Sell on Etsy

In short

• With Etsy connected and four settings on, an Etsy order imports, is matched to its artwork by SKU, is paid from the seller’s wallet, is printed and shipped, and its tracking goes back to Etsy, with no clicks from anyone.
• Your job in this flow is the setup, not the orders: every listing SKU must be a PrintShrimp product with a print file for every size the listing sells. That is what makes the matching work.
• Orders that can’t be matched or understood stop in Create Orders as Attention or Rejected, and only the seller can fix them there. The API doesn’t list unpaid orders, so you can’t see or repair them.
• Paid orders are visible through GET /api-get-order, including status, tracking number and courier once shipped.
• Shopify is different: orders arrive as fulfilment requests and are paid by hand in the app, so it can’t be fully hands-off.

Before you start

All of this is the seller’s to do in the app; none of it can be done through the API. For a hands-off Etsy shop, every line must be true:

1. Etsy is connected under Tools → Integrations → Etsy, with all permissions granted.
2. Every Etsy listing has one SKU, shared by all of its size and frame variations, and that SKU is a PrintShrimp product SKU with a print file for every size the listing sells. Per-size SKUs on Etsy break automatic import. See SKUs and Save Products.
3. The seller has run Import Orders once by hand for that shop, and Settings → Order Automation → Auto-import Etsy orders is on. It then imports 5 times a day.
4. Settings → Order Automation → Auto-pay from wallet is on, with a delay the seller is happy with, and the wallet is funded. Auto-pay never uses a card.
5. Settings → Order Automation → Etsy tracking sync is on (it is by default), so tracking reaches Etsy and orders are completed automatically.
6. Settings → Printing holds the right defaults: paper type (Satin, Matte or Gloss) for orders that don’t say, paper quality (Premium or Fine Art), and whether the Tracking Upgrade applies to small UK prints.
7. No listing offers personalisation, or auto-pay is off or delayed long enough for the seller to swap in the personalised file first.

How an Etsy order flows

1. Import. Orders that are paid on Etsy, not yet dispatched and not cancelled come in, physical items only. Each unit becomes its own line, so a quantity of 3 is 3 prints. The buyer’s personalisation, note and gift message come with it. Manual imports are limited to 20 an hour; auto-import runs 5 times a day. An order the seller deletes from Create Orders is never imported again.
2. Check. Our AI order check reads each item’s title, chosen options, personalisation and SKU (never the image) to decide print or frame, single print or set, size, paper and frame colour. Artwork is never chosen by AI: it only comes from the SKU matching one of the seller’s products.
3. Ready. An order with every item matched and priced shows Ready in Create Orders (page title Pending Orders). Anything else shows Attention or Rejected and waits for the seller.
4. Pay. Auto-pay pays Ready orders from the wallet once they have waited the delay, counted from import, not from the Etsy sale. Without auto-pay the seller pays by hand.
5. Produce. Paid orders go into production at 7:30am, 12pm and 3pm UK time. Orders paid before 3pm on a working day start that day; later ones start the next working day, and the cut-off doesn’t apply at weekends. Production and delivery times by region are on printshrimp.com/pages/pricing.
6. Ship. When the order leaves production it gets a tracking number and its status becomes Shipped. We send the first tracking number and courier to Etsy within seconds and mark the Etsy order dispatched; Etsy emails the buyer. We never email the seller’s buyers ourselves. Once tracking has reached Etsy we mark the order complete in Paid Orders.

What the order check decides

What stops an order, and who fixes it

A pending order is one of Importing (still being checked), Attention, Rejected or Ready. Only Ready orders can be paid, and auto-pay skips the rest. The seller fixes them in Create Orders; nothing on this list can be done through the API.

• No product found. The SKU matches nothing. The seller clicks Add Image for that one item, or creates a product with the listing’s SKU so future orders match by themselves. If you save that product through the API with the right SKU and sizes, waiting order items fill in automatically.
• Missing artwork for a size. The product exists but has no file for the size ordered. Uploading a file for that SKU and size, in the app or with PUT /api-update-product, fixes the waiting orders automatically.
• Duplicate SKUs. Listings sharing a SKU show “N listings need a new SKU on Etsy”; we make new unique SKUs and products, and the seller pastes each new SKU into the listing on Etsy. An order caught by it asks “Which design is this order for?”.
• Frame or colour to confirm, a set to turn into a bundle, a personalised item whose file needs swapping, or a wrong-shape file. A wrong-shape file still prints: we enlarge it to fill the sheet and trim the overhang.
• Wallet short. If the wallet can’t cover a batch, auto-pay charges nothing, keeps trying every 15 minutes and emails the seller at most every 12 hours. You can’t top up the wallet; tell the seller.

Auto-pay rules

• Delay options: Immediately, 1 hour (the default), 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours, counted from import.
• Runs every 15 minutes, pays up to 20 orders per run, oldest first, and only if the wallet covers the whole batch. Wallet only, never a card.
• Covers Etsy orders and API orders. Manual, Shopify and CSV orders are always paid by hand.
• Only Ready orders are paid; Attention and Rejected wait. Personalised orders are not held back.
• Turning auto-pay on also pays Ready orders that are already older than the delay. A card checkout the seller started but didn’t finish holds that order back for 2 hours.
• If an auto-payment leaves a low balance, the seller is emailed at most once a day.

Tracking back to Etsy

• Tracking is added when an order leaves production, so the region’s production time on the pricing page says when to expect it. Small UK prints (A5, A4, 5x7, 6x8, 8x10) on Standard go as a Royal Mail letter with no tracking updates until delivery; the Tracking Upgrade makes them fully tracked. Everything else ships tracked.
• Only an order’s first tracking number goes to Etsy automatically; a replacement’s number is added on Etsy by the seller.
• If Etsy doesn’t recognise the courier, we send the number as “other”, so the buyer sees the number without live updates.
• If the Etsy connection has expired, or a different shop is connected, tracking can’t reach Etsy until the right shop is reconnected and our team re-sends it. The app asks the seller to reconnect; we don’t email about it.
• Etsy limits the calls we can make each day across all sellers. Order imports and tracking keep priority over listing.

What you can see through the API

GET /api-get-order with no parameters lists paid orders from every source, Etsy included, 25 per page, newest first, with status, tracking and tracking_courier. That is the right way to watch a hands-off shop: poll it every 30 to 60 minutes, and look for orders that stay Paid or In Production past the region’s production window. Unpaid orders are only returned one at a time by order_id or external_order_number, and Etsy orders don’t carry an external_order_number you set, so the pending queue isn’t visible to you. If orders are stalling, it is the seller who needs to open Create Orders. Statuses are explained on Orders.

Shopify

Shopify follows the same SKU matching but a different flow, and it cannot be fully hands-off:

• The seller installs our Shopify app from Tools → Integrations → Shopify. “Set up fulfillment” matches their Shopify products to PrintShrimp products by SKU and assigns them to us; products added later are set up automatically within about 15 minutes.
• Orders reach us as fulfilment requests, only after they are paid in Shopify. We pick them up straight away, with a check every 15 minutes as a backup. The Import button on Create Orders brings in up to 10 of the newest open, paid, unfulfilled orders at a time.
• Shopify orders are paid by hand in the app. Auto-pay does not cover them, so the seller pays them from Create Orders.
• We don’t read the shipping option a Shopify buyer chose, so the seller sets Priority on the Import page when needed; and buyer options aren’t read for fine art, so on Shopify only Settings → Printing → Default paper quality → Fine Art makes orders fine art.
• Tracking goes back to Shopify only for orders that came through a fulfilment request. We create the Shopify fulfilment with the number and courier; Shopify emails the buyer only if tracking reaches it within 7 days, and we retry a failed update every 15 minutes.
• Listings reach Shopify as a CSV from the Listing Hub, with variant SKUs product-SKU-size; nothing is published to Shopify directly (see List Artwork).

Rules and limits

• One SKU per Etsy listing, shared across its variations; one SKU per PrintShrimp product, with a file per size. Sizes and papers are never separate SKUs.
• Orders go through the AI order check only when they come from Etsy, Shopify or CSV. Manual and API orders skip it.
• Personalisation text is copied onto the order, but we print the file attached to the SKU; the seller swaps in the personalised file before paying.
• Cancelling or refunding an order with us never cancels or refunds the sale on Etsy or Shopify; the seller does that on the marketplace. The seller is the seller of record and handles their own customer service.
• Manual, CSV and API orders aren’t linked to an Etsy order, so their tracking is added on Etsy by hand.

What this page doesn’t cover

• How the SKU links a listing to its artwork: SKUs.
• Placing orders yourself for shops we don’t integrate with: Sell Prints Anywhere.
• Every order status, tracking timing and problems: Orders.
• Sets under one SKU: Bundles.

Next

Previous: AI Listings · Next: Sell Prints Anywhere · Back to the hub: PrintShrimp for AI agents

Last updated 19 October 2026.