ASK Online Print-on-Demand Shop Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I See My Sales?
A: Yes! Once we have set up your Partner Selling Page, we will provide you with your own dashboard where you can see your sales in real time as well as what you have earned and who has purchased.
Q: How much do I earn?
A: This all depends on the selling price. If you sell at our standard RRP, which is set from our experience of working with charities over the last 15 years then you earn 45% on each sale. However if your selling price is higher this can increase up to 60%.
Q: Where do you deliver to?
A: We print everything in England but ship worldwide via Royal Mail Post. Customers in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the US also have a tracked courier option. The shipping price is calculated at checkout dependent on the total order weight.
Q: I have completed my design in your calendar software, what do I do now?
A: If it is a completed Design Project:
- Please login to your Design Project
- Open it by clicking "Continue Editing"
- Click Purchase (bottom right)
- This adds it to the Shopping Basket
- From there click "Secure Checkout and Payment for your Order"
- At payment stage 4 please select "Nothing to pay - for ASK Online to sell on www.askonline.shop", you may be sent an invoice automatically by the system, so ignore that.
- It will then enter our workflow and we will send you a PDF proof to approve before placing it live.
Q: What other information do you need?
A: We will need your logo if you have one, a short description of who you are for your Partner Selling Page, and your bank account details to pay you. We may ask for additional information if necessary.
Q: What sizes can I have?
A: Most of our products have different size options for your customers. We only need a single design per product as the artwork scales up or down accordingly.
- Calendars: Our Hanging Wall Calendars are offered as A3, A4, A5 & or as an A5 Standing Desk sizes
Our Booklet Calendars are offered as A4 opening to A3 & A5 opening to A4 sizes
Our Slimline Kitchen Calendars are offered as 148x420mm & 105x297mm sizes
Our Square Calendars are offered as 297mm Square, 210mm Square & 148mm Square sizes - Canvas Prints: The portrait and landscape canvases are available at 12"x18", 16"x24", 24"x36"; and the square canvases are available at 12", 16", 24" & 36" Square
- Christmas and Greetings Cards: These products are available at B6 (176x125mm), A6, DL (210x99mm), 148mm Square & 120mm Square
- Posters and Wall Art: These products are available at A4, A3, A2, A1 & A0
- Photo Diaries, Planners, Annuals and Journals: These products are available in A4, B5 (176x250mm) A5 & A6
- T-Shirts, Polos and Hoodies: These products are available at most common sizes including children's sizes
Q: What is the minimum and maximum page count I can have in our calendar?
A: We have no maximum page count. Our standard hanging wall calendars consist of a cover and 12 months so are 13 pages as standard. You can add additional pages including an outward facing 14th page back cover. Our booklet calendars are 28 pages that open up to 14 Spreads. Spiral Booklet Calendars have to be multiples of 2 pages and Stapled Booklet calendars multiples of 4 pages if you want additional pages. Order our fantastic FREE Sample Calendar Pack if you have not done so already to see examples.
Q: What paper finishes and thicknesses can I have in my calendar?
A: As the UK's leading calendar printers we are proud to offer the largest paper choice of any online calender printer! So you can have satin, silk, gloss or uncoated recycled carbon neutral paper. The paper weights range from 150gsm up to 300gsm. Our FREE sample calendar pack contains different pages on different paper weights and finishes so is a bespoke calendar sample paper swatch.
Q: In what format do I send my calendar to you in?
A: If you don’t wish to use our online Calendar Design Software and want to have full offline control of your calendar we would suggest using Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft Powerpoint. Once your calendar is ready just output it as a print ready high resolution PDF file with 3mm bleed plus crop marks. If you struggle with this you can send us the packaged InDesign, Publisher or Powerpoint files with all associated graphics, fonts and links via https://yearbook.wetransfer.com or send them to us on a memory stick and we can try to add the bleed for you if you have missed it off.
Q: What Photo resolution and size do I need?
A: For HD (high definition) printing please make sure your photos are HD or high resolution, so 300dpi for the size the photo is being printed. As this instruction confuses most people our advice for this is look at the photo file size which nearly always corresponds to resolution. So photos:
- over 5Mb will be HD or very high resolution.
- 2-5Mb will be high resolution and should be fine to print.
- 1-2Mb are medium resolution and in 95% of cases are fine to print.
- 0.5Mb (500Kb) - 1Mb are low to medium resolution, so not High Definition but are generally OK in most cases but can sometimes appear slightly blurry / out of focus.
- 200Kb - 500Kb are low resolution so won’t be perfect, but you may get away with them, but they are likely to be slightly blurry / out of focus.
- Less than 200Kb are not really suitable, so may be pixilated, but if that’s all you have we will do our best, but we advise you having a printed proof first so you are not disappointed.
Another tick is to enlarge your photo to 200% on screen from the size it will be printed, if it looks sharp it should print OK, if it looks blurry/fuzzy/bitmapped in any way that is how it will likely look printed. If you are unsure we offer a printed proof for £9.99 (free for orders of 100 or more).
Q: Can we see a printed proof of our product(s) before they go live online?
A: YES. Our FREE sample calendar pack gives a good demonstration of our binding and calendar printing quality. But YES, we can also provide a printed proof before printing any of your shop orders, so we know you’re happy. We charge £10 per product for this service. If you ended up selling 100 or more this fee would be refunded.
Q: Am I able to use a different design software?
A: If you do not wish to use our design software, you are able to use a different software of your choosing. If you choose to do so, please be sure to include a 3mm bleed if a background or photo goes to the edge of the page. We do check over submitted designs before placing them live. You can order a printed proof before going live for £10 per product, which is refunded if you sell 100 or more. Please output it as a print ready high resolution PDF file with 3mm bleed and send it to us your files via https://yearbook.wetransfer.com.
Q: What software do you recommend we use to create our products?
A: If you wish to work offline we recommend using Adobe InDesign which is the world’s leading professional design software. But we understand not everyone has access to this and Mircosoft Publisher which comes with Microsoft Office is a popular and adequate alternative. Some Schools also produce Calendars using Powerpoint. Canva online is also becoming more polular. Whichever package you use please ensure you set up the master document with 3mm bleed when you create it. If you are unsure how to do that please contact us and we will guide you through it, but a quick easy solution in Publisher is to setup your A4 document 216mm x 303mm with a 3mm margin, so the margin guide in effect becomes your bleed line and visual guide to where the page will be trimmed to when print finishing.
Q: Can ASK design our products?
A: Yes, we can, but there is a charge on some products if we don’t end up printing 100 or more copies of your product. On Christmas Cards, Greetings Cards, Posters, Postcards, Canvas Prints and Wall Art just send us the images and the design is free.
On Calendars, Photo Diaries, Journals and Diaries we total up the quantity we sell in the Shop plus any bulk purchases you may have made with us. If the combined quantity printed is 100 or more there is no design fee. If the combined quantity printed is 50-99 then we charge £40 by taking £40 off your revenue earning, and if the combined quantity printed is less than 50, we charge £80 by taking £80 off your revenue earning or send you an invoice for the difference at the end of the season if your revenue earning is less that £80. Our aim, however, is to keep the setup fees free, which is why we’ve created lots of sample layouts and templates online to help you create your own free design. If you do have a go at designing online, we will look at and clean up your design, and we always send a PDF proof before printing.
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