Printful, a Charlotte-based e-commerce printing and fulfillment company, debuted a new 53,000-square-foot printing and warehousing space at an Oct. 8 ribbon cutting ceremony. The move was celebrated by members of the media, Latvian diplomats and Charlotte leaders as an achievement for the local ecosystem.
The addition of the 11201 Ed Brown Road facility will also create 100 Charlotte-based jobs, bringing its total number of area employees to 400 by 2020.
During yesterday's event, Printful HR Director Marielle Angers read a letter from Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles.
"This is an exciting opening for several reasons," Lyles wrote. "It shows we have a vibrant business community ... It reinforces the company's commitment to make Charlotte the site of its global headquarters ... [and] it's a great success story. [Printful] is choosing Charlotte not once, but twice."
"We also knew that Charlotte is a fast-growing city that has a business-friendly environment."
Lyles was referencing the company's initial Charlotte printing and fulfillment center, with opened in 2016 after its initial expansion from California to the East Coast.
Māris Selga, the Latvian ambassador to the U.S., said at the event that Printful was “the fastest-growing Latvian company in the U.S," a reference to the company's co-founder Lauris Liberts, a Latvian entrepreneur. Liberts, who is also Printful's CEO, moved to California in 2004 to explore business ventures in another market after co-founding Draugiem.lv, the "Facebook of Latvia." Not long after a handful of failed entrepreneurial moves in the U.S. — and trouble finding a one-stop shop for printing and fulfillment — he established Printful in 2013.
The company's era of growth in Charlotte was chronicled by COO Zane Levsa's address.
"Back in 2016 when we were based in Los Angeles, we chose Charlotte as it was close to our suppliers," she said. "We also knew that Charlotte is a fast-growing city that has a business-friendly environment."
Printful, which has offices in Riga, Latvia; Tijuana, Mexico; and Los Angeles, California, allows users to design their own apparel, jewelry and mugs for their online marketplace. Users can upload their designs (or get insight on their concepts) via Printful's mockup generator. Then, the company prints (or embroiders), fulfills and ships orders to the users' clients. Additionally, the Printful software integrates with stores on Etsy, Shopify and Squarespace.
Levsa added that the typical Printful clients were solo entrepreneurs.
"Our customer is a person who has another day job, but he aspires to be an entrepreneur," she explained.
It's an ethos that's baked into Printful itself, which was bootstrapped and financed internally.
Check out photos from Charlotte Inno's tour of both current and new Printful facilities below.
