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Getting started

From an installed add-on to your first order at the provider. This walks through Printful, because it is the one with a synced import, live rates and signed webhooks all in one. Printify and Gelato follow the same order of steps; their own pages say where they differ.

Before you begin

  • KahunaCart 1.4.7 or later, with the job worker running.
  • An account at the provider. For Printful that is a Manual order platform / API store; see Printful.
  • kahunacart.pod.manage on whoever sets it up, and kahunacart.pod.orders on whoever presses Send. See Reference.

Installing the add-on changes nothing on its own. No provider is registered until one is switched on with a token pasted, and the Print on demand product type does not exist until then either.

1. Connect the provider

  1. Make the token at the provider, as its page says (Printful, Printify, Gelato).
  2. Open KahunaCart → Print on demand → Settings, go to the provider's tab, paste the token, switch Use Printful on and save. The token is stored encrypted.
  3. Open the Providers tab and press Check connection on the card. It makes one real call and tells you which store the token reached and which scopes it has. A missing scope is named.

Or from the command line:

BASH
bin/plugin kahunacart-print-on-demand check printful

2. Register the webhook

Still on the card, press Register webhook. The provider then tells the store when an order is costed, sent, shipped or delivered. It needs the store's public https address, so it is refused on a .test or localhost site. Without a webhook the store still asks about every open order every four hours, so tracking works, just later. See Tracking.

Gelato is the exception: it cannot register a webhook through its API, so the card gives you the steps to add it in Gelato's dashboard. See Gelato.

3. Bring a product in

Open Products, find a product you designed at Printful and press Import. The import sheet lists every variant with its cost and a suggested selling price. Change any price you want, then confirm. The product arrives as a draft with its colours and sizes, its pictures and a link from every variant to Printful. Check it over and publish it yourself; the add-on never publishes anything.

More in Products and import. To use your own print files on a Printful or Gelato blank instead, see Custom products.

4. Add the provider's shipping methods

On the card, press Add shipping methods and pick the shipping zones you sell printed goods in. The add-on asks the provider which services it offers your products in each zone's first country, and adds one method per service, bound to the provider. Methods already there are left alone.

BASH
bin/plugin kahunacart-print-on-demand shipping printful --zones=1,2

Then, in KahunaCart → Settings → Shipping, switch live carrier rates on (shipping.carrier_rates.enabled) and nominate a fallback method for when the provider cannot be reached. Without live rates switched on, the provider's methods show as unavailable at checkout. See Shipping.

5. Place a test order

Buy the product on your own storefront with a test payment method. Once the order counts as paid:

  1. The add-on makes a draft at Printful under a reference of its own. A draft costs nothing.
  2. Printful works out the cost, usually within a minute. The order's Print on demand panel shows it, with the margin against what the customer paid.
  3. Press Send to Printful for $18.40 (your amount) to send it to production. This spends money. Printful charges your account for the order.

If this was only a test, press Cancel at Printful instead. A draft is deleted and costs nothing.

Everything waiting for you is on the Review tab too, and in an alert at the top of every KahunaCart admin screen.

6. Decide on review or auto

Review mode is the default for every provider and stays that way until you change it. Once a few orders have gone through cleanly, you can switch a provider to Send them automatically on its card, and paid orders go to production without you. See Orders.