Orders

In short

• Every order, from Etsy, Shopify, CSV, the app or the API, follows the same path: Pending (unpaid) → Paid → In Production → Shipped, with Reshipping and Cancelled as the two side exits. GET /api-get-order returns exactly those six values.
• Before payment the app sorts pending orders into Importing, Attention, Rejected and Ready. Only Ready orders can be paid; Attention and Rejected need the seller to fix something in Create Orders, and that can’t be done through the API.
• Paid orders go into production three times a day. Orders paid before 3pm UK on a working day start that day; later ones start the next working day.
• Tracking is added when the order leaves production, which turns the status to Shipped. For Etsy and Shopify orders it goes back to the marketplace by itself; for API orders you pass it on.
• There are no webhooks. Poll GET /api-get-order every 30 to 60 minutes; the list form returns paid orders from every source, 25 per page.

Before you start

• An API key (see Get Access).
• For an order you placed, its external_order_number or order_id. For orders from Etsy or Shopify, the paid-orders list is the way in.
• Production and delivery days per region, and the “When will my order arrive?” checker, are on printshrimp.com/pages/pricing. Times are working-day estimates, so say “should” and “usually”, never a guaranteed date.

The lifecycle

The app has a few more labels (Payment confirming, Processing, Delivered, Refunded). Through the API, treat any value other than the six above as In Production.

Before payment: Importing, Attention, Rejected, Ready

• Importing. Still being checked and matched. Wait.
• Attention. Something needs a decision or a file: artwork missing for the SKU or size, a set with no matching bundle, duplicate Etsy SKUs, a frame or frame colour to confirm, a personalised item whose file needs swapping, or a wrong-shape file. The seller resolves it in Create Orders. If the missing piece is a product or a size, you can supply it through the API (see Save Products) and the waiting order fills in by itself.
• Rejected. An item can’t go ahead as it stands: a product we don’t make, such as canvas, a size we don’t offer, an item we couldn’t understand, or on an API order a SKU we don’t know. A missing frame colour, a failed check, a price error or an unknown SKU can be fixed with Edit Order or Add Image; the rest is deleted from the order.
• Ready. Every item is matched, priced and has artwork. It can be paid, and auto-pay will pay it.

Unpaid orders wait with no expiry and nothing charged, and the seller can delete them. API orders skip the AI order check that imported orders go through, so an API order is Ready as soon as its SKUs and artwork are in place.

Payment

• The seller pays from Create Orders by card or from their wallet; auto-pay pays Ready Etsy and API orders from the wallet after a delay. You can’t pay through the API.
• A card payment shows Payment confirming until it clears, usually within moments. A wallet payment is immediate, and it is all or nothing: if the balance doesn’t cover the selected orders, nothing is charged.
• On payment the order gets its PS number, the seller receives an order confirmation email with the invoices, and the status is Paid.

Production and the 3pm cut-off

• Paid orders are sent into production at 7:30am, 12pm and 3pm UK time, Monday to Friday. An order paid before 3pm on a working day starts that day; after 3pm it starts the next working day. Weekend payments start on Monday. Weekends and England & Wales bank holidays aren’t working days, so an order around Christmas or a bank holiday weekend is due correspondingly later.
• An order can enter production at the very next send, even minutes after payment, so treat payment as the point of no return.
• Production times by region, in working days: prints 0–1 for the UK, Australia and Rest of World, 0–2 for the USA, 1–2 for Canada and 1–3 for Germany, France & Spain and the rest of the EU; framed prints 1–3 everywhere; fine art 1–2 everywhere. An order that mixes them follows its slowest item. Priority and the Tracking Upgrade don’t change production time.
• Production and delivery depend on the delivery country, not on where the seller is, because we print close to the buyer.

Tracking and Shipped

• We add the tracking number when the order leaves production, and the status becomes Shipped. The tracking email should arrive by the last day of the region’s production window; in the app, Paid Orders shows “Tracking due by” and a date until then.
• Everything ships tracked except UK orders made up only of A5, A4, 5x7, 6x8 or 8x10 prints on Standard, which go as a Royal Mail letter with no tracking updates until delivery. The Tracking Upgrade makes those fully tracked.
• Etsy orders: we send the first tracking number and courier to Etsy within seconds and mark the Etsy order dispatched; Etsy emails the buyer. Shopify orders that came through a fulfilment request get a Shopify fulfilment with the number and courier. API, manual and CSV orders aren’t linked to any marketplace, so you add the tracking to your own channel.
• Only an order’s first tracking number is sent to a marketplace automatically. After a reship, the newest number is listed last on the order.
• Delivery times by region, in working days from shipping: prints 2–3 for the UK, 3–4 for the USA, 3–5 for Germany, France & Spain and the rest of the EU, 2–4 for Australia and 7–10 for Rest of World; framed prints 2–3 for the UK, 3–4 for the USA, 3–5 for the EU, Canada and Australia, and 7–10 for Rest of World. Fine art ships in the same times as prints.

When something goes wrong

Problems are handled through Report a problem on the order in Paid Orders, which opens a case with our support team. Only the seller can open one; cases don’t go through the API. What to tell the seller, by situation:

• No tracking yet, or still in production past the dispatch-due date: open a “No tracking yet” or “Order still in production” case. The app won’t open these before the due date, but “Still need help?” under the notice opens the form anyway. Both close automatically when the order ships, with the tracking emailed.
• Not received: an “Order not received” case opens once the normal delivery window has passed, counted in UK working days from the day tracking was added, or straight away if tracking already shows delivered. Tracking that hasn’t moved for several days is usually still on its way; we keep an eye on it and reprint or resend if it is lost.
• Damaged, wrong or faulty: “Order arrived damaged” needs at least one photo showing the outer packaging with the shipping label visible; “Issue with print quality” and “Received wrong products” need at least one photo. Up to 6 photos, PNG or JPEG. Damaged or misprinted orders are reprinted and resent free of charge.
• Timing: report lost or damaged orders within 30 days of the estimated delivery date. We aim to respond the same or next working day, updates come by email, and when a replacement ships its new tracking closes the case automatically.
• Opening a case on an order that is still Paid pauses it until our team releases it; opening one on an order already in production or shipped doesn’t change the order.

Changing and cancelling

• There is no API call to edit or cancel an order. Before payment, the seller can change anything with Edit Order in Create Orders (address, items, size, paper, artwork, shipping, gift message) or delete the order.
• While a paid order still shows Paid, the seller can cancel it themselves in Paid Orders, and everything they paid, including shipping and VAT, goes back to their wallet straight away. That is also the quickest way to change a paid order: cancel and place it again.
• Once an order is in production it can’t be changed, and shipped orders can’t be cancelled. For an address change after payment, the seller contacts us promptly and we check whether it can still be updated.
• Cancelling with us doesn’t cancel or refund the sale on Etsy or Shopify; the seller does that on the marketplace.

Polling

curl -s "https://api.printshrimp.com/functions/v1/api-get-order?external_order_number=SHOP-1001" \
  -H "x-api-key: $PS_API_KEY"

order_id or external_order_number returns one order, paid or not. No parameter returns paid orders only, from every source, 25 per page, newest first, with page from 1. Values in angle brackets are placeholders.

{
  "success": true,
  "order": {
    "order_id": "f0f17d46-...",
    "external_order_number": "SHOP-1001",
    "status": "Shipped",
    "paid": true,
    "shipping_type": "Standard",
    "total_price": <number>,
    "shipping_cost": <number>,
    "vat_rate": 0.2,
    "vat_amount": <number>,
    "vat_treatment": "uk_standard",
    "tracking": "AB123456789GB",
    "tracking_courier": "Royal Mail",
    "completed": false,
    "order_num": 10042,
    "created_at": "2026-10-19T09:41:10.512+00:00",
    "items": [
      { "id": "a1...", "sku": "MSP-001", "size": "A4", "type": "Print", "paper_type": "Matte", "price": <number>, "friendly_name": null }
    ]
  }
}

• A pending order has the same top-level fields with paid: false, the vat_* and tracking* fields null, no completed or order_num, and items that carry fulfillable and reason_code instead of friendly_name.
• order_num is the PS number the seller sees in the app. completed is the seller’s “filed away” tick (set by them or by the Etsy tracking sync), not a delivery signal.
• vat_treatment is uk_standard, zero_export or out_of_scope.
• The list form is { "success": true, "orders": [...], "page": 1, "total_orders": 42 }.
• Poll every 30 to 60 minutes. Orders don’t move faster than the production sends, so polling more often gains nothing.

Rules and limits

• 2,000 GET /api-get-order calls an hour per account; 1,000 new orders per 24 hours.
• Unpaid orders are visible one at a time by id or external number, never in the list. The pending queue for Etsy and Shopify orders is only visible in the app.
• Every product is custom-made, so there are no change-of-mind returns; the seller can accept returns to their own address if they wish. Refunds and credits from our team go to the seller’s wallet, with an email each time.
• Replacement orders keep the original PS number with a suffix (-R, -1, -2) and their new tracking replaces the original on the order.

What this page doesn’t cover

• Placing an order and every field on it: Sell Prints Anywhere.
• Making Etsy orders arrive, pay and ship by themselves: Sell on Etsy.
• Rate limits, every error and safe retries: Limits and Errors.

Next

Previous: Pricing · Next: Limits and Errors · Back to the hub: PrintShrimp for AI agents

Last updated 19 October 2026.