GUEST: David Hooker, Director of Brand at FYUL, the parent company of Printify + Printful.
"70% of stuff never goes sold. So you have to be prepared to interact with that level of rejection."
David Hooker is the brand director for both Printify and Printful, which merged in late 2024 to form FYUL. He's got access to the data behind millions of print on demand sellers, and what he's learned is both humbling and useful. The top 1% aren't more talented. They're more consistent. We get into AI-generated mockups that actually look real, why email marketing is still a "print money button," and how community-driven niche selling beats paid ads for customer acquisition in 2025.
Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ppYhfdota7k
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Kurt Elster • 00:00.001
This episode is brought to you in part by Swym. Here's the thing about wishlist apps. Most of them just sit there. A customer saves a product, and then nothing happens. Swym actually activates that data. When someone wish lists a product, you could trigger price drop or back-in-stock alerts and feed that intent directly into Klaviyo or your CRM. You're not guessing what people want because they've told you. Plus, customers can share wish lists for gifts and your team can view them to offer personalized service online or in store. And unlike card abandonment, wishlist data is permission-based. These are people raising their hands saying, hey, I want this. Just not right now. Swym's been around for over a decade. It powers 45,000 stores and installs in about five minutes. You can try it for free today at getswim. com slash Kurt. That's G-E-T-S-W-Y-M. com slash Kurt. Today at the unofficial shop fi podcast, we are discussing print on demand. Yeah Print on demand. I feel it's practically synonymous with e-commerce. I have done I've been a Shopify partner for geez since uh twenty eleven now, long time. And you know, early on especially, like just uh these print on demand services like printify or printful synonymous with with e-commerce with direct to consumer because they were early. They had plugins for Shopify. It was an easy way, you know, where a graphic designer could spin up a Shopify store and start selling a physical good and get it fulfilled. And, you know, oftentimes we see You know, print on demand, add it as like, all right, we can add additional branded merch to our store with relatively little effort. And so when uh David Hooker from these services, from Fuel, we're gonna find out, you know, where where Fuel got that name. applied to be a guest on the show. I'm like, man, I gotta talk to this guy, right? Because fashion and apparel possibly, you know, at one time it was, I don't know if it still is, I believe it is, the biggest vertical on the platform. And so you just you can't talk about Shopify and not run into these print-on-demand services. So David Hooker from Fuel, how are you doing? Thanks for coming.
David Hooker • 02:27.960
Hi Kurt, thank you so much for having me on and I believe that fashion and apparel still is the biggest uh sector on Shopify e-commerce and Uh I don't know off the top of my head, but I think if we look to retail in general, fashion and apparel is gonna be right up there in the in the top verticals.
Kurt Elster • 02:44.000
It's gotta be. Uh but all right, you fuel. What's yes what is fuel? F-Y-U-L
David Hooker • 02:50.599
Yes, so uh if I could have uh your audience remember anything, it's not that I work uh for fuel, but that it's that fuel is uh what was born out of the combination of two leading pioneering uh print on demand platforms, printful and printify. And when the companies merged uh we merged uh in 2024 november of twenty twenty four it really was a merger right like we got a lot of people asking at the time you come on who acquired who but really it was genuinely a merger of equals As we were looking uh at, you know, what do we call the entity that that sits uh above them, we looked at a difference, right? Because we both were print something, print if I, printful. We looked at that difference and we had the full and the phi We combined them for F-Y U L. It was obvious to us that that new word should be pronounced fuel because The uh it's a really great analogy for us because the uh thing that happens uh with us in your e-commerce store, your Shopify store, is that we are there in the background silently fulfilling your products, adding your designs, getting them out to your customers' doors, right? Your e-commerce, your Shopify store is running thanks to us. But Nobody who's buying from you knows that we're involved. Right? And that's the way we like to do it. That's the way you like to do it. So it's like when you put fuel in your car. If there's no fuel in the car, it's not going to go anywhere. But if you just look at the car, you don't know whether or not it has fuel in it. So we felt that that uh analogy worked really well for us. So fuel is printify and printful. Um and yeah, printify and printful uh uh to Pioneering companies, as I said earlier, they've been around since 2013 and 2015. Like you said in your intro, Kurt, they're synonymous with print on demand, with Shopify. Printify was initially simply a plug-in for uh Shopify. Right, that's what it was, and then it grew into much at more, and we obviously connect to a lot of places other than the Shopify uh as well, but that's really where we were born and really where we where we came up.
Kurt Elster • 04:57.420
I want to know truly for the selfish benefit of me and our listeners from your seat, because you have rare access to you know a lot of data and experience here. What what separates the top 1% of the merchants selling print on demand from everybody else?
David Hooker • 05:17.540
I think it's a great question. And as well as having a lot of lines of data that I can look at, I also have exposure to a lot of those top 1% merchants. Right. I I wouldn't be doing my job well if I didn't speak to them as often as I possibly can, right? I'm the brand director uh uh for Printify and Printful And you can't create a good brand unless you know how people feel about your brand. So I need to go talk to people as well as look at lines of data. The thing that I would say really sticks out for me for that 1% is their resilience. Right? You know, these are talented people who have skills and ability across a bunch of different things, but if I look at the kind of commonality they have, it's their determination and their resilience. Uh the and then if you look at the data, right, not just my anecdotal feedback from all the interviews that I've done, but if you look at the data as well, we see it's the the the merchants and sellers who are the most consistent who, you know, keep pushing out new designs, whatever their tactics may be, whether you're going for a more brand-based approach where you have a niche of people that you really identify with and you're creating designs for those people. So mums that scuba dive. Uh like I I met a great merchant who sells uh Lebanese food design. She started in Canada uh she had a community there, right, and she she creates for for that group. Or if you're a more what I call a trends based merchant where You're looking for like the next hot thing that people are selling, finding perhaps moments of popular culture. We had a a great story with one of our merchants. who uh during the Johnny Depp trial. Now whatever side of that trial you come down on, no no judgments from me there, but one of the stars of of that uh whole thing was Johnny Depp's lawyer Right, Camille, I think her second name is Lopez. I remember her first name is Camille because uh the t-shirt that exploded was Camille is my lawyer. Just like a really simple black t-shirt white writing, Camille is my lawyer. went huge, particularly on TikTok. So that would be a more trends-based approach. Right? But the merchant who sold that was constantly trying things, putting out new listings, trying new designs, when they found a design, replicating it onto not just a t-shirt, but a mug and other thing. And so whatever kind of approach you're taking, you have to be determined and resilient. You are going to have designs that don't sell. When we look at the look at the data, typically most uh sales from merchants are coming from about 30% of the items they have listed, which tells you 70% of stuff never goes sold So you have to be prepared to uh interact with that level of rejection. Right? You know, th think of other things in life. If if I were to tell you 70% of the times you try, you're not gonna get through, you'd be like, I'm not doing that, right? Like Uh I'm too old Kurt to have ever used a dating app, but I would imagine if you know 70% of the times you swipe, right? Like it's not that you might give up And like I said, I'm too old. So let's not let's not take that as a good a good example.
Kurt Elster • 08:15.100
I I'm proudly in my forties and I got married, you know, right before those dating apps took off. And man, it felt like getting the last chopper out of Nom that I did not I dodged having to deal with that. Um but okay, with you know, what I think is so great about print on demand and part of what has fueled its um, you know, its popularity is the the low entry, the low barrier to entry. I don't actually have to buy or pay for anything beyond, you know, my initial Shopify store to l design list products and have them available for sale where people could just say, hey, I'm you buy and then it gets fulfilled. So it's really low risk to try things. And to your point, it sounds like what that enables is these like hyper niche very uh often temporal, or it's like we're just going to have a a pop culture thing that lives for a short instance and y people buy the shirt. And like if you have access to the right audience. you could sell that. And then but you it a bit of a uh conveyor belt where like you have got to come up with the next and the next and the next. But, you know, if you're in that position, like you're plugged into it, you could do it. But it sounds like it's, you know, a lot of um, you know, make hay while the sh sun shines, see what sticks, just like churning out designs.
David Hooker • 09:37.779
Yeah, I for me in the job that I do in my everyday and one of the reasons I get out of bed in the morning and and go into work really happy is is that lower low barrier barrier to entry. The fact that you can start a store, start selling real products, and you don't need to buy anything up front, what that has done, and I love to say this phrase, is we have democratized entrepreneurship. Right? You don't need uh you don't need a garage to put stuff in like that your mom's gonna get annoyed because you've got boxes of stuff. You don't need that. You don't need a loan from dad Right, to just have enough capital to start a business. You don't need an MBA. You don't need a fancy degree. You all you need is an idea. And an internet connection, right? A laptop too. Okay, so you need three things, right? So that means that anyone anywhere can go go start their own store. We again you you mentioned data before when I look at the data of like who uses Printify and who uses Print4, what we see is we have people from all around the world. Old people, young people. We have people with all different kinds of niches, right? Whether that, you know, any kind of political niche you can think of, any kind of Gender or sexuality niche or personal interest, anything you can think of, we have merchants who are selling in those niches to those people But one of the things that we do see that is consistent in the data is our audience does tend to be people from a lower socioeconomic background. So that means is people who otherwise wouldn't be able to start their own businesses are able to start their own businesses Which for me is thrilling. Like it's great. Like to be able to give somebody opportunity that they otherwise wouldn't have, like, what better place to work uh than that? So That low barrier to entry. That low barrier to entry is fantastic. And if you know determination is the thing that kind of separates the wheat from the chaff, then you know I'm all for that. That's a meritocracy as well, right?
Kurt Elster • 11:32.820
That's incredible. Yeah, we we do often say democratizing the tools because as the technology advances, the barrier to entry gets lower and lower. And To hear but you have the data to back it up to say like, okay, yeah, that seems to be really what is happening here. Interesting. Okay. Uh Now, we have focused, seemingly in our example, purely on t-shirts, but with print on demand, I could sell I mean last I looked, it was a dizzying array of stuff. Tell me, uh if I want to just start making some merch, you know, whatever it is, what uh you know, I pick I'm gonna pick a niche and my niche is Dog Lawyers. I'm starting Kurtz Dog Lawyers store. Uh lawyers for dogs and what what can I put my logos, brands, and modos on?
David Hooker • 12:14.880
So I yeah, to give you a number on your dizzying array, it's over 1300 different products. Right, so that's th that's that's not even getting into sizes and colors. Right? Like yeah, it's like it's different blanks. Unique products. The SKUs is in the in the the the scooze is in the tens of thousands And I have to be careful, genuinely I have to be careful that there isn't something that's been added to the catalogue this week that I've forgot. about right because like one of the another great thing about working in Principal and Preinfall is we get these little messages at the end of the week saying all of the products have been added to the catalogue and it's super fun to go through it. But if if you miss one week, you're behind. So uh uh dog lawyers. Well we have a fine array of of dog products for you, Kurt. So you've obviously got your leads, your onesies uh in different sizes, your dog bowls. But then you'll find that there is a an array of stuff that's adjacent to that. So obviously your t-shirts, caps, tumblers. uh your wall art uh whatever it may be um we have within uh both catalogs uh we have uh dog and pet um categories within that catalog so you can go select uh from there. Dizzying array I think is a a nice uh combination of words. Uh go go look and you'll you'll have it If you if your lawyer needs a notebook to write notes down in, we've got that as well. Like everything you everything you can think of, really.
Kurt Elster • 13:41.260
The yeah. No, I the last time I looked at that catalog, like I just I couldn't believe it. Because I had used it early on where it's like, all right, there's a hoodie and some sweatpants and a t-shirt. And we've got a few options for t-shirt. Cool. You know, today and if it's just it's like all right, if you could think of it if there's something there or similar enough I would say looking at dropshipping stores, for me anyway, I suspect the biggest mistake is using a mock-up for your product photo. You know, designing the product and then never ordering one yourself to take the photos. Uh thoughts there?
David Hooker • 14:15.300
I think that that's definitely an important consideration. We see that the more thought and the more unique a mock-up is, the higher your your chances of selling. Right There are a lot of tools out there to help you, and a lot of them are really good, mock-up generators and stuff. But in my personal opinion as a brand director, there's no substitute for ordering a sample. Putting that sample on somebody who speaks to that audience and then photographing them to the best of your ability. But also, previously I spoke about how we're lowering the bar to entry, democratizing entrepreneurship. Right. And now I'm saying, okay, I have to spend money on a sample, I have to find a model, and I have to know how to point a camera at something in such a way and do lighting and stuff, right? That's not democratizing you know, on the level that you've kind of had me thinking when you answered the previous question, David. So what we're seeing uh and doing now uh it's really exciting it's we're rolling this out to people Like it's not all the way out to everybody uh on the printify platform yet, but we're seeing some really great success with it. Uh is that we've been able to make it so that your AI-generated mock-up like is of a really really high quality. I'm skeptical myself, right? Like when the team came to me said we're gonna do AI generating mock-ups and it's like w you see all of the headlines out there about AI slop and all of these things But we tested it and I had my team test it the and I lead the the design team and the realism that those uh um engines are now capable of and we tested across a bunch of different ones so we find the the best result Is amazing. And again, what that's allowing people to do, we see on the platform, is people who don't have enough money for a photo studio, haven't got time to find a model, are able to create lifelike unique. Unique is I I think the word I would love people listening to really latch on to. You need a unique blueprint, right? That's unique to you because you're building a brand, you're differentiating yourself from something else. If people see the same model with the same thing time and time again, they're gonna think, okay. They're like, you know, you haven't put thought into it, so you're not gonna get my money. Um AI is now at the point where you can create a beautiful mock-up that's unique. You can tailor it as well, right? So you can find person with just the right skin complexion, just the right height, like in just the right setting for the brand product that you've always imagined. So your point about a great mock-up, you couldn't be more dead on. I still think that there's nothing better than a mock-up that's made in real life But the AI tools is democratizing that and I think that's great too.
Kurt Elster • 16:57.280
I was hoping you would check out our new app, Promo Party Pro. It is what I want to be the single best, easiest way to run a free gift with purchase promo on Shopify We just put it live in the App Store. We've got less than 50 users. We want your feedback. So if you need to run a free gift with Purchase Promo in the near future, install it, try it. There's a live chat. I check that all the time. And so if you have any issues at all, you know, or any suggestions on how we can make it even easier to use, let us know. We're happy to help. If you want to try it, search promo party in the app store. Promo PartyPro's the app. Give it a shot. It's got a free trial. Thanks. I like it. I like this answer for several reasons. One, it has been my suspicion that lifestyle photos are gonna outperform the the lay the flat lay lay flat uh the product on white right I want to see at least for my first photo I want to see that product in use with a person and like an actual background And if uh a good AI generated version of that is what it takes, great. Let's go for it. I, you know, realistically I want a real person, but you know, the sky's the limit on what you could spend on that. Like, oh, I'm gonna rent a studio and I need to get a fancy camera and I'm gonna hire a model and I got like And then, yeah, I gotta edit it. Oh no, now we're gonna do a new line. We gotta do this again. Yeah, I get why it AI is so attractive there. And generative AI now is really good. You said you tried several models. Uh Google Nano Banana, man, the stuff that could do is really impressive. Even you know, the models that aren't as good are much better than they were six months ago and could do some some really impressive things.
David Hooker • 18:39.520
Um I think it's important to say, Kurt, that those tools are only as good as the people using them. Right? Like if you if you're not tweaking, adjusting, making those things perfect You're going to end up with a sloppy result, right? If you just type in, you know, male with a t-shirt in a park, you're just gonna get something generic. Right? Like you need to have a real strong awareness of what you want that brand to be. Like what kind of male is it? What age male is it? What kind of park is he in? How is he standing? All of that stuff. And we've seen you The the reason why an in-person photo always wins is because of the uniqueness of it and because it captures a moment. And that's why top-top fashion brands for years and years have spent huge money on photo shoots, right? There's a reason why Louis Vuitton um coach who you know Mark Jacobs, whoever you want to think of, they're putting a lot of money and uh on the model and the situation uh and uh all of that stuff. There's a reason the reason for that. But we've also seen those top companies are making use of AI. Because it's allowing them to sometimes get into situations that are out of reach even for them. So why wouldn't you do that for the same as your brand, as long as you're doing it in a way where you're thinking about what goes into it? If you put in a generic prompt, you'll get a generic result. But if you think about what you want in there and craft it, there's craftsmanship in the use of AI. uh then you will get you will get something that's not a sloppy result. Um so like you know the we ha I see on the communities we have a lot of people who are like very strictly very anti-AI And I'm all for the artistry and the craftsmanship. And we're also, it was on the news today here in the UK. A lot of companies are rushing for a singular no AI um what's the word, badge of approval, right? And I'm all for that as well, right? Like it's gonna be people's choices. People will choose between whether they want to watch a movie with no AI or one with AI and and make their decis the decision from there. But What I think is really, really important is there's a craft to it, and we should respect that and we should allow people to use it because it gives people who otherwise wouldn't be able to unleash their creativity a way to do it.
Kurt Elster • 20:57.380
Yeah, the only way to get good at it is to keep playing with it and to keep trying. But yeah, especially the the image prompts, that's like a an LLM text prompt. You know, I've I've been able to get those down pretty well. The image prompts are interesting, you know. And I ended up, of course, as an AI user making a a prompt that writes image prompts for me. Right. It's all very recursive, but you get a much better result with that. But yeah, it is, you know, garbage in, garbage out. Like if you you give it a lazy input, you're not gonna get an amazing result out on the other end.
David Hooker • 21:30.200
Absolutely.
Kurt Elster • 21:30.600
But, you know, even if I gotta fiddle with it ten times, it's still going to be easier, faster, and cheaper than if I, you know, had to go hire a model, find a model. The other way to do it, you know, is you know to try and use um influencers, content creators. Like, hey, we s especially for like you know the the top of mind real like meme stuff, or like, hey, we saw you mention this. You know, could we send you a t-shirt? Okay, so then my cost is potentially, you know, just fulfillment on the the shirt. And then, you know, if I'm lucky, they're going to wear it, share it, show it. You know, and that's kind of product seeding is what we used to call that. It's like, all right, we're gonna find 10 people and send them the product. And with print on demand, you know, it's like, you know, if I'm selling electronics, I talked to a guy recently who was selling uh Turntables for 600 bucks. Okay, he that strategy is not gonna work for someone like him. But if I'm selling a t-shirt, much more reasonable where like, okay, you know, I could send that to a few people. And maybe one of them goes viral on TikTok. Ah, you know, now I got lucky. So like a little bit of a a lotto play there, I think, but um, you know, much more accessible.
David Hooker • 22:33.540
I think the principles that we talked about earlier still apply, right? Craftsmanship. Pick your influencer. There's a lot of influencers out there. Pick one that works for you, that's right for you, that's right for your brand, right for your niche, right for your trend, whatever it may be Right? Don't just send out uh emails to the most popular ones that you found on the list. Like go look for the ones that you think really work for you and your store. And then resilience. Some of them are gonna not reply to you. Like influencers can be some of the most difficult people to work with, right? They're busy people on a constant hamster wheel of content in order to keep their businesses alive. So some of them just sh don't have the time to reply to your emails or your requests or wherever it came in. So your resilience is going to have to come through there as well.
Kurt Elster • 23:15.240
The I want to hear your thoughts on, you know, and I don't know if you have an answer for me, but the I think the the single biggest problem that merchants are facing in 2026. is customer acquisition cost. These ads, platforms like Meta are getting more competitive over time and more expensive over time. And so that you know it's really really getting to be a recurring issue that you see like, you know, in in forums and subreddits. Um and so y do you have thoughts on you know brand strategy on like because of I could pay to rent traffic, right? Or I could try and build it organically. I could do both. Thoughts.
David Hooker • 23:57.860
So I th I it's a recurring cycle, right? Once a method for advertising comes out into the world, the early adopters really enjoy it, make huge benefit of it because it's cheaper than it was Like they're the only ones doing it, right? Like meta ads is the example. But if if we go back previously, like the first users of T V ads would have would have, you know, really enjoyed much more favorable conditions than than the later people. Radio ads As the technology comes out, early adopters get a much better acquisition cost, and then you have to get creative. And I think we're really at a point where we're we're looking for the new dawn of where we go There are a couple of uh you know kind of core principles to that as well. I think creativity is one of them, right? So either your your ad is like so good and so creative and stands out from everyone else so well that that you're you're really b you're penetrating and getting through, that's hard. Because you've got up against a lot of other people who are who are really, really creative So it's difficult. The other thing that we we see people doing i is community, right? So like showing that resilience and perseverance in community. uh you know if you're building in a niche so this is to your point of brand right like if you're building in a in a niche and you're creating your Canadian Lebanese food t-shirts right just to take the previous example You will find subreddits, communities, niches, like maybe even like physical places you can go where those people are hanging out. Right? Where your cost acquis uh your cost of acquisition is going to be lower, you can speak to people more directly, you're not swimming with all of the other fish, you're like in the pool that that you need to be. So That means that you need to really know your brand and know your niche and know your audience. Right? Like if you don't already know those things y y you've gotten lucky and you're making sales, right? You you ha you have, you have gotten lucky. You you've struck on something. And I've seen that with merchants, right? We we have a lot of merchants who the first t shirt they put out sells and they're like, oh my God, it sold. And a lot of them don't really know why, right? They're just like people like the design, I guess. But there's more to it than that. There's a reason why people like the design, right? And there's a specific kind of person who likes the design. So the more you know about that person and why they bought it and why they like that design, the higher your chances of repeating that formula. Right you got lucky once, lightning don't strike twice, you won't get lucky twice But if you're smart, you go listen, find out with a brand. I love nothing more than than talking to customers, right? Like I think E-commerce is a great game for the extrovert where you can go talk to people, learn why they like some, oh you like it because of that. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Then I'm just gonna repeat that and do that or on a slightly different formula somewhere else. So I think whatever business you're in, knowing your audience, having empathy, sympathy, and compassion for that audience, knowing what makes them tick. is gonna help you sell more and that's gonna lower your acquisition cost. Right. Another great way around um having high acquisition costs is having returning customers Right? Like if if you've got someone and they come and they buy from you once, if they come and buy from you second time, you ain't gonna have to pay anything from them to come back and say other than maybe the cost of your email marketing platform Right? But if they love the stuff so much that they come back and buy another, or if they buy more than one t-shirt because they love everything that's in there, because they sought one ad for one t-shirt There's like, oh my god, I love that sandwich. And then you turn, oh my god, he's got all sandwiches. I love all of these sandwiches. I'm gonna buy a t-shirt for all of them. Then your ALV has gone up and your acquisition cost has gone down. So I think that's the you know the way round it and that's what we see a lot of merchants, the smart ones doing.
Kurt Elster • 27:47.960
The yes Yeah. You you could have figure like, all right, if on the first order, if I could just break even, then I have done my job. And uh all right. On really on email and organic social, but really email and maybe some retargeting ads. Can we get them to come back and make a second, third, you know, or or more purchases?
David Hooker • 28:09.980
Email for me is the the great uh ignored derided marketing tool. Right? Like I used to have a CEO, the uh CMO sorry that I used to work for, and he used to just say to me, David, email is a print money button a print money button, right? Like get your list and email them. Email them and email them, email them. And like who cares if your open rate is 11% and your click-through rate is 2% Right? It's it's free money. Right? Like just just go and and and do it. So I I would hate for anybody running an e-commerce store to think themselves above email marketing. You're not. Do it
Kurt Elster • 28:47.800
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David Hooker • 30:37.440
Oh well, it's a long time ago. Now it's like, oh it's eight years ago, uh, which kind of just tells you how old I am. Uh perhaps kind of sets me out as um some kind of front runner, uh because I guess for visual literacy, I hope visual literacy is much more important uh today. I gave that talk because Um it started kind of from the frustration of going on a art going to an art gallery. It was one of the big ones in New York. I can't remember exactly which one. I think it might have been Mo Mar. Um and I got the um The tour guide, you know, the one that you kind of stick in your ear and you press the button as you as you go around. Oh, and the thing was just so pretentious. Right? Like you have this museum, it was MOMA. I'm pretty sure it was MOMA. And they had this thing on a Wednesday afternoon that it's free Right. So in a Wednesday afternoon you can go and look at the great artworks for free. Amazing. Right? Making art accessible for everybody. Love that. But then you get the audio guide and it's so pretentious like I was an editor for a living, right? And I didn't understand 10% of the words that the the snobby guy on the thing. I'm British. I'm used to snobby people as well. Right? Like You're just like getting this in your in. I was like, why? Like why why are you gatekeeping this stuff with your your language? And you know what I did? I switched to the kids audio and I had so much more fun. Right. And I actually learned so much more about because they taught to me on a on a level where like they weren't, you know, making this thing unattainable and out of reach. And then like it just kind of sparked an idea for me. It's like Like clearly the first guide was written by somebody who'd done a literature degree or something, right? But and I did literature at university, so it was like But is there a like a visual literacy like about how to read a picture? Because the kids audio guide like was so much fun. It was like, I'd love to be able to do that and relate that to people. And then I looked and there was nothing at the time. This was back in 2018. It was, I think, the University of Toledo, uh, which, you know, very honest with you, I didn't even know where Toledo was when I saw that. Um Sorry if anyone lives in Toledo, I'm sure it's lovely. Uh but their university had a a course on on visual literacy. And I thought, well, this is just like incredible. And you know, why are you doing it that way? And so I kind of dug deeper and more and more into it. And then uh I was working for Prezi in Silicon Valley at the time. So a lot of people in my um orbit were, you know, entrepreneurial people and stuff like that. And as I dug into it, I found that um You know, we were really at the time seeing the the effect of things like uh Cambridge Analytica, uh Trump won the election in 2016, Brexit also happened in 2016. And they had really changed the game in terms of like political marketing, right? And they were doing that with ads. And if you look to those looked at those ads, visuals played a big, big, big, big key part of it. And we're taught a lot at school, I think, about how to understand when someone is not telling you the the truth or when someone is telling you the truth and why that's powerful or not powerful or why you like something. But I don't think we were, I certainly wasn't in school taught, right? That image is playing on your preconceptions of X and taking you in a direction of Y And images are far more powerful than words. There's a reason why stop signs and like traffic signs are pictures. Right? Like you know the the picture of like two elderly people kind of crossing the road, right, to warn you that elderly people are around. There's a reason why that sign doesn't say, Be careful, elderly people are known to be out in this area. Like you can't read that, but like A person with a with a uh walking stick hunched over, oh I get that. Okay, there's old people around. So visuals are way, way, way more powerful. And I just think that we as consumers should at least know what people are trying to do to us, right? You know, I do it in marketing all the time. I am trying to have an effect on my audience to the image I use. And you're being manipul like we're all being manipulated by words and images all day every day. That's fine. Like we should be. People have to sell stuff, right? People buy stuff. It's like I'm not saying that, you know, the people doing the manipulation should stop. They should carry on. But the people that are on the other end of it, I think it's good for us to know, you know, what are the techniques that are being aimed at us. Right? Like uh I know you know, if we look at it now, I think visual literacy is probably becoming a an outdated method, right? AI literacy. i i is a is a thing that's that's coming. I th you know we'll see that the next generation of kids that come through school are way more literate at reading AI. and AI images and AI texts and stuff than than than we are. But yeah, I just thought it was important and I was lucky enough to be invited to give a talk about it in Boston and I did and it ended up on the TED platform.
Kurt Elster • 35:28.480
It it's it's very cool. Um it's interesting talk. I will include it in the show notes, you know, for anyone who's interested. The but yeah, I know I I think you're right, the importance of knowing What you're being exposed to. Like I want to know, okay, what are my own cognitive biases and try and be aware of and think through those because I am unintentionally manipulating myself. to some degree. And then okay, with you know sales tactics, with uh negotiation, there are methods of persuasion at play. So okay, I gotta know those. then visually a similar thing occurs. Like we look at images in a certain way. We have preconceptions. And so some of that can be um you know leveraged or even just it knowing a little bit of art history can help. But um, you know, that probably involves an audio guide at MoMA to figure out. So, okay, um, man, but I think you're right about AI visual literacy. I don't even know what's real anymore. Like I go online, I'm like I have no idea. And it's funny, uh years ago we had the Turing test. We'd say, all right, if uh you could chat over text with an AI. and you don't know it's an AI, then we have solved AI. They are just as smart and as good at us. Well it turns out that A, we have long s we've we've beaten the Turing test for a year. at least. But also it's much more complicated than that. Like there's so many more tells and things where you get suspicious. Who knew the M-dash would be the thing, right? And like visually those same things are occurring. Um and it probably, you know, you're right, with AI, more important than ever. But okay, looking forward You know, you've got visibility into where your platform is going uh and potentially where some of e comm is going with it. TikTok shop. Is this, you know, are we is it huge? Is it, you know, has it has it peaked? What do we think about TikTok?
David Hooker • 37:25.380
Is it huge? Yes. Absolutely it is. Right? There's there's billions of people on that app and there's there's uh millions and billions of people making purchases through that app and influence through that app. So is it huge? Yes Has everybody figured out how to do it yet? No. Like just like we were talking previously that like there's a group of people who early adopt something and and they get to know it first and others come later. We're seeing from from our data that the there are merchants who really, really understand TikTok, like really get it, know how to work on it, have found a formula. And it's a formula that we're actually in the process uh printed fire of of noting down and trying to work and like democratizing that formula and giving it uh to people where we can. But yeah, it's and it's a thing that's evolving. And I think you can see like if you've been on TikTok shop in terms of the progress that TikTok themselves have made uh in terms of that as a as a platform for sellers, right? The services they offer, the SLAs they ask for, that's developing all the time. Like TikTok themselves were new to commerce when when they first got got into it. So they're all or also working it through. But it is huge. It's gonna be huger uh as as more people get to know it, get to know how it works. uh as the younger generation gets more purchasing power, right? Like as as they grow up and get a little bit more money and you know, they are going to different places for their decisions on things. I think we're gonna we're gonna see it grow That doesn't mean it's it's necessarily for everyone, right? Like if you find TikTok daunting and scary and you don't like it, it's fine. You don't you don't have to. But if you find it exciting, fresh, new, and you're looking for the next place to go, it's it's absolutely definitely a place you should go and check out. And a lot of the same principles are going to apply. Resilience is going to apply. Creativity at speed is is going to apply. Just the rules are going to be different. Like the sp specificity of some of the rules is going to be different.
Kurt Elster • 39:27.560
The yeah, I also want to hear a little bit about some of the the big brands that do this because with Drop shipping, like the context we approached it was, you know, this is very accessible. Anyone can start for the first time, you know, with a an e-commer store, with a Shopify store, and offer print on demand, but you also do it for plenty of big brands like Netflix sells using print on demand through Printify. Um I was just curious about some of those it who might be some of our our surprising folks uh using it.
David Hooker • 40:00.839
Uh we do do we do do it for for major brands. Um I'm not at liberty to diverge all of them. Like some of them have, you know, kind of contracts with us where they like it not to be known that we're fulfilling on uh their behalf, which we understand, right? We have. Plenty of very small merchants who also think in that way, right? Like it shadows an an illusion. We're happy to be the fuel in your car, and for people to never see the fuel go in your car. Um the reason why big brands are using it is because of the freedom it gives them, right? Like whether you're a small individual uh operating out of your bedroom or if you're a huge graphing multinational, there are some things about selling online which are difficult, whatever side. Like so for example, international, right? Like I've spoken to uh merchants who do things like dropshipping or who haven't yet moved to print on demand, uh who are working for companies, and they're like, David, do you have any idea how difficult it is to send a box of t-shirts? to Canada from from Texas. Oh it's so difficult. Right? And they'll take you through like you have to weigh it and then all of this. And it's Canada, it's just over there. Like, you know, it's not that far. So um because uh Prim4, for example, has um you know we uh we own all of our own facilities, we have nine of them all around the world, we can get you the same quality product uh in various different intern international places we deliver to over a hundred and ninety different uh countries. Um And we take that house of international away from you, which is great for the bedroom entrepreneur and it's great for your your purchasing person at Netflix as well. Right, like it it it works for for both of them. And then also the other great thing is what we again, something that we see all of our smaller merchants doing. is is that you can test the new idea without having to buy a whole bunch of image. And there's there's a really important um sustainability element there too, as in like looking after our planet and being friendly towards our environment. Uh if you look at s depends on w which kind of figures uh you look at, but there are millions of tons of apparel that are either uh sent to landfill or even worse burned every year. It's um you know the numbers uh are are pretty horrific. We believe that if every product was made on demand, we're gonna take a huge chunk out of out of out of that and stop people doing it. And you know, it's interesting because these big retails with uh big retailers with big um budgets, really smart people, algorithms, AI and all of that. Still are not really good at predicting whether a yellow t-shirt or a white t-shirt is gonna be the big thing next summer. Right? Like they're not great at it Uh and then never grow.
Kurt Elster • 42:52.460
I mean no matter what, those things, those predictions are largely based on what happened historically. It's a you know, and and taste and fashion it's so subjective, right? And oftentimes kinda arbitrary.
David Hooker • 43:04.940
And it's so changeable, right? Like who knows if Charlie XXX is gonna decide that her album cover should be green, right? Like she knows, but like is she gonna tell everybody? And she might not know the next day and then we don't know if she's gonna take off or not, right? Like and it might be someone else. So yeah, they're not really they're not really good at it. What and what on demand allows you to do is like, okay, I'll test it in every color. Right, without having to buy boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff that sit in a warehouse or worse still go to landfill or get burned like uh afterwards, right? No one wants to do that. Like whatever your opinion on on the environmental situation, nobody wants to burn a power, right? Like it th no one wants to do that. So The ability to test it without wasting both money and product is a fantastic thing, and that's why we have companies like Netflix who work with us.
Kurt Elster • 43:57.520
It makes perfect sense to me. So uh anything new coming down the pipe with uh with Printful?
David Hooker • 44:04.400
Yeah, so both on the the Printify uh and Printful side there there's a lot of exciting new stuff. I mentioned on the Printify side that we're rolling out our our next generation of AI mockups uh to more people like that That's something that you people are who are logging into the platform are going to see more and more of and we're really super excited to get that out to everyone On both sides, new products are constantly being added all the time. If you go to our communities, our biggest communities are actually on Facebook. You'll see that like all of the different uh products that people are always asking us for, they're still uh adding new things. So we're doing uh that uh all of the time. And Yeah, I think those are kind of the the two kind of real principle ones that I would have people look out for. We're we're also doing some a lot of stuff to help people who are new to e-commerce get started. like making that that uh journey to a first sale easier and easier because we've democratized it for a bunch of people, we want to do it for even more. So we're very focused on uh allowing the people who can get into the into the pod game to to expand and be more. And We're doing a lot of work with our communities to find those blueprints for success and then share them. One of the things that I'm always very grateful for is that and I'm sure you experience this too cut is that e-commerce Shopify sellers who know how to do it And not they don't care about sharing it with other people. They're like, I know how to do e-commerce. You want to learn how to do e-com like, do it. Let's let's do it, right? Like it's not a like, oh no, no, no, no, no, this is my secret, you can't know, go away. Right? Like it's not like that. The community is amazing. So uh we're doing a lot of things, for example, with our sellers club community. Uh we're seeing a lot of growth in that uh and we're seeing a lot of mentorship. As I mentioned, we're working hard on these blueprints for success and getting those out to people and democratizing them too. So yeah, there's there's a lot coming up and it's all exciting.
Kurt Elster • 46:04.880
Man, David Hooker, I am so glad I had you on the show. I learned like I'm I'm familiar with with the services with print on demand. I've used them, um, you've managed them, enjoy them, but It hearing it from your perspective and getting some of that inside baseball on the thinking behind the product and in the experience. Very cool.
David Hooker • 46:25.320
Ah, thank you for having me onka. I'm sure I'm sure you you've forgotten more about e-commerce than than than I know. But like uh it it was great to have you on and and and you know, I think everyone could tell I could talk about this stuff and the amazing things that our merchants do forever and ever. It's it's uh It's a really fun place to work and and the reason for that is because the amazing things that we empower our merchants to do
Kurt Elster • 46:47.160
So if I want to learn more uh about you and about uh print on demand, where am I going?
David Hooker • 46:52.040
Ah, so first let's start with uh print on demand. Um so we mentioned you have both printify and printful We are you know one company now, but like the two platforms are very separate and we're gonna keep them very separate because they work in a very different way. Printify works with a third-party network. So what you get there is a few more products in a in a more places is a bigger catalogue. Printful, as I mentioned, we own all of our own facilities and Every product you're getting is coming out of a facility that we run or are highly vet with what one of our partners. So uh the catalogue is a little bit smaller, but you are getting a product from our facility uh rather than from a partner one So depending on whether you're what exactly kind of store you're looking for, you'll find that either Printify or Printful might work better for you. We've got on the website printify. com or printful. com, we've got lots of comparison pages to help you choose. But it's important to note they're really, really separate platforms. Um, and we're going to keep them separate because they uh provide value to a different groups of of people and different types of merchants. It's one of the things when we first merged, people were like, oh you're gonna merge the platforms in the We're not. We're keeping them separate. And the reason we're keeping separate is because our merch has told us they want to keep it uh separate. If someone really wants to learn more about me, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm not a stranger. I'm there. You can look me. Or go click on After you've been to Printify and Printful, go uh click on uh the show notes and look for my TED Talk. Uh I'll take the extra views.
Kurt Elster • 48:24.780
And I will I will include links to everything in the show notes. David Hooker, fuel. Thank you so much.
David Hooker • 48:31.680
Thank you, Cut.