Which websites would you currently recommend to make merchandise?

[AdrenalineShots]

Any that you can recommend would be brilliant

[kytri]

It depends on what you're looking to make but I really like Catprint for posters and prints and things. They have a huge variety of paper stock to choose from and the prices are generally reasonable.

[mariusthered]

don't know about who to recommend. but don't waist your time with Redbubble. All people seem to do on there is steal ideas.

[bear1]

Redbubble is nice for Mugs. But their stickers look cheap as hell (same with notebooks). So don’t waste your time and your audience ‘s money...unless you wanna sell mugs. They are really neat

I used Chillypig for Stickers, which were quite nice. Currently I’m waiting for an order from Zap! Creatives
They had a promo going for stickers and charms, but even with they’re regular price they were cheaper than chillypig. I have to see if they match in quality tho.

I also ordered enamel pins from Here
The batch we received was faulty tho (wrong color on one pin and someone jumped the gun and sent the others out without adding the requested screenprint) but they immediately offered to redo it. So customer service is top notch. And the quality itself was great. We just got a bit unlucky. But assuming you don’t use a lot of ‘exotic colors’ (warm grey in our case :P) or want extra services, you should be fine

[joannekwan]

Here's my list of suppliers (See more examples of the products at my store)

Stickers: Sticker Mule (free shipping within the U.S!) I really like the matte finish and thickness of their vinyl stickers. I also got magnets from them which aren't terrible, I found them a little thin, but they're holding up fine.
(magnet left, sticker right)

Charms: Zap Creatives I got their orange fluorescent ones when they had an introductory deal. They're pretty cool. Charms are nice and thick. I also got stickers from Zap once, they're glossy finish but are much thinner than Sticker Mule's.

Enamel Pins: Like bear, I had my first pins made with GS-JJ. There weren't any problems with my order and the pins all arrived in great condition and quality!

I also liked that they had options for shipping for those on a budget, for a longer production and shipping time you can save up to 40% off on your order.

I am currently waiting on pins from The Enamel Pin Factory to compare. They are UK based so I have to factor shipping into my order. I'll update this post when they do arrive.
UPDATE
My pins from The Enamel Pin Factory came and they are wonderful!!

What I like about tEPF is that if you order a set number, they give you several extra pins on the house. I ordered 100 and they sent 110. They also manage your order through Trello in which they invite you to join to send them your artwork; it's nice seeing all the specs in one place. I must say, the quality IS better than GS-JJ (I had fewer pins that I would sell as seconds/B and C grade), but given the price difference I would hope so. For example, a silver-plated 1in 100ct standard color pin order would cost you $122 at GS-JJ and $207 at tEPF (with shipping included, and at the current pound to dollar rate).

So I suppose it comes down to what you need in your pin. GS-JJ has metal colors that tEPF doesn't offer, like rose gold and copper. tEPF does up to 5 colors at no extra cost, whereas GS does 4. tEPF can do a back stamp. I encourage folks to check out each site for themselves and compare.

Printables

Comics: I used Greko Printing - Comix Well Spring and I think they're comparable to Kablam (at least the Kablam produced issues I have from other comic creators), but CWS's cover are slightly thicker which is nice.
For my longer book (like 90 pages), I used CreateSpace and I think they do just fine with black and white printing especially for the price. I can buy my own copies for under $3 each and you can mark up the price to sell through Amazon.

Business Cards: Moo is my go to! They have extremely nice cards and I've also gotten postcards from them before in equal quality. Plus their packaging is amazing!

If you're on a budget, Vistaprint works just fine. I use them to make my backing cards for my pins!

Other printables: Cat Print I made my wedding announcement/invitations and thank you cards through them. I like their sparkly paper lol.

[AdrenalineShots]

Ah this is all brilliant thanks so much for this highly detailed and very useful post

[Raven_C]

I second CatPrint. They are great and have a variety of papers.

Charms:

I don't do charms often but in the times that I have, I got them through ZapCreatives and Vograce (I prefer Vograce. They're cheaper and you can get them thicker and have more customizable options)

Stickers:

I've only done Stick-It-To-Me Stickers. It's pretty decent, at 50 cents per sheet. Here's a review for it (not my review but I agree with it).

Business Cards:
I get them through GotPrint. They're good and close to where I live so the turnaround is quicker.

Not merch, but if you're ever on the lookout for tabletop displays, I quite like ClearDisplays. ClearBags has some good packaging materials (if you want to put your prints or comics in sealed bags when selling them).

[joannekwan]

Ooh, thanks for listing a display place! It's a thing a lot of people forget about.
I've been using display pieces I bought from Virgin Records when they closed their store xD

[bear1]

Thanks for the tip with CatPrint @joannekwan and @Raven_C
I was looking into making a small run of Christmas cards this year but the printer I found were either too expensive, asked for a too high number of min. prints or they were sooooo cheap that I'm afraid that they print onto copier paper XD

The selection-price-min.amount with them sounds pretty good.

May I ask what paper you used for your wedding invitations, @joannekwan
Is that the pearl finish?

[joannekwan]

I used their Heavy Cardstock Shimmer 107lb in white!
(also glad they send out sample booklets on request. still have mine! ^^)

[bear1]

D’oh! I’m such a a noob, I always overlook the sample option....just order a sample pack too.
Thanks for the info

[bilvyy]

I recommend Printful.com ! It's a print-on-demand service just like redbubble or society6, but everything is way cheaper to print, and you can connect it to your own storefront like Storenvy to mix in your apparel with any items you might be selling from home. Here's my store to show how seamless the integration is: http://slowbees.storenvy.com The shirts, leggings, beanie and mugs are done through Printful, and everything else is done by me from home. It's a completely automated service, so you don't have to do anything at all once someone buys a Printful item. PF handles everything and even marks the order as shipped for you.

For shirts, hoodies, sweaters etc, there's dozens of different brands of shirt to choose from, all with reviews discussing the item quality as well as the print quality. I recommend printing on the Gildan shirt, which is like $8 to print. That means you make a $12 profit on a shirt as cheap as $20! But there are plenty of other options like the Bella&Canvas if you want heaps of colour choices, AND they do all-over shirt prints omg. It's soooo much more affordable than redbubble/society6 items. They also sell art prints just like those websites too.

I'd recommend taking a look at the Printful homepage and browsing through what types of products they sell. It's completely free to use, just like Society6 etc, if you're running it off Storenvy (which is like etsy, but cheaper and more customisable). But if you want to go a little more professional, you can also connect Printful to a wordpress website or shopify etc.

--

For art prints I use Vistaprint.com, they sell 25 beautiful quality A4 prints/posters for $12. They also sell A5 postcards, i think about 50 for $15? Their prints are wonderful quality, business cards are insanely cheap (just got 500 cards for $18! ) and it's a perfectly fine quality too.

[bear1]

I want to make an addition to the enamel pins from https://www.gs-jj.com and how nice their product and customer service is.
We ordered pins and our first batch was flawed. Wrong haircolor on him and no screenprinting on her eyes. Yesterday we received a new batch with the corrected haircolor and the asked for screenprinting service.

Lighting is a bit shitty, but I think you see the difference

The new pins (below) are superb and I love the hell out of them.
I just want to point out that they are a reliable source for pins and you get what you pay for. If there is a problem customer service will get back to you and try to resolve issues

However, if you want to make sure to get what you asked for without issues, try to stick to primary colors and try to avoid extra services (such as the screenprint). I assume they deal with so many products every day that mistakes can happen.

I just wanted to point that out in case some were curious (and insecure) about the quality and the issues we faced

[joannekwan]

Hey guys, I updated my post above with info about my recent order from the Enamel Pin Factory!

[bsienk90]

I just started using society6. Mainly because I just don't have the money nor time to deal with getting stuff made - someone ordered one of my shirts (super excited) - I didn't make much but I did just order one of my own shirts just to check the quality. We shall see. So far it's alright to use. Mainly I like it that I don't have to make or ship anything but when/if I get more of a following then I would def consider setting up my own ecom.

[nikhilpinitup]

I'd highly recommend you to check out these websites:
Custom Unique Gifts Manufacturer
Custom Corporate & Promotional Gifts Manufacturer

[joannekwan]

[joannekwan]