If you notice that some Shopify orders aren’t appearing in your Printful Dashboard, here are the most common reasons and how to fix them.
Payment and order status requirements for importing orders
For Printful to import orders from Shopify, the following conditions must be met:
- Payment must be captured: Printful only imports orders that are fully paid. If you’re using manual payment capture in Shopify, make sure you’ve captured the payment before expecting the order to import. Once captured, the order will sync automatically.
- Order status in Shopify:
- Orders must have Unfulfilled status in Shopify. If an order is marked as Shipped or Fulfilled in Shopify, Printful won’t import it. If the order has a different status, you can try manually editing it and setting the status to Unfulfilled.
- Draft orders or local pickup orders won’t sync unless they’re converted to fully paid, standard shipping orders.
- Duplicate order numbers won’t import. Shopify orders must have a unique order numbers to import to Printful.
Fulfillment settings in Shopify
Shopify’s fulfillment settings affect how orders are sent to Printful. For automatic import and fulfillment:
- Go to Shopify Admin → Settings → General → Order processing.
- Under After an order has been paid, select:
Automatically fulfill the order’s line items.
If you’ve selected Don’t fulfill any of the order’s line items automatically, the order won’t import automatically to Printful. In this case, you need to manually request fulfillment in Shopify.
- Open the order in Shopify.
- Click Request fulfillment.
Shopify will then send the order to Printful, which can either accept or reject it. Once accepted, it will appear in your Printful Dashboard.
Enable automatic import of synced orders in Printful (optional)
The recommended method is to manage fulfillment through Shopify’s settings. However, if you’re unable to use Shopify’s automatic fulfillment, you can enable Printful’s setting to automatically import synced orders.
To enable this:
- Go to your Printful Dashboard → Settings → Store settings → Orders.
- Under Sync as you go, enable Automatically import orders with synced products.
With this setting on, Printful will import and fulfill all synced orders automatically, even if Shopify’s automatic fulfillment isn’t enabled.
Product must be synced and configured
In your Printful Dashboard → Stores → your Shopify store (or My products → Published):
- Confirm the products are marked as synced.
- Fulfillment disabled products won’t be imported.
- Orders with only not synced products will only be imported if you’ve enabled Import existing products in your Printful Dashboard → Settings → Store settings → Orders.
Printful location must manage inventory
For Shopify to route orders to Printful, each product must be assigned to Printful’s location.
To check this:
- Go to Shopify Admin → Products → Click on the product → Select the product variant.
- Under Inventory, verify that Printful is listed as a location. (If you see an Inventory will be stocked at option, make sure to select Multiple locations).
If Printful isn’t selected, the order won’t be sent to Printful.
Order import timeframe
Orders usually appear in Printful within a few minutes. If an order is missing after 10–15 minutes:
- Go to your Printful Dashboard → Stores.
- Select your store (or click the three-dot menu) and click Refresh data.
Automatically confirm orders for fulfillment in Printful
If your Shopify orders import into Printful but don’t move into fulfillment automatically, you can enable this setting to ensure orders are confirmed right away without manual review.
How to enable:
- Go to your Printful Dashboard → Settings → Store settings → Orders → Order import settings.
- Check the box for Automatically confirm orders to be fulfilled.
With this setting enabled:
- All imported orders with synced products will automatically move into the fulfillment queue.
- Printful will automatically charge your set billing method as soon as the order is imported from Shopify.
This helps streamline your order processing by removing the need to manually confirm each imported order.
Quick troubleshooting checklist
| Checkpoint | What to do |
| Payment capture | Ensure orders are captured or manually marked as paid |
| Shopify fulfillment settings | Set Shopify to automatically fulfill line items or manually request fulfillment |
| Inventory location | Verify all Printful products are assigned to Printful in Shopify |
| Product sync | Sync unsynced products and enable fulfillment in Printful |
| Data refresh | Use Refresh data in Printful |
| Unique order number | Ensure order numbers aren’t duplicates |
| Order status | Confirm Shopify orders are in Unfulfilled status |
If none of the above steps resolve the issue, reach out to our Support Team through our contact form or start a chat with us. To help us investigate, please include:
- A screenshot of the order view from your Shopify Admin (showing fulfillment status, payment status, and product details)
- A brief description of what troubleshooting steps you’ve already tried