How a Designer Couple Found Fulfillment with Printful

Tiny Bee Cards likes making happy, silly cards and gifts for people that are sure to bring a smile. Each card is handmade by Alexis Rawlins and Brandon Sachs, a husband & wife team in sunny Los Angeles.

Big Dreams Present Even Bigger Inventory Challenges

Alexis Rawlins illustrated a silly card for her husband, Brandon. He loved it so much that he suggested opening a greeting card shop. “We love being able to create art that we hope will make people smile,” says Alexis. That’s why she had a passion to bring her art to other products like stickers, pins, shirts, mugs. The problem was, they didn’t have the equipment or space to start creating a wide inventory of products.

At the time she was still working a day job while building a business. Unfortunately, there was much time in the day. All cards were handmade, and they had to handwrite their shipping labels for their orders. Copy and pasting addresses from their online channels to carrier websites ate up a bunch of time. The process took forever for even a small batch of orders.

Their dream to expand their product line seemed impossible with their current setup. Alexis was spending more time worrying about shipping than designing new concepts. When they found the perfect solution, it immediately opened up new creative opportunities.

Finding Fulfillment with Printful and ShipStation

The Tiny Bee Cards team needed a system that could grow with them but decrease in-house inventory. They found Printful, an on-demand, online printing solution that took the task of creating new products out of their small studio. “I was spending too much time on fulfillment and not enough time creating new designs. Printful really helped me do that by taking on our fulfillment needs for those items. Printful also opened up a whole new product line for me—now I can offer mugs, t-shirts, leggings, tote bags, and more—without the need for equipment or supplies.”

With ShipStation, creating shipping labels by hand became a thing of the past. It became the hub for all their online and wholesale orders.  “ShipStation was a game changer — now all of our orders come in from Etsy, WooCommerce, and Amazon and most of our shipping labels are assigned automatically. It’s just a push of a button now!”

Integrated together, Printful + ShipStation was the complete solution they needed to grow.

Greeting New Creative Opportunities

Alexis always wanted to be able to create what she’s passionate about full-time. Thanks to Printful and ShipStation, she can. “I have time to really grow and work on my shop, and it’s been amazing,” she says. Most of the logistical work is done automatically by Printful and ShipStation, which saves her a ton of time. That allows her to create fun new designs and greeting cards for the holidays.

Alexis loves that she can work in her art studio full of books and two cat helpers, rather than in a corporate setting or inventory warehouse. With a cup of coffee and a view of sunny Los Angeles, she finds joy every day in knowing that she can focus doing what gives her fulfillment in life. “We love creating new fun products and our job is a dream come true.”