Skip to content
PrintPort3DDocs
DocsCore concepts

Designs, Products & Listings

The three objects you work with on PrintPort3D, and the SKU that connects them.

4 min read

Everything on PrintPort3D is built from three objects: a Design, a Product, and a Store Listing. They are deliberately separate, and a single code — the SKU — is what connects a store listing to the product that fulfills it. Understanding the distinction is the foundation for the rest of the platform.

Overview

The three objects form a one-directional chain: Design → Product → Store Listing. A design is the raw 3D file. A product is a priced, buildable unit composed from one or more designs. A store listing is the offer your customer buys on your own store.

You upload or generate a design, compose it into a product, and list that product for sale. The only thing that links a store listing back to the correct product is a matching SKU — not a title, an image, or a link.

PrintPort3D stays on your side of the counter

PrintPort3D stores your designs and products, but it never touches your storefront. Your listing, and the price your customer pays, always live on your own store.

How they compare

The table below summarizes the full model. The sections that follow explain each object in detail.

Design, Product, and Store Listing at a glance.

DesignProductStore listing
What it isA 3D fileA priced, buildable unitYour public offer to buyers
Where it livesYour FilesYour CatalogYour own store
Who makes itYou upload or generate itYou build it in the ComposerYou create it yourself
Has a price?No — just weight, time & sizeA make cost, no retail priceYour retail price, set by you
Has a SKU?NoYes — uppercase & uniqueMust carry a matching SKU
  • What it is
    DesignA 3D file
    ProductA priced, buildable unit
    Store listing
    Your public offer to buyers
  • Where it lives
    DesignYour Files
    ProductYour Catalog
    Store listingYour own store
  • Who makes it
    Design
    You upload or generate it
    Product
    You build it in the Composer
    Store listingYou create it yourself
  • Has a price?
    Design
    No — just weight, time & size
    Product
    A make cost, no retail price
    Store listing
    Your retail price, set by you
  • Has a SKU?
    DesignNo
    ProductYes — uppercase & unique
    Store listing
    Must carry a matching SKU

Designs

A design is a single 3D file in your Files, which you reach from your Catalog. You add one by uploading a model (STL, OBJ, 3MF, or STEP) or by generating one in Studio.

When a design is added, PrintPort3D slices it to determine what it takes to print. That analysis produces the design’s weight in grams, its print time, its dimensions in millimetres, a printability check, and a thumbnail. While the analysis runs, the design shows Analyzing. When it finishes, the design becomes Ready, or Failed if the file cannot be printed.

A design has no price and no SKU of its own — it is measured raw material. Only a Ready design can be built into a product, and a single design can feed as many products as you need.

Upload a designGet a 3D file into your Files tab.File requirementsFormats, size limits, and preparing your model.

Products

A product is a sellable unit you build in the Catalog’s Composer. It ties one or more designs — each with its own material, colour, and number of copies — plus any hardware, to a name, a description, and a SKU. From those choices, PrintPort3D calculates a make cost: the amount it will charge your card to build one unit.

printport3d.com
Step 1, Build, of the New Product composer: a design-file list, a hardware disclosure, the make-cost-per-unit rail, and a To-publish checklist.
The Composer is where a design becomes a priced product. You gather design files and hardware, and PrintPort3D shows the make cost per unit.

A product has no retail-price field, by design. PrintPort3D never stores the price your customer pays — that number lives on your store. What you see in the Composer is the make cost and a break-even figure, so you can price your store listing above it.

Every product is either Live or Draft. A Live product is eligible to match and fulfill incoming orders automatically. A Draft product is parked: an order for a Draft product does not auto-fulfill and waits for you to map it by hand.

Publishing only sets Live vs Draft

Saving a product as Live (or selecting Publish in the product drawer) does one thing: it sets the product’s status to Live. It does not push anything to Shopify, Etsy, or any other store. Nothing in the Catalog ever creates a listing for you.
Create a productTurn a design into a priced, sellable product.Costs & pricingExactly how your make cost is calculated.

Store listings

A store listing is what your customer sees and buys: the product page on your Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, or other storefront. You write it, price it, and publish it using your own store’s tools.

PrintPort3D never creates or pushes a listing for you, and there is no “send to store” action anywhere in the product. To connect a listing to the product that should fulfill it, put your PrintPort3D product’s SKU on the store listing. That is the entire connection.

Publish to your storeCreate the listing and put the SKU on it.How you get paidThe money model, and why there is no payout.

How SKU matching works

The SKU is the single code that connects a store listing to a PrintPort3D product. When an order arrives from your store, PrintPort3D looks for a product whose SKU matches the SKU on the ordered item. If it finds one, and that product is Live, the order fulfills automatically.

Two rules govern matching:

  • Case and outer spaces are ignored. PrintPort3D compares SKUs in a canonical form: it uppercases both sides and trims leading and trailing spaces before comparing. As a result, dragon-01, DRAGON-01, and Dragon-01 all match a product whose SKU is DRAGON-01. PrintPort3D stores and displays your product SKU in uppercase, but you do not have to reproduce that exact case on your store listing.
  • The characters must match. Beyond case and outer spacing, matching is character-for-character, with no fuzzy logic. A different character — an underscore in place of a hyphen, an extra space in the middle of the SKU, or a typo — is a different SKU and will not match.

Copy the SKU rather than retyping it

The most reliable approach is to copy the SKU directly from your product (click it in the product drawer to copy it) and paste it onto your store listing. An order whose SKU does not match any Live product lands as unmatched, and you must map it by hand before it can be made.

SKUs are also unique within your catalog: no two of your products can share one. A dedicated page covers this in full, including how to resolve a mismatch.

Next steps

Each of the three objects is documented in full on the pages below.

The SKU linkThe one code that ties your store to PrintPort: matching, mismatches, and fixes.Create a productTurn a Ready design into a priced, sellable product with a SKU.Publish to your storeCreate the store listing yourself and put a matching SKU on it.How fulfillment worksWhat happens between a sale and a shipped box.