Case Study: Automating Product Creation for a Shopify POD Store
Client: Acid Daddy – Psychedelic Apparel Brand for Festival-Goers
Industry: E-commerce (Fashion & Print-on-Demand)
Platform: Make.com, Printify API, Google Sheets, DeepAI, Dropbox
Time to Build: 20 hours
Time Saved: 20+ hours per week
Consulting Partner: Lumio
🚨 The Problem: A Beautiful, Manual Bottleneck
Acid Daddy is a growing e-commerce brand creating trippy, high-color festival clothing. But behind the scenes, the product creation process was a total grind.
Each new product required:
Manually choosing an image from a design folder
Upscaling it for clarity
Uploading it to Printify and placing it on every single clothing item
Coming up with a creative product name and description
Saving it as a draft on Shopify
This process was repeated dozens of times per week, often taking hours of creative and technical effort.
The founder wanted to spend more time designing and less time copying and pasting.
🧠 The Solution: Fully Automated Product Draft Creation
Working with Lumio, Acid Daddy implemented a Make.com scenario that automated the full product creation pipeline — transforming a once tedious task into a click-and-go flow.
🔄 How It Works
Step 1: Source & Prep a Design
Pulls a random file from a Dropbox folder of pre-approved artwork.
Upscales the image via DeepAI for higher visual quality.
Generates a Dropbox share link so Printify can access the file.
Step 2: Generate Creative Content
Pulls a random product name from a curated Google Sheet.
Fetches a relevant word list and product details.
Sends the product name and details to GPT to generate a dynamic, brand-aligned description.
Step 3: Mass Product Creation via Printify
Loops through 15+ Printify product types (leggings, dresses, hoodies, bikinis, etc.).
Automatically uploads the design to each product’s print area.
Applies the generated name and description.
Saves each product as a draft in the connected Shopify store.
Step 4: Final Step & Clean-up
Bundles product metadata into a JSON object.
Moves the design file to a “Complete” folder for audit tracking.
🎯 Results
Before AutomationAfter Automation~20 hours/week on product setup< 30 minutes/weekManual image editing & uploadsFully automated uploadsProduct descriptions written from scratchGPT-generated, ready-to-publish copyNo system for organizing completed assetsOrganized archival with version control
The automation saved 20+ hours per week — effectively eliminating one full workday for the client — and created hundreds of prebuilt products just waiting for a click-to-publish.
🔧 Tools & Platforms Used
Make.com: Scenario builder and router logic
Printify API: Product creation engine
Google Sheets: Content source for names and product specs
DeepAI: Upscaling endpoint used via HTTP request
OpenAI (GPT): Custom prompt-generated product descriptions
Dropbox: Asset storage and final file archiving
🧗 Challenges & Lessons Learned
🖼️ Image Formatting with Printify
Printify’s documentation offered limited guidance on exact design placement. It required multiple iterations and manual testing to get things properly aligned for each garment type.
📦 Collapsing Complexity into JSON
We created a custom JSON bundle to manage metadata across product types, reducing repetitive steps and simplifying audit tracking.
📉 Managing Execution Limits
Since the flow creates 15+ variants per run, we had to throttle module execution, minimize API calls, and streamline variable handling to stay within Make.com’s limits.
👤 Client Feedback
"Before working with Lumio, I spent hours building every single product. Now I just drop designs into a folder, and by the end of the day, I’ve got a full product line staged and ready to go. It’s kind of magic."
— Acid Daddy Founder
💡 Takeaways for Other Businesses
If your team is manually:
Copying assets between tools
Creating repeat content for each SKU
Working with platforms like Printify, Canva, or Shopify
…you’re a great candidate for automation-based product assembly like this.
✨ Ready to Automate Your Product Pipeline?
This is just one example of how Lumio helps creative teams and founders reclaim their time. Whether you're a small brand or a scaling eCommerce startup, automation can multiply your output without multiplying your effort.
