T-Shirt Elephant

A Toronto printer with a store builder attached

T-Shirt Elephant is a Canadian custom apparel company that prints t-shirts, hoodies, hats, jerseys, bags and stickers from its own facility in North York, Toronto. The homepage says it was founded in Toronto in 2012, that all screen printing, DTF, embroidery and DTG is done in-house "by our team of 75+ employees", and that it has printed "over 1,000,000 custom t-shirts, hoodies, hats, and jerseys". It calls itself "Proudly Canadian Owned" and claims to be "Trusted by 100,000+ Canadians Since 2012". The copyright line names the operating companies as H.A.S. Novelties Ltd. and H.A.S. Marketing Ltd.

Most of the business is direct custom orders for teams, schools, companies and events. What puts it in a print-on-demand directory is its free web store builder: a creator designs a store, shares the link, and the company prints, ships and handles payments while the seller keeps the markup.

What a seller actually gets

The store builder is the closest thing to a classic POD arrangement on the site. The homepage describes it in three steps (sign up free, design your store and products, share your link) and promises "We print, ship & handle payments, you keep the markup. No fees. No inventory." A second line pitches it as "Launch a branded web store in minutes. We print on demand and ship across Canada, and you keep the markup on every sale. No fees, no inventory, no minimums." The company says the stores suit "teams, schools, clubs, creators & fundraisers", and it runs a separate team store builder alongside the merch store builder. The site does not name an integration with an outside marketplace or shop platform, so a seller who already runs a shop elsewhere would order through T-Shirt Elephant's own Design Studio rather than through an automatic order sync.

The catalog is large. The site advertises "5,000+ blank & custom styles" and product lines that cover:

• T-shirts: short sleeve, long sleeve, v-neck, pocket tees, ringer tees, baseball tees, heavyweight, performance, women's, youth, organic and made in Canada styles
• Sweatshirts: pullover hoodies, crewnecks, quarter zips and full zips
• Hats: baseball caps, snapbacks, trucker hats, fitted hats, beanies and toques
• Polos, jackets, tank tops, woven shirts, workwear and hi-vis pieces
• Sports jerseys for hockey, basketball, soccer, baseball, football, volleyball, lacrosse, cycling and track
• Bags: totes, backpacks, duffels, drawstring, messenger and lunch bags, plus aprons
• Printed products: die-cut stickers, sticker sheets, fridge magnets, pin buttons, posters, heat transfers and DTF gang sheets

The FAQ names the blank brands as "Gildan, Bella+Canvas, Next Level, Nike, Adidas, Champion, Independent, ATC, Yupoong, New Era and more". Sizes run "Youth XS to Adult 5XL in most styles", and a buyer can mix sizes in the same order.

The homepage lists five decoration methods under one roof: screen printing, DTF, DTG, embroidery and heat transfer. It names the equipment: M&R presses for screen printing, Mimaki DTF machines, and Tajima embroidery machines that stitch "up to 15 thread colours per design". Print locations are front, back, left chest and both sleeves, and an FAQ on the eco page adds inside neck label printing.

Minimums depend on the method. The FAQ says orders start at 1 unit for DTF and DTG, while "Screen printing starts at 24 units per design." Another answer says embroidery "starts at 12 units", yet the embroidered hoodie answer promises "No minimums. Free logo digitizing included", so a buyer planning a small embroidery run should check that detail on the order. Every order gets a free professional design review, and the podcaster guide says the design team can recreate a low resolution logo "at no extra charge".

Prices, timelines and shipping

T-Shirt Elephant prints prices on its product listings, which is rarer than it should be in this industry. Its best-selling items include the Gildan 5000 Heavy Cotton from $4.95, the Gildan 1850 Heavy Blend Hoodie from $21.45, the ATC C130 Mid-Profile Cap from $4.95, the Core365 CE106 Pique Polo from $12.95 and the Q-Tees Economical Tote from $3.65. Stickers start at $1.66 each for white gloss die-cut and pin buttons at $0.80 each. The FAQ adds that custom t-shirts "start at $8.99 CAD per shirt for blank garments plus printing", that screen printed tees "typically run $15-25 each for orders of 24-50", and that "Orders of 100+ save 30-40% per unit". Volume pricing starts at 12 units, the biggest savings come at 50 and 100, and orders of 500 or more go to the sales team. The eco range starts from $11.99.

The podcaster guide gives a cost table a seller can price against: a basic DTF-printed tee at $12-15 CAD cost with a suggested retail of $30-40 CAD, a DTF hoodie at $22-30 CAD against $55-75 CAD, and an embroidered dad hat at $12-16 CAD against $28-35 CAD. It recommends a "2.5-3x markup over total production costs".

Standard production is 10 business days from artwork approval, and rush production takes 7 business days for an extra fee. At checkout a buyer can pick a guaranteed date of "7, 5, 3 or 2 business days of production, from 30% extra". Shipping to most Canadian cities "adds 2-5 business days", and Toronto-area orders can be picked up the same day from the North York facility. The podcaster guide quotes shipping as "typically 3-5 days across Canada, 5-7 days to the US" and says "we ship worldwide", with international rates quoted on request.

Shipping is free over $250 anywhere in Canada, and smaller orders ship "from $12.95 flat rate". The company says it ships to all 10 provinces and 3 territories.

Quality, ethics and guarantees

The FAQ promises "100% satisfaction guaranteed. Issues? We reprint or refund." The homepage says QC specialists inspect every garment before shipping and that every order gets a dedicated point of contact. Support runs by phone, email and live chat, and the site advertises chat "24/7".

On sustainability, the homepage says the company "undergoes annual SEDEX SMETA ethical audits" and describes water-based DTF printing, water recycling and eco-friendly screen reclaiming. Its eco-friendly page lists 22 organic and recycled styles and says the range includes "GOTS-certified organic cotton" and recycled polyester, from brands such as Allmade and Jerico.

Who it suits

T-Shirt Elephant fits Canadian creators, podcasters, bands, clubs and fundraisers who want a free branded store with the printing and shipping handled, and small businesses that want to order one shirt or a few hundred from a domestic printer with published prices. The no-minimum DTF and DTG work makes testing a design cheap, and the podcaster guide is written for exactly that seller. Buyers who need embroidery, jerseys or stickers in the same order benefit from having everything under one roof.

It fits less well for a seller who runs a shop on an outside marketplace and wants orders to flow in automatically, since the site describes its own stores and Design Studio rather than a connected channel. Sellers whose customers are mostly outside Canada should also factor in that the free shipping threshold and the store builder copy are written for Canadian delivery.