Client
teelaunch
Industry
Shopify App Development
Goal
First POD app on Shopify App Store
Delivered
Live since 2015
Building What Didn't Exist Yet
In 2015, there was no print-on-demand app on the Shopify App Store. No template to follow, no competitor to benchmark against, no proven model for how direct-to-garment fulfillment should work inside an ecommerce platform. teelaunch saw the gap: Shopify merchants wanted to sell custom products without holding inventory. They came to us to build the app that would define the category.
This was never going to be a straightforward build. We needed to figure out what their business model looked like inside Shopify, architect the fulfillment workflow from scratch, build the merchant-facing app and a separate admin backend, and design a supply chain that could handle orders at scale.
We also had to solve problems no one had solved before. How do you route an order from a merchant's Shopify store to the right print facility automatically? How do you handle product variants across hundreds of customizable SKUs? How do you build something reliable enough to support tens of thousands of merchants from day one?
From concept to category leader.
01.
Product Architecture
Started with business logic: how orders flow from a merchant's Shopify store through to fulfillment. Mapped every edge case, built microservices for bulk uploads and order routing, and chose a stack built to handle the volume we knew was coming.
02.
App & Admin Build
Built the teelaunch Shopify app end-to-end: merchant dashboard, product catalog, print-spec configuration, order tracking. Developed the admin section and a separate market site for non-Shopify clients wanting access to the fulfillment network.
03.
Integration Layer
Connected teelaunch to third-party logistics and print facilities in real time. Built the on-demand supply chain architecture and engineered the API layer that lets merchants publish products and have orders route to the right print partner automatically, including a full Etsy integration reaching over 2.7 million sellers.
04.
Scale & Iteration
Stayed on as long-term development partners as teelaunch grew. Pivoted the architecture to support sustainable scale, cut fulfillment time by 60%, reduced error rates by 75%, and maintained 99.98% API uptime across a merchant base that grew 10x in two years.
“No one had built a print-on-demand app for Shopify before. There was nothing to copy from. What got built didn't just work, it became the category. 20,000 downloads a day isn't luck. That's engineering and execution.”
teelaunch Team
Shopify Unite Keynote Feature, 2017
