Zazzle T-Shirt Review - $43.91 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

I completely sympathize with your plight. I recently ordered 8 shirts from Zazzle, and every single one of them was grossly defective in the images printed on the shirts.

On most of the shirts, the front image was very noticeably rotated from level. Also, some of the front images had been enlarged to 150% of the size that appear on the Zazzle galleries from which I selected the shirts. These enlarged images are so huge that tucking the shirt into my pants cuts off a large part of the design!

Also, on every single shirt the logo on the back is rotated so much that it’s very obvious even at a quick glance. Most of the logos are also much larger than appear on the shirts in the Zazzle galleries from which I ordered the shirts.

Clearly, Zazzle has NO product quality control whatsoever. The printer’s drunk/stoned/lobotomized and nobody at Zazzle seems to give a damn.

I’ve requested my money back but have yet to receive an RMA number to enable it to happen. I hope I don’t discover that Zazzle has screwed me even more than I already realize!!

Wow, those are two pretty bad experiences. The white on the shirts could be attributed to the difficulty of printing on dark t-shirts but my Cafepress t-shirts dark t-shirts came out well.

[...] Here, check it out. [...]

Wow…I’ve ordered quite a few things from Zazzle and have only had one bad experience. They are usually really good about returns and refunds though.

That printing totally sucks! Try going in the forums and bashing them a bit…..they will respond….very quickly!

Unfortunately this is par for the course at Zazzle. I’ve tried many different types of images on the shirts there and they always look terrible. Getting resolution through their customer service is just as bad and hardly worth the effort. As an online POD designer myself, I’ve resorted to completely removing my shirt designs from Zazzle and only have them available at redbubble.com now. The only things I use Zazzle for are basics… cards, magnets and mugs. Even the buttons and keychains are junk - not even close to being worth the $2-$3 you pay. You can get the same quality of stuff from a gumball machine.

They are notorious for that. The voting system is based on how the image looks on the site and not on print… There have been complaints of images printed on mugs upside down… colors not coming out the same as the image uploaded… a lot of different things… you email or post complaints, they go unheard…

Wow, I actually own a Zazzle shop and I have ordered several things there myself. I have ordered mugs, Magnets, Greeting cards but no T-shirts yet. So far I have not had any problems with the quality of the things I have bought there, nor have I had any complaints(As in returns) from customers who bought my wares. Unfortunately, my biggest problem with Zazzle as a shop owner is that there is absolutely NO WAY to contact customers directly or vice versa. If someone buys a T shirt from me and it looks like crap I would LOVE to know about it so that I can contact Zazzle myself and raise some holy hell. This is indeed disturbing however, and I guess I will have to buy a few T shirts for myself and see whats up with this.

wow! now i wish i didn’t order one of mine for the first time.

I must admit i’ve had problems time and time again with Zazzle. Products not being printed as shown in the preview (badges) printed upside down (profile cards) poor quality product (first time i got postcards) …… besides the fact they have ZERO quality control, i’ve even had products arrive dirty and smelling of cigarettes.

DO contact them you deserve a whole lot better!!

Wow! I was once considering opening a shop on Zazzle! I think that we all have to realize that designs displayed on the screen will always differ some from the design printed on the fabric. However, the quality should still be reasonably good on the fabric. The process used to print a design on fabric is very different from the process that displays it on screen! It is extremely difficult to get them to match!! This is why it is important to proof all your products on the real thing!

My “base” stores are all parked at Printfection, but also have some of my designs available on Zazzle. Hey, why not? I have picked-up some random Zazzle marketplace sales, without sending anyone specifically in that direction, as my marketing and domains direct towards Printfection.

Anyway, I’ve seen mixed results with Zazzle vs. Printfection printing on darks. Overall I’d say Prinfection wins, but have seen cases where Zazzle is superior. It seems to be contingent on the nature of the specific design, as two companies have different printing processes.

Over on http://www.podentrepreneur.com, he (or she) did what i think a lot of us would do, if we had the budget: have the same design printed on a dark tee, by the four different leading POD companies. They declared Zazzle the winner…

…but remember, that’s based on printing one particular design (it was big solid color lettering).

The best test to run — if someone had the money to burn — is to choose at least five different designs with different levels of detail, color combos, etc, and then have them all printed at the four different leading POD companies. That’s at least 20 shirts to produce / purchase, but would give a much better story of which POD exceeds at printing what kind of design, etc. Perhaps there would be a clear overall winner, perhaps not. I do think Printfection would take it, though.

To stay on target, yes, that “arrow” shirt should be returned or replaced. I think all of us know and accept that the printed shirt can never truly be dead-on with what is shown on-screen…

…so, we have lowered expectations. But the question is, will the product FALL BELOW those lowered expectations, which this clearly did. It’s a sloppy job, and the “top” print obviously didn’t align correctly with the white underlay (commonly referred to as “flash” in traditional screenprinting.)

The point is, the shirt should have never been shipped like this. Did the Zazzle employee shipping it not care? Didn’t notice? Do they have a “cross your fingers, should be okay, most customers don’t want to go through the trouble of returning it, and accept it as-is,” mentality?

Well, if so, that’s a real problem for shopkeepers, trying to make these stores into real businesses…product might not be returned, but sure as hell won’t get repeat business or good word-of-mouth.

Sorry to drone on for so long. My last note is about digital POD printing vs. traditional screenprinting. Some of the POD companies — ESPECIALLY Zazzle — trumpet their new-ish printing process on darks is as good as, or superior than screenprinting…it’s not. They were too quick to thump their chests about it. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not as good as screnprinting…YET. The reason I’m so interested in the POD stuff, is because I’m banking on continued leaps in technology where it WILL get there, in a year or three. For now, most of it is good ENOUGH…these guys are all still working out the kinks!

It’s still notoriously difficult to do good printing on black. Clearly Zazzle hasn’t mastered this art yet, and neither have the other POD companies. (The white outlines on all those arrows are, I assume, the white layer of ink that is laid down on dark before the actual correct ink colors are applied.)

I would never expect the absolute crispness that one sees on the computer when looking at a t shirt design, but frankly what you got is pretty abominable.

I have a Zazzle shop, and have ordered one black tee from them, and I was relatively pleased with how it came out. But it was larger blocks of bright color.

Hope you get your (exorbitant) money back.

That’s really disappointing. I listened to a podcast by the founders of Zazzle at the Stanford Entrepreneur lecture series. They were introduced as a company that hires people out of Stanford like Google used to. I haven’t bought any t-shirts from them yet but I have been following them for awhile. That is a huge mistake on their part.

The best t-shirt company right now is a company based in Boston called Johnny Cupcakes. Johnny has people lining up outside his shop for days waiting for the new releases of his shirts. You will have to read his story at http://www.johnnycupcakes.com/the_story/

Anyway, I bought my second t-shirt the other day and it arrived yesterday. The amazing thing is the way he packages his shirts. He sends it in a box that you can see on his blog. I wish had a picture. In it he sent me a pin with he logo (a cupcake with cross bones) on it, a trading card of Save by the Bell the college years, a pink mint in a Gold wrapper with his logo on it. It’s all about the little things and he understands this.

Not only are his designs unique but the shirt itself is top quality. He even sews in an oven mitten as the tag. He focuses on all the little details and makes for a great experience.

I’m not affiliated with his company in any way. I am just a huge fan and want other t-shirt companies to take note because it won’t be long until they don’t have a choice.

I received my replacement yesterday so I will be doing a followup post soon (with the good and the bad).

Matt

Wow! I’ve order items from Zazzle before and never had that problem. I wonder if this is a growing trend over there?

43 bucks is a lot of money for that shirt.

[...] two weeks ago I posted a Zazzle t-shirt review and expressed my disappointment with the print quality after spending over $40 for a t-shirt. After [...]

I don’t like Zazzle either but that t-shirt you got is not Zazzle fault in the sense that they didn’t create the desing, it looks like the person who uploaded the designs was an amateur and left and added some glow or semi-trasparent edges to the arrows. Direct To Garment can not handle translucent colors, of course, Zazzle doesn’t teach anyone how to upload correctly, so it is their fault in the end.

Hi, you have a digital print…..Zazzle doesn’t offer screen printing. The digital process, since it’s start-up, has issues with printing on anything other than white shirts. Zazzle makes a big deal out of explaining that they use the newest digital technology (on their “intro benefits” page). Their statement is that they don’t charge you for printing more colors like other printers do (there are no screens in the digital process). The digital process allows the multi color print without additional work but, as you see, it produces an inferior product. White tshirts will look pretty good until you wash them several times (the solvent ink that is used also has kinks to be worked out…we’ve tested these products and keep a watch for hopeful improvements in this technology.

The real culprit is the digital press technology which cannot produce a quality print on a dark shirt…only on white. Even on white, there are issues with the solvent inks not holding up. Zazzle is not screen-printing any garments (info is on their introduction and benefits page).

I’ve had 2 accounts with Zazzle for more than 2 years. Last month Zazzle contacted me about my images, saying that my images were not copyrighted and that I should give them the links were I took the images from. As far as I know, I did not steal images from other websites, everything I’ve made with the pictures was approved for me to use them. Today, they closed both my galleries and I get nothing out of it, they get all the money that WE make for them. Plus, a few of my customers/close friends, had told me that the printing was really bad and they had to return it for a refund. A couple of times I sent them questions, it takes them days and days to get back to me, poor customer service. Stop using Zazzle and don’t buy from them!

RE: “Comment by Guest2 on February 3, 2009 @ 6:42 pm”

I have had the same problem but I just responded to their answers honestly and everything was fine. It does not seem as thought they would close an account just because.

I have copy and pasted their user agreement, so it is entirely possible that your account was deleted just because, but this does not sound like a business practice anyone would use:
Termination - You agree that Zazzle, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, account (or any part thereof) or use of the Site, and remove and discard any Content you may have contributed to the Site, at any time for any reason or no reason. Zazzle may also in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing the Site, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to the Site under any provision of this Agreement may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and agree that Zazzle may immediately deactivate or delete your account and all related information and files in your account and/or bar any further access to such files of the Site. Further, you agree that Zazzle shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Site. Should you object to any terms and conditions of the Agreement or become dissatisfied with the Site in any way, your only recourse is to immediately discontinue your use of the Site and/or terminate your account.

I have used Zazzle for years, spent thousands of dollars on their products, and designed thousands of products. The concept is great, and I continue to use them because they have great design features that their competitors lack. Problems generally arise when they make any programming changes. If you let them know about the error, they generally deny it. I recently contacted them concerning errors in commissions, and the reply I got contained the following:

“SO the difference between 63.24 and 48.91 is the magical number you were inquiring about: $7.86″

I did not care for the employee’s sarcasm - especially when it is apparent that he can not do subtraction at the fifth grade level! Programing changes are not tested enough before going “live,” and they are not resolved in a timely manner as a result of denial. I do not have a problem with the idea behind Zazzle and have very rarely had a problem with the quality of the products. Delivery is GENERALLY as promised, and it is apparent that they at least make a good faith effort although there is an occasional delay. Handling of complaints and testing of programming changes are two areas that could use definate improvement.

I have read several complaints concerning printing on Black. While I generally order mostly white shirts because I consider the design and the message more important than the colour of the shirt (and White is $5 cheaper than black), I have had a few designs that I ordered on black. To be quite honest, I considered the result superior. Of course, I realise that was the case on the few I ordered and may not be true in every case.

If you’re looking for a high quality white on black print I would suggest you do a plot print with Spreadshirt. It will have to be a vector and there are requirements when it comes to types of designs, but because it’s a plot print there will be absolutely no issues with white outlines or faded print.

I didn’t ordered anything from zazzle or any pod, but I uploaded some stuff there. Anyway, it looks like some kind of crap from the beginning, since they all, ask for PNG files from which they print and that’s just plain stupid. Any professional printing system prints or renders colors in any way, from CMYK and not RGB and the files should be vector files, in that way people won’t have problems with resolution.

Now is true, that we can’t blame zazzle or whoever entirely for stupid prints that sometimes hapend, cause there are a lot of amateurs who don’t have a clue about what printing is and upload broken graphics. Zazzle should inspect the uploaded graphics to check if they’re suitable for print and not just print it, though.

And when you buy in the future, look closely at the one who made those graphics, look at it’s entire store. If is an amateur, will have a lot of stupid crap, if is not, you’ll see.

So in the future, if you want real quality complex graphic print, look at some place who print from vector files, not crap.

I am a zazzle seller and I used to have that white line problem
It could just be a problem with the image file
for dark shirts it’s best to use PNG files

I’m an artist looking to sell prints on high quality papter. Read many comments on t shirt printing…not impressed. I would like to know the quality of the prints. Anyone?

I ordered two shirts. They sent me an email telling me Shirt A was not uploaded to their web site correctly (which begs the question of why they were even selling it) and that they had removed it from my order. I would have to order it again from a different designer if I still wanted it.

Imagine my surprise when I get Shirt A in the mail, along with an invoice including both shirts. I send them an email letting them know I did not get the second shirt.

Next day…you guessed it. I got ANOTHER version of Shirt A (remember they told me to re-order it). I send another customer service email.

Now customer service tells me they made a mistake - well, not a mistake, it was “a miscommunication on their part.” Apparently they do not use the word mistake. It was actually Shirt B that could not be ordered. He then asks if I can “provide a digital image to substantiate this information, that would be ideal.” Ideal for who? Does this mean I’m not getting my money back if I just TELL them I got two duplicate t-shirts?

I have two of the same shirt and no resolution. They really suck.

The white outlines you see on the arrow design tee is probably Zazzles’ attempt to do a “flash” (base under coat used when printing on dark colors). The “flash” usually white is printed first then the other color/colors are printed on top of the flash or base. If the registration is off the flash or base will show as an outline or a ghastly shadow effect. Printing on dark colors can be difficult if you can’t be where your product is being printed order a sample before going to production to avoid the problem. Stick to vector images and have the colors separated before you send the image in. Hope this info helps.

Sabre

Do not bother with zazzle if you are ordering from the UK. It takes forever for the products to arrive. Shipping cost is also extortionate.

If you are in a rush to get your invitation cards delivered for example, again do not bother as they ship all their items from the US.

The premium courier service is way too pricey for it to become a realistic option.

dont order from here if you are in a hurry. I paid for premium shipping for an item to arrive in time for a party. I ordered it on the 13th and they didn’t ship until the 15th. Missed arrival for my party. I won’t order from them again unless I have PLENTY of time, and will NEVER pay for premium shipping.

Ordered from Zazzle twice (stupid mistake): first, I received a shirt that looked nothing like it did on the web, and second, I got a shirt that was 2 or 3 times too small. I was supposed to receive a 25% credit for shirt No. 1, but I never got it. And now, they want me to pay to send back shirt No. 2. I already paid nearly $40 for shirt No. 2 because I ordered a 3X (the bigger the shirt, the more you pay). The bottom lines is: what Zazzle shows/says on their site is not what you’ll get. Buyer beware!