Three partners, one habit
You started with one print partner. Then you added a second because their mugs were better, and a third with a production site in the US so American customers stop waiting weeks. Now an order comes in from Ohio for a T-shirt and a mug. The T-shirt is linked to your UK partner, because that is where the product was first set up, so it crosses the Atlantic. The mug goes to the mug partner. The customer gets two parcels, one of them late.
When your UK partner had a backlog before Christmas, you wanted to move T-shirt orders elsewhere for a fortnight. That meant relinking every product by hand, so you did not.
Products are tied to partners, not orders
Most print partner integrations work by creating a product in your shop that belongs to that partner. It is simple, and it locks the routing decision in at the moment you create the listing.
- Each listing is connected to one partner's product and file.
- The customer's country does not change where the order goes.
- Partner costs and shipping rates change, but the routing does not.
- A partner backlog or outage has no automatic effect.
- Moving a product to another partner means recreating or relinking it.
So routing reflects the day you set up the product, not the order in front of you.
What fixed routing costs
Orders produced far from the customer take longer and cost more to ship, and slow deliveries mean reviews and 'where is my order' messages. Split orders ship in several parcels, often with separate shipping charges. During a partner's busy period or outage, orders sit in their queue while another partner could have printed them. The cost of switching keeps you with a partner long after it stopped being the best choice.
Margins suffer quietly as well. A partner that was cheapest when you set up may not be now.
The routing layer we build
- Each of your products is defined once, with the equivalent product, file and variant codes at each partner that can make it.
- Orders from your shop and marketplaces are received by the routing layer instead of going straight to one partner.
- Each line is matched against your rules: which partners can make it, which serve the customer's country, the current base cost and shipping, and whether you have paused a partner.
- Where one partner can make every line, your rules can prefer keeping the order together to avoid split parcels.
- The order is submitted to the chosen partner or partners through their APIs, with the right file for each product.
- Every routing decision is logged with the reason, and orders that match no rule go to a queue for a person.
| Rule | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Destination | US orders to a partner producing in the US | Shorter distance to customer |
| Product strength | Mugs to your preferred mug partner | Consistent quality |
| Keep together | Prefer one partner if it makes every item | Fewer split parcels |
| Pause | Partner paused during a backlog | Orders go to the next choice |
| Cost | Cheapest capable partner for the destination | Protects margin |
The rules are yours and can be as simple as 'US to one partner, everything else to another'. The routing layer makes them apply to every order.
Routing that follows the order
The order from Ohio goes to the US partner, who makes both the T-shirt and the mug, so it ships in one parcel. When your UK partner warns of delays, you pause them for T-shirts in one click, and orders go to your second choice until you switch back. When a partner changes prices, the cost rule takes it into account.
The log shows why each order went where it did, which is useful when a customer asks why their parcel came from another country.
Signs your routing is stuck
- Every order for a product goes to the partner it was first created with.
- Overseas customers wait for parcels printed far away.
- Mixed orders often ship as several parcels.
- You did not move orders during a partner's backlog because relinking was too much work.
- You are not sure which partner is cheapest for each product now.