, for one merch, your name; for another merch, my

Riatis Purins: 00:16:56

name to the product, because it's unique.

Riatis Purins: 00:16:59

It's made on demand.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:00

You don't have to order 50 shirts prior, and to actually

Riatis Purins: 00:17:04

offer those various design.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:06

So we offer something no one can offer.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:08

And under one roof, we can also offer t-shirts and mugs.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:12

Unique two different printers for that.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:14

And if you want to do that your own, you have to find different

Riatis Purins: 00:17:16

suppliers who can actually offer that.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:18

So, I think in last year or so, we had more than 300K customers

Riatis Purins: 00:17:23

made at least one order.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:24

So there are lot of customers.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:26

Last year we finished with revenue little bit less than

Riatis Purins: 00:17:29

300 million dollars in a year.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:31

So a lot of many customers using us.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:34

And, as I have to remind my team that we have to build solutions that will

Riatis Purins: 00:17:39

impact 10 thousands of customers, because we need them, that they will grow.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:44

So that will impact the company.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:45

This doesn't matter for number one customer will grow by a hundred percent,

Riatis Purins: 00:17:49

it'll not make a big difference for us.

Riatis Purins: 00:17:51

So we have to build solutions for our small customers.

Jim James: 00:17:55

I love that.

Jim James: 00:17:55

And as you say, "The raise on demand of Printful is very much in the

Jim James: 00:17:59

framework of serving entrepreneurs because of the scale advantage."

Jim James: 00:18:03

Final question, as you know, I'd like to ask you, Raitis, how

Jim James: 00:18:07

does Printful get itself noticed?

Riatis Purins: 00:18:09

I think the first most important part is that they

Riatis Purins: 00:18:11

have to do your job really great.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:14

So, if you will do a great job everyone will refer to you.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:18

So if you will, I know, Jim, yourself, you will, as someone

Riatis Purins: 00:18:22

will ask you, "Hey, can you offer a company you can print your merch?"

Riatis Purins: 00:18:26

You'll suggest Printful, because, hopefully, we're doing a great job.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:29

So that's number one rule, which is helping to grow our business

Riatis Purins: 00:18:32

kind of because of huge base.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:34

That works as a word of mouth machine.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:36

But in the first stages, there are two things I want to mention.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:40

One is that we...

Riatis Purins: 00:18:42

at the beginning, we had our, or our first integration was with Shopify.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:46

So for you to be an e-commerce, basically seller, you need something

Riatis Purins: 00:18:50

to sell, and we offer that.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:53

Otherwise, if you don't have anything to sell, you can't be

Riatis Purins: 00:18:56

an e-commerce on your customer.

Riatis Purins: 00:18:58

So we had an app on Shopify and people noticed that.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:02

So there are people checking that, and that was one of the excited.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:05

So worked with the best, work with the partners that are helping you.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:09

And really at the beginning, we start investing also with SEO, so that

Riatis Purins: 00:19:14

people can easily find you on Google.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:16

So we are doing, basically, from the day one, we are setting

Riatis Purins: 00:19:21

that and now works as a machine.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:23

So it's really good to be an answer to people's question Google.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:27

So they have incentive they're naturally coming and want to see, what

Riatis Purins: 00:19:31

do you offer, what do you not offer.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:33

Of course, we have run that, but those are two basic things work

Riatis Purins: 00:19:36

with the best partners and be answer to people's questions on Google.

Jim James: 00:19:41

Raitis, that's fantastic.

Jim James: 00:19:42

Thank you so much.

Jim James: 00:19:43

I'm going to let you explain give us your full name properly without my English

Jim James: 00:19:48

pronunciation of a Latvian surname.

Jim James: 00:19:49

And where can people find out more about you?

Riatis Purins: 00:19:52

So, my name is Raitis Purins.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:54

You can find me, of course, on LinkedIn.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:56

Feel free to me add to my network.

Riatis Purins: 00:19:58

I post about how great Printful is there.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:00

So you can follow that.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:01

And of course, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram, but

Riatis Purins: 00:20:04

there's mostly Latvian stuff.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:06

And if you want to learn more about Printful, we are

Riatis Purins: 00:20:08

basically available everywhere.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:10

If you'll Google us, you will find us.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:12

So printful.com.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:14

And we actually...

Riatis Purins: 00:20:15

if you are not even speaking English, we are available in many languages.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:19

So just Google us.

Jim James: 00:20:20

Raitis, thank you so much for joining us on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur

Jim James: 00:20:23

show and explaining how merch can extend the value of a brand, but also

Jim James: 00:20:29

how accessible Printful has made it.

Jim James: 00:20:31

So I'm very grateful to you and the Printful team for doing them.

Jim James: 00:20:33

And thank you very much for sharing with me today, my fellows

Jim James: 00:20:36

entrepreneurs, how they can use merch to extend their business.

Jim James: 00:20:40

Thank you.

Riatis Purins: 00:20:41

Thanks Jim.