Now I am only a college student starting a website and want to open an online store (t-shirts mainly but other product designs too as well). I have been looking a lot and thinking that using a POD provider is the best way to start off - until shirts start to really sell than I would move onto a screen printing company (found one, ordering promotional shirts tomorrow and to check quality) that is cheap and would increase profits by a lot. My problem is, which POD would be even right for me? I want to integrate some aspects of their API into my own site. Basically scrap all of their site, except for the payment / checkout. This is because I want to have a fully unique, awesome experience, not just do some CSS/HTML crap. Anyone have any ideas? I mean, I don't wanna do CafePress for a number of reasons (quality, pricing, etc.). Zazzle seems like a good choice, but they dont have a full API. Printfection (not to sure about how extensive their API is), like that it's fully White Label, dislike the pricing - which is a big downfall as my target audience is college students. Anyone else have any other ideas, should I even bother with a POD at first? Where do sites that use things like Shopify (looked at it, realized it's only a front-end management tool) actually order their products from? Or do they not deal with a 3rd company and do everything in-house (aka find a printer, buy them bulk, sell out of warehouse, etc.). Any and all information - and experiences - is very welcome!
I am using Cafepress. I started it at the begining of January, and I can say that it is very easy to maintain the site.