Best Zapier workflow ideas for a custom merchandise printing business?

Hello everyone,

I’ve been exploring automation ideas for our custom merchandise printing business and wanted to see what kinds of workflows others are using successfully.

Our website is XXXXXXXXXXXXXX where customers order custom:

• T-shirts
• hoodies
• mugs
• caps
• corporate merchandise

Many steps in this order process are still completed manually & it takes too much time. These steps include:

• Gathering customer order requirements
• Sending order confirmations
• Updating spreadsheets
• Sending production artwork
• Shipping bulk orders

We want to use Zapier to automate some of these time-consuming steps and lower our response time. Here’s a few ideas we have:

• Google sheets with website inquiries
• Google sheets with new order WhatsApp notifications.
• New bulk order Trello card
• Automatic email new invoices when payment is received
• Uploads automatically to CRM when a form is completed on Instagram or Facebook
• Google Drive folder is automatically created when a customer uploads a design

Because we developed our website with custom PHP, we are also checking:

• Webhooks work better than direct integrations
• The utility of Zapier Tables for managing orders
• If Zapier’s built in AI can help classify customer inquiries

I have some questions:

• What automations save the most time for print businesses?
• Are there common mistakes or things to avoid?
• What are the best integration apps to use with Zapier for production workflows?

Looking forward to learning from real use cases and recommendations from the community.