Selling on teespring (Print on Demand)

Everyday Islamic Finance Business and Career Questions
1

Bismillah Sheykh…

I found this website long time ago it’s called teespring.com

teespring is a company that sell that something we can put our design on it like t-shirt, tank top, mug, phone case, etc. I think basically this company allow us to be their “wakil” and their designer at the same time.

SO HOW DOES IT WORK?

Firstly, all the products is owned by teespring (the company).

What we can do on their website?
We can simply upload our design onto teespring products (t-shirt, tank top, mug, phone case, etc).
And of course thru their website.

What the company do?
So they print out our design on their products like I mention before (t-shirt, tank top, mug, phone case, etc) and ship the products if the customers purchase the products thru their website.

Where do they get customer?
So basically teespring(dot)com is a website kind of like amazon(dot)com. So they can get customers thru the website (teespring(dot)com) OR the designer (which is us) can also promote the products WITH OUR DESIGN ON IT thru social media, facebook ads, instagram ads, or maybe our friend want to buy it.

So whenever if someone want to buy the products (t-shirt, tank top, mug, phone case, etc) WITH OUR DESIGN ON IT thru the website (teespring(dot)com). Then we can get commission from the company (Teespring)

How much our commission?
It depends.
Firstly we have to set up our price. Let’s say teespring have a price for t-shirt: 10$. Teespring allow us to set up a price whatever the price we want as long still profitable for us, let’s say 22$

There are two types of commission as far as I concerned
First: if the customers purchase the products (well, they can buy one products or more) thru our link, which is we promote it thru social media, ads, etc like I mentioned before. Then we get all that 12$ in profit

Second: if the customers find directly and purchase the products thru the website itself. The profit can we get is splitted by Teespring, maybe 50% which is 6$ (but it depends on teespring whatever the price they want to pay us, maybe less then that, maybe more). Because indirectly they (Teespring) do the marketing for us, so I think they deserve it.

How do we get paid?
They can pay us via paypal or payoneer

My question:
Is this halal? is this permissible to put our design on the products and get commission?

Ps: our design is permissible which is not containt copyright design or any haram things

This business model they called it (PRINT ON DEMAND)

Jazakallah Khayr :pray:t2::pray:t2:

1 Like
2

Wasalam

May Allah bless you.

At what point does the customer pay for the order?
Who collects the payment, you or the printing company?
Can the customer cancel the order at any point? what is she cancels the order after the t-shirt has been made, do you have to contribute towards the loss of the t-shirt order?

Regards

3

Asalamualikum.

  • The customer pays for an order just like in any other ecommerce store. He choses a product he likes, he then goes to checkout and pay using either his debit / credit card or his paypal account.

  • The payment is collected by the company and then they transfer the commission / profit to us who make designs for t-shirts, mugs etc. How it works is that the base price of a t-shirt is $10, the company tells the ’ sellers / designers ’ that you make a design for the product that would be printed onto the t-shirt etc… and the company tells us that you can then set the price of the product, and it’s up to us how much price we set for that product. Example i set the price for t-shirt that i designed to $25 and the base price is $10, so when a customer comes and sees the product that i designed and purchase it so the $10 would go to the company and the remaining profit, in this case $15 would be transferred to my account from the company.

  • Yes the customer can cancel the order at anytime. The company in this case " teespring " manufactures the products, print the design and delivers it to the customer and they handle all customer care, shipments, returns and cancellations and we don’t have to do anything except for registering onto their website and start making designs, and there is no upfront cost for registering or for designing.

  • i don’t know for sure about the last part that whether we would contribute towards any loss of the order if it is cancelled. My thoughts are that we would only receive profit once a sale is been completed and would not have to contribute to any loss. But i would still ask the company about this part just to be sure.

I would hope for a reply @Mufti_Billal . Regards

4

@Mufti_Billal @Mufti_Faraz_Adam please someone answer this thread. Jazakallah

5

Please clarify this point first with the company.

Kind regards

6

asalamo alaykoum

this is some answers i got from the company (merch my amazon)

When is a sale recognized?

While we report near real time purchases in the Merch by Amazon portal, Amazon does not recognize a sale until the item is shipped to the end customer. We do this for several reasons including: we don’t charge the customer until shipment, items can be canceled prior to shipment, and we may find a design that is not printable and will therefore have to cancel the customer’s purchase.

Why was my item returned?

Buyers can return items they’ve purchased for many reasons.

What is the difference between a cancelled product and a returned product?

Cancelled products are cancelled by a customer before they are fulfilled by Amazon. Returned products are printed and shipped to a customer before a return is requested. Royalties are not paid on cancelled products since they are never shipped.

Why do you deduct royalties on returned products?

As Merch has grown, so, too, has the number of returns. If we didn’t deduct your royalties for returned items, Merch would bear the entire cost of returns. This rising cost would impact our ability to reinvest and innovate on behalf of customers and creators alike.

i hope the image is clear know
thank you, jazaka laho khayrane

7

Asalamualikum @Mufti_Billal

So i asked this question to a similar company like teespring

So they said " Whenever something happens like this an order has been marked completed and then it gets returned back to us, there are 2 possibilities one we will reproduce that order and send it back to the customer and the other possibility is that customer just wants a refund in that case we have a system to deduct from artist’s wallet. If any artist withdrawal that amounts from their account we will deduct the same profit with some other order "

Please reply @Mufti_Billal. Kind regards.

8

Please reply @Mufti_Billal. Thank you.

9

ok so if a customer cancels the order, teespring refunds the customer and deduct the money from artist’s wallet. This is because the the customer paid for the t-shirt.
But what happens to the t-shirt that has already been made? teespring keeps it? or the artist needs to pay for anything? because the t-shirt has already been made, so someone has to take a loss somewhere.
Once we know this, then we can establish who is the true owner of the t-shirt i.e. teespring or the artist. Once we will know who the owner is, then we will be able to look at whether the entire transaction is shariah compliant or not.

10
Why do you deduct royalties on returned products?

As Merch has grown, so, too, has the number of returns. If we didn’t deduct your royalties for returned items, Merch would bear the entire cost of returns. This rising cost would impact our ability to reinvest and innovate on behalf of customers and creators alike.

Royalties is basically the profit that Amazon gives us for the shirt.

@Mufti_Billal - Does this answer your question?

11

Salam alakum
What if you make your own website using shopify and put your tshirt designs on there. That way you can control and change the rules for returns. Either not accepting returns or accepting returns, but the customer needs to ship it back to your adress so that way when you sell the same shirt you can ship it directly to the new customer using my returned stock.

12

@fadhill @Pakistani akistanii

I believe there is nothing wrong with this type of transaction, unless more information come to light in the future that prove otherwise.

And Allah knows best!

13

Wasalam

What is the agreement the seller has with shopify?

Kind regards

14

A print on demand company called printful, helps businesses print their own design on a blank shirt or other stuff. They get it shipped like it’s your own clothing brand. It’s basically like dropshipping, but it’s more of the design that your selling.
Teespring is different from printful. At teespring the customer buys the shirt at the same website teespring.com, but when it comes to printful you have to make your own website like Gucci.com, and when you get a sale on your website then you simply just have to go on printfulcom and open your designs template and put the customer information in to get it shipped to the customer adress.
You can make a seller account on printful that helps you save the designs and track your orders.

Shopify only helps you create and manage your own website. After you make your own website you then can add or generate the following policies for your store:

  • Refund policy
  • Privacy policy
  • Term of service
15

Sorry I forgot to tag you on my last reply.

16

Wasalam

Transacting with Printful appears to be a form of dropshipping, which is not shariah compliant. The seller is effectively selling something which he has not possession at all.

And Allah knows best!

1 Like
18

Salam,

With dropshipping the products are already manufactured and ready to be sold, yet others come in to sell them with no possession at all. Although with printful the product is not manufactured or printed without your designs. You add value to the shirt with your designs. We both are partnering up to create a product.

19

Wasalam

If the merchandise get destroyed on the way to the customer, or the customer wants a refund on a product, you will be refunding them right?

Do you claim the money back from Printful or part of it?

20

Yes, printful will cover the costs of reprinting and shipping a replacement order if the package is lost or damaged.

As for refunding, I will be issuing refunds only if the customer agrees to pay for shipping returns. The return will be shipped back to my adress for inventory.

Due to covid I might not consider accepting returns for right now. I’ll make it clear on my refund policy. Size chart will be directly visible for the customer to read to reduce the probability of returns.

21

I don’t see anything that suggest that there is a partnership structure between the seller and Printful, neither from a legal perspective or and Islamic perspective.

This needs to be looked at in details again to determine if it is compliant from another sort of agreement like agency relationship or else.

And Allah knows best!