A+ Images

What it is

A+ Images is a garment decorator on the west side of Indianapolis, Indiana, that prints and embroiders apparel in-house and runs an on-demand fulfillment service for online stores. Its homepage calls it "a full-service garment decorator featuring Direct-to-Garment (DTG), Embroidery, Screen Printing, Vinyl, and Sublimation," and says "All printing and decorating is done in-house." Alongside the fulfillment service it makes custom shirts, signs and banners for local customers, schools and businesses, and sells blank shirts. For a seller, the relevant offer is the fulfillment page: "A+ Images now offers custom embroidery and DTG on demand fulfillment services," with screen printing, laser engraving and print-and-cut vinyl also available for orders. The company says it specializes in "lower quantity orders (1 to 500)" and quick turnaround.

What a seller actually gets

The fulfillment model is simple and strictly on demand. The page states, "To reiterate, we do not stock merchandise for fulfillment. Everything we produce is ordered and printed on an on-demand basis." A+ Images buys the blank for each order from a garment vendor, decorates it and ships it. That is why the company says turnaround depends "mainly on product availability," and why its setup rules put so much weight on ordering the exact blank.

Orders arrive through a store integration. The company lists "Shopify, Squarespace, Woo Commerce, Etsy, Big Commerce, Ebay, Wix, Magento, Inksoft, Amazon, Walmart, and Pinnacle Cart webstores," and adds that "Other platform integrations may be possible." It recommends Shopify for most stores because it connects to so much other software. The download can be filtered: a store that sells only apparel A+ Images fulfills can pass every order, while a store that also sells products the company does not make (the page's examples are toys, books and music) can be set up to download only the items A+ Images will produce.

Getting connected follows a published checklist. The seller must be set up as a wholesale customer, the store must run on one of the listed platforms, and the shipping integration is authorized through a form sent by Eversign. Every product needs a unique SKU that doubles as the print file name, built as decoration method, store code and design name. The page's worked example is "DTG-JFT-JULY4-FIREWORKS" for a fictional store called Joey's Funny Tees. The method codes cover DTG, EMB for embroidery, V for vinyl, LAS for laser, PC for print and cut, SUB for sublimation and SP for screen printing, though the page notes screen printing "will rarely be a fulfillment choice for most stores." The store code is a two-to-five character alphanumeric code.

The blank has to be named exactly as the garment vendor names it. The page is blunt about color: a seller cannot use a generic color name unless it is the manufacturer's exact one, and it points out that the G200 style comes in ash, charcoal, dark heather, ice and sport shades, none of them simply called gray. The company recommends Alphabrder.com as the main blank supplier because it orders from there daily. Blanks from Sanmar, S&S Activewear, Augusta Sportswear or anyone else are either held until enough orders accumulate to earn free shipping from that vendor, which the page says could take days or weeks, or charged shipping, which it says usually costs more than the blank shirt. A separate notice says A+ Images has joined S&S Activewear's Contract Decorator Network, with "FREE SHIPPING on apparel from S&S warehouses with no minimum orders."

The equipment behind the service is named: "Epson F3070 DTG printers, our Epson G6070 DTF printer, and our Tajima embroidery machines." The homepage describes DTG as "high-resolution, full-color printing with no minimums," vinyl as suited to names, numbers and small runs of simple logos, and rhinestones as good for spirit wear. It also offers sublimation, laser cutting and engraving, custom drinkware and print-and-cut sign vinyl with laminated finishes.

Branding options

The fulfillment page lists four branding services. Tagless labels can be printed in the neck using DTG, screen printing, pad printing or heat transfers. Shipping labels can be white-label: "instead of an A+ Images return address on the shipping label, we can include your return address and company logo." When an order ships, the software notifies the customer, marks the order as fulfilled in the store, and sends an email carrying the seller's company details, contact information and social media links, with "Design layout, colors, and custom text" configurable. Finally, the company will "insert customer-provided add-ins to your orders that ship for no additional charge," such as flyers, stickers, promo codes, business cards and buttons.

Shipping, fees and turnaround

A+ Images ships through UPS, USPS and FedEx on negotiated rates. The page says "our UPS expedited rates are up to 62% off regular pricing" and "UPS Ground shipments are up to 48% off standard pricing," with USPS at Commercial Base Pricing. A seller can use third-party billing instead. The one fee the fulfillment page names is "a $100 integration fee, unless proof of sales volume can be provided."

On speed, the homepage says that because the company stocks a wide variety of garments and orders shirts every day, "we can turnaround almost every custom order in under a week," and that rush services are available. The fulfillment page adds that supply chain issues "can add a few days to our standard turnaround times." The company publishes no per-unit fulfillment prices on these pages; the homepage points to its pricing guides and offers contract and wholesale pricing for established businesses.

Quality control and support

Quality control is the point the company makes most often. "Quality matters here. We inspect every garment ordered through us for defects prior to decorating it, and again once it is decorated for print quality." It says people, not automated systems, set up the artwork for production, so most problems are caught before a garment is decorated. On support, the homepage says a caller during business hours skips the automated message and reaches "an actual human being." The facility has graphic designers, an online design tool and a conference room; entry is by appointment only, pickups and drop-offs are no-contact, and payments go online through Square.

Who it suits

A+ Images suits a US apparel brand that wants a hands-on decorator: a seller with a Shopify or WooCommerce store, a clear SKU discipline and designs that need DTG, DTF or embroidery on specific blanks. The tagless labels, white-label shipping labels, branded notifications and free inserts let a small label ship under its own name. The 1 to 500 piece focus and in-person consultation also make sense for a shop that mixes on-demand orders with small bulk runs.

It asks more of the seller than a self-serve dashboard does. There is no product catalog to click through: the seller picks blanks from vendor sites, names every file and color exactly, and pays the integration fee unless sales volume is proven. A brand that wants a fixed published price per item will need to ask for wholesale pricing first.