As a reward for my 2007 sales, Zazzle sent me a $25.00 bonus coupon to use, so I thought that would be the perfect opportunity to order some shirts for review. I placed the order on January 30th, and received it today, February 6th. I ordered the Basic Dark T-Shirt (Hanes Tagless 100% cotton, $19.95) in black with my test “geek” design, and the Ladies Twofer Crew Long Sleeve (Next Level Apparel, 100% cotton, $31.95) with a personal design. Zazzle gave me a 5% discount for ordering more than one item, so I paid $18.95 and $30.35 respectively. Basic shipping cost $5.48.

The shirts arrived in a nice metallic semi-opaque bag.

The shirts inside were tucked individually in plastic bags. An invoice, postcard with a code for free shipping, and a holographic Zazzle magnet were also in the bag.

I was happy with the quality of the black t-shirt. The shirt quality is good, not too thin. The colors are bright and saturated and the printing looks very nice. It does suffer from the “white outline” syndrome as you can see in the closeup, but it’s not horrible and in my opinion does not detract from the image that much. Cafepress shirts come with the same outline, which they claim will wash off. Once I have all four black t-shirts I will run them through the wash several times to see how they hold up.

The second shirt, a “twofer” (basically a gray t-shirt with white long thermal sleeves) was not as thick as the first. I think that’s due to it being a ladies style, leaning towards the junior side. I ordered a 2X and it is probably about the size of a women’s large. The direct print job is nice but my image is crooked and a bit distorted. It’s almost like the shirt was not pulled straight when it was printed, so in addition to printing crooked the text in the design has a slight curve to it when it should be straight. I’ve had this issue with Cafepress once before and they were very quick to send a replacement with no charge, and did not require me to return the defective shirt. So I will be interested to see how Zazzle’s customer service compares, and I’ll keep you updated.

Other things I have ordered from Zazzle in the past:

Tote Bag: I ordered an accent tote bag and it was great. Compared to Cafepress’ one bag, Zazzle offers six different tote bags and three of them are available in multiple colors.

Greeting/Note Cards: I was very pleased with the cards I ordered. The stock used is nice and they allow you to add your own image or URL to the back of the card in addition to the Zazzle logo. Cafepress does not allow that, and the cards I ordered from them were a bit flimsy and the colors were not as saturated as I would like. Looked a bit washed out.

Magnets: I ordered a square magnet and was happy with it. Cafepress’ was of similar quality.

Photo Print: I ordered a print of an image that I have also ordered from multiple other places. I’m not impressed with Zazzle’s photo printing. It’s not horrible but doesn’t seem to have the clarity of the prints that I’ve ordered from Mpix and Shutterfly.

So, pending my customer service review and testing how the shirts hold up in the wash, so far I’m pretty happy with Zazzle products. I plan on expanding my designs to Zazzle because they offer products that Cafepress does not. (Different apparel, wide variety of mugs and bags, stamps, sticker sheets, keychains and ties.)

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