When you add products from Printumo to your Etsy shop, our platform automatically handles all the complex shipping profile setup for you. This article explains how Printumo creates, manages, and assigns shipping profiles to ensure your Etsy listings have the right shipping costs for customers worldwide.
What You Need to Know
Printumo takes care of shipping profiles completely automatically. You don't need to create or manage shipping profiles manually - our system analyzes your products and creates the optimal shipping setup based on print type, product sizes, and your target markets.
How Automatic Shipping Profile Creation Works
Every time you add a product to Etsy through Printumo, our system:
Analyzes your product - Reviews the print type (canvas or paper), available sizes, and target market
Determines the best shipping category - Automatically selects between Small, Medium, or Large shipping profiles
Creates the appropriate shipping profile - Builds a new Etsy shipping profile with correct costs and delivery times
Assigns it to your listing - Connects the shipping profile to your product during the upload process
Smart Size-Based Selection
Printumo uses an algorithm to determine which shipping category works best for each product:
Small Shipping Profiles - Optimized for compact products with lower shipping costs
Medium Shipping Profiles - Balanced pricing for standard-sized products (default fallback)
Large Shipping Profiles - Configured for oversized items requiring special handling
The system automatically counts how many of your product sizes fit into each category and selects the one that covers the most variants. This ensures customers get accurate shipping costs no matter which size they choose.
Why Printumo Handles Shipping This Way
It's important to understand that Etsy's platform has a fundamental limitation: shipping costs can only be set at the product level, not for individual variants. This means when you have a product with multiple size options (like an 8x10 print and a 24x36 canvas), Etsy requires you to use a single shipping profile that applies to all sizes.
This technical constraint is why Printumo developed its shipping profile system. Rather than forcing you to manually figure out a compromise shipping cost that works for all your variants, our algorithm automatically analyzes your product's size distribution and selects the most appropriate shipping category.
This ensures the majority of your customers see accurate shipping costs, even though we can't set perfect variant-specific pricing due to Etsy's limitations.
Regional Shipping Management
Printumo automatically creates different shipping profiles based on where your products will be shipped and what type of shop you have:
For Canvas Products
Your canvas shipping profiles are determined by your target market and shop currency:
Global Market (US, Canada, Australia): Ships from the US.
European Market with GBP shops: Ships from the UK.
European Market with other currencies: Ships from Czech Republic.
For Paper Products
Your paper shipping profiles are based on your Etsy shop's currency:
USD Currency Shops: Ships from the US to North American customers
All Other Currency Shops: Ships from Denmark to European and UK customers
This regional approach ensures your customers get the most accurate shipping costs and delivery times based on their location.
What Happens During Product Upload
When you click "Add to Etsy" on a Printumo product, here's the shipping profile process:
Profile Analysis: Printumo checks if you already have a shipping profile that matches your product's requirements
Existing Profile Use: If a suitable profile exists, it gets assigned to your new listing immediately
New Profile Creation: If no matching profile exists, Printumo creates a new one through Etsy's API
Automatic Assignment: The profile is automatically connected to your product listing with no manual work required
This process typically takes just a few seconds and happens while your product images and information are being uploaded.
Canvas Shipping Profile Manager in Etsy Settings
The Canvas Shipping Profile Manager is a tool found in your Etsy Settings that allows you to change the origin country for your existing canvas shipping profiles. This is important because Etsy requires all shipping profiles to specify an origin country for customs declarations, shipping calculations, and delivery time estimates.
What It Does
The manager provides two key functions:
UK → EU Migration: Changes the origin country from United Kingdom (GB) to Czech Republic (CZ) for all your canvas products
EU → UK Migration: Changes the origin country from Czech Republic (CZ) to United Kingdom (GB) for all your canvas products
When to Use It
You might need the Canvas Shipping Profile Manager if:
You want to optimize shipping costs and delivery times for your primary customer base
You're testing which origin country works better for your specific market
How It Works
When you click either "UK → EU" or "EU → UK":
Bulk Processing: The system identifies all your existing canvas products on Etsy
Profile Analysis: It determines which shipping profiles need to be updated
Background Execution: A background job processes the changes over several minutes
API Updates: Each shipping profile is updated through Etsy's API with the new origin country
Database Sync: Your local shipping profile records are updated to match
Important Notes:
Processing time depends on how many products you have (typically several minutes)
All destination countries and shipping costs remain exactly the same - only the origin country changes
The system automatically handles the complex API calls to Etsy