One of the first questions people always ask about Gooten is: where does the name Gooten come from?
Back in the 15th century, a man named Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. This revolutionary invention enabled people to share knowledge more quickly and widely, ushering in the modern era of human history. Before the printing press existed, books and manuscripts were painstakingly created by hand. However, Gutenberg’s movable-type printing process rapidly accelerated the dissemination of knowledge, discoveries, and literacy in the Renaissance period. Substantially changing the way society functioned, the printing press helped launch a global news network, power the scientific revolution, provide a platform for fringe voices, and much more.
Inspired by Gutenberg’s impactful contributions to the printing industry and society, we named Gooten after him in order to reflect our intention to fundamentally change the print-on-demand industry. Just like Gutenberg’s invention facilitated the growth of information output, we founded Gooten to solve similar challenges for the online commerce industry: how can Gooten help eCommerce businesses scale more efficiently and deliver a more superior product?
When we first entered the market in 2015, there were only a handful of options for merchants to sell their goods online—both from a technology and marketplace perspective. Before Gooten, people who wanted to sell products online were limited to purchasing inventory in bulk, hoping that their guesstimated sell-through rates were accurate. That’s where we stepped in. Gooten brought to life the print-on-demand concept. We were able to offer high-quality products in custom quantities, relieving merchants from the burden of inventory management and expensive equipment costs.
Since then, we’ve capitalized on our expertise in technology and operations and partnered with best-in-class global manufacturers in order to completely re-imagine the way merchandise is created and delivered to consumers around the world—faster, more cost-effectively, while leading the industry in quality.
Now, that is what we call The Gooten Way.
