Reliable POD

Reliable POD is the print-on-demand division of RGP Industries, a printer that its site says has "over 80 years' experience in custom printing from the early days of screen printing right up to" today's digital print on demand. It makes drinkware, apparel and a range of home and gift items for sellers on Shopify and Etsy, produces everything in its own facility, and ships to customers in the USA. Its stated aim is "to provide you our customers with high quality products at attractive pricing shipped within 3 days." The company's customers, in its own words, are "artists, designers, brand owners, ETSY or EBAY sellers or tomorrow's fashion brand", and the service leans hard on personalized products that the buyer customizes in the seller's shop.

What a seller gets

The core of the offer is a free app. The home page describes a "fully automated revolutionary new app" for "Realtime personalization on your website", listed as "100% free" with "Lots of exclusive products", and invites sellers to install the Shopify app or create a free account. The Why Us page says the personalization platform connects with Shopify and ETSY, includes built-in manual ordering, and lists WooCommerce and direct Amazon connectivity as coming soon. It also says the software handles fully automated personalization on both Shopify and ETSY "without the need for artwork swapper", so a shopper's name or photo flows into the print file without the seller editing artwork by hand.

There are three ways to send work in. Shopify sellers install the app. Etsy sellers who do not use Shopify register a free account and connect their store; the Etsy page has videos on connecting a shop, creating and pushing a personalized product to Etsy "In 3 Minutes", and processing Etsy orders. The Manual Orders page covers the third route: the app lets a seller create manual orders "without linking to any platform (FREE)", whether for an existing product, a personalized one or a new product, and registration needs no credit card.

The Etsy page also has an option aimed at sellers moving from another supplier. Its example is a seller with 100 T-shirt designs on Etsy that have built up reviews and search ranking: rather than recreating those listings, the seller can link them directly to Reliable POD "for single orders or multiple long term orders". The home page repeats the point for T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and tumblers.

The catalog

The home page says there are over 100 products and that new and exclusive ones are added continually. The product list groups them into three families.

Drinkware is the largest: 11oz Photo Mugs, 11oz and 15oz Two Tone Mugs, a 15oz EL Grande Mug, Enamel Mugs, 20oz and 30oz Laser Tumblers, 20oz and 30oz UV Printed Tumblers, 16oz Pint Glasses, a Sculpted Glass and a Whiskey Glass.

Apparel runs on named blanks: Gildan 6400, Comfort Colors 1717, Bella Canvas 3001, Gildan 5000L Ladies, the Gildan 18000 Sweatshirt, the Comfort Colors 1566 Sweatshirt, Gildan 18500 Hoodies and Gildan 5000B Youth T-Shirts.

The other products are home and gift items: glass cutting boards, floor mats, hardboard coasters and placemats, linen placemats and coasters, cushions and pillows, a rollerball pen, lawn flags, bar runners and a gaming mat. The latest product on the home page is an illuminated light stand, a square acrylic plaque on a wooden base with an LED base as an upgrade. The home page also mentions phone cases, jewelry and "brand-new message chocolates" in its range.

Print methods show up in the artwork FAQ. Sublimation is used for the hard goods, which is why the company asks for RGB files and notes that gold, silver and fluorescent colors cannot be reproduced. For T-shirts and apparel it uses Brother water-based pigment inks. The tumblers come in laser and UV printed versions.

Production, shipping and packaging

Every product is "made in house by our own staff, no farming orders out to 3rd party vendors", and the FAQ adds that everything ships to the customer from one location. On speed the pages give a record rather than a promise: the FAQ aims to produce and ship all orders within 72 hours, excluding weekends and public holidays, and says that through 2020 this was met on over 98% of orders. The home page says over 99% of orders shipped within 72 hours in 2021, even at Christmas.

Shipping is for US addresses only. The shipping page states "We do not ship directly overseas only to the USA", and the FAQ points sellers with UK and European orders to the partner site giftflow.co.uk, which it says uses the same products and technology.

Charges are by total order weight, not per item, and the shipping page publishes the table. USPS Ground Advantage runs from $5.95 up to 15.9oz, $7.95 for 1 to 1.9lb and $12.95 for 2 to 4.9lb, rising to $24.95 at 16 to 19.9lb. UPS Ground takes over from $26.95 at 20 to 24.9lb to $79.00 for 50 to 65lb. USPS Priority Mail starts at $9.95 up to 15.9 oz and $14.00 for 1 to 2 lb. The page's own example: a T-shirt and a phone case together weigh under 1 lb and ship for $5.95. Every order gets its own tracking number, with no consolidated shipping.

Packaging is plain, with "no markings or identifiable marks so your customers will not know we have produced their order", and nothing else goes into the box: no packing notes and no invoices. The FAQ says gift notes and cards are not offered yet. It also says the packaging is in most cases made from 100% recycled materials, that sublimation uses water-based organic inks, and that the Brother apparel inks are ECO PASSPORT certified by OEKO-TEX and CPSIA compliant.

Pricing, artwork and support

Unit prices are in a downloadable price list linked from the product and shipping pages, which gives the unit cost, weight and shipping price of every product; the web pages themselves show no base costs. Payment is by major credit card at checkout in the portal, though not American Express or other charge cards.

For artwork, every product page links a template and a video on using it, and free Photoshop mockups can be downloaded. Files go in as RGB JPEGs or PNGs at the exact template size, 300 dpi for phone cases and 200 dpi for everything else, up to 30 Megabytes. The FAQ says the company uses its own ICC print profile for each product. Designs need the uploader's legal right to reproduce them, and the company handles claims through a DMCA procedure.

Support runs by email and phone, and the home page says the team helps "even on weekends".

Who it suits

Reliable POD suits US sellers of personalized gifts, especially drinkware, and Etsy sellers who want to switch supplier without rebuilding listings. The in-house production and published shipping table make costs easy to plan once the price list is downloaded. It is a weaker fit for a seller whose buyers are mostly outside the USA, since orders ship only within the USA and European orders go through the partner site.