How fulfillment works

PrintPort does not connect to Shopify, Etsy, or Amazon directly. Every storefront connects through a single integration: Shippo. Your store sends its orders to Shippo, and PrintPort reads them from there. One connection covers every channel you sell on.

The path an order takes into PrintPort is always the same:

Your store → Shippo → PrintPort.

This is a one-way read. PrintPort monitors Shippo for new sales and pulls them into your Orders book. It never writes back to your store, edits your listings, or creates them for you. In Settings, your connected storefronts appear read-only. You add or remove a store inside the Shippo dashboard, and PrintPort reflects what is there.

PrintPort identifies which of your products a sale is for by its SKU, the code you assign to each store listing. The SKU is the only value that joins an incoming order to a product in your catalog. Matching ignores capitalization and any leading or trailing spaces, so dragon-01, DRAGON-01, and Dragon-01 all resolve to the same product. The characters themselves must still match, so a stray underscore or a typo is treated as a different SKU.

You choose whether orders flow on their own or wait for your approval. This is a single switch in Settings.

• Approve each order is the default. A new paid order arrives as Held for approval and waits. Nothing is produced and your card is not charged until you open the order and select Approve.
• Make orders automatically sends every new paid order straight to production. Your card is charged and printing begins without further action from you.

Many sellers start with approve-each while learning the workflow, then switch to automatic once they are confident in it. The production steps below are identical in both modes. The only difference is whether an order pauses for your approval first.

Once an order is approved, either by you or automatically, PrintPort runs it end to end. Each stage appears as a plain-language status in your Orders book.

1. 1

   Order confirmed

   The sale arrives from Shippo and matches one of your products by SKU. It shows as Confirmed and joins the production queue.
2. 2

   Printed in your material

   Your product prints in the material and color you selected for it, such as PLA Matte or PETG Translucent. The status moves from Queued to Printing.
3. 3

   Finished and inspected

   When the print comes off the bed, PrintPort cleans it and checks it against your product. This is the Printed stage.
4. 4

   Hardware installed and packed

   During packing, PrintPort installs any hardware your product includes, such as a MagSafe ring, magnets, threaded inserts, or screws, then boxes it. The order becomes Ready to ship.
5. 5

   Label purchased and shipped

   PrintPort buys a shipping label on your Shippo account at the cheapest USPS rate and ships the box from the warehouse in Orange, California. The order moves to Shipped with a tracking number.
6. 6

   Delivered

   When the carrier marks the package delivered, the order shows Delivered.

PrintPort holds itself to a 72-hour (3-day) ship-by window, measured from when an order is placed to when it ships. This is an internal commitment, tracked automatically on every order. TikTok Shop orders are held to 48 hours, because TikTok requires a carrier scan within two business days; they ship on UPS.

In your Orders book, that window appears as one of three states:

• On track: comfortably inside the window.
• At risk: approaching the deadline, around 50 hours in (70% of the window).
• Late: past the window (72 hours, or 48 for TikTok Shop). A Late tab appears so these orders are easy to find, and PrintPort prioritizes them.

Orders to addresses outside the US (including APO/FPO military addresses) ship with a customs declaration generated automatically — contents, declared value, and tariff code are filled from your catalog, and you do nothing extra. The default tariff classification is 3926.40 (ornamental plastic articles), which fits most printed products; each product can carry its own code via the optional Customs tariff code field in the composer.

• Duties: shipments go DDU — the recipient pays any import duties or taxes their country charges on delivery. Neither you nor PrintPort collects them.
• Cost and speed: the cheapest international service is chosen the same way as domestic (typically USPS First-Class Package International or Priority Mail International). Labels run roughly $15–$50 by destination and weight, billed to your Shippo account exactly like domestic; typical delivery is 7–21 days.
• Declared value: what your customer paid for the item.

Fulfillment runs on its own, and nearly everything above happens without input from you. Your Orders book is built around this: it is exception-first, sorting orders into Action required, In production, Late, Fulfilled, and All. Most days, orders sit in In production and require no attention.

A small set of situations are yours to resolve, and each has a single clear action.

These five actions are the full set you ever take on an order: Retry card, Map product, Approve, Request refund, and Get help with this. You cannot edit an address, change options, or cancel from the Orders page; anything beyond those five routes to Support. A failed print is not yours to manage: PrintPort remakes it automatically, showing Reprinting rather than a failure.