Have you checked out the SmallRun APIs?
I use a print provider, Printify, to fulfill my shirt and mug orders. My other store is on Etsy, which is integrated with Printify. When someone makes an order, all the order info gets sent to Printify automatically, and vice versa upon shipping and delivery.
A whole new flow
When I started my SmallRun store and orders started coming in, I was panicked. As there was no integration with Printify, I had to copy paste all the order info - email, name, address, which product - from SmallRun to Printify. I was so anxious I would introduce some error.
Printify has a robust API set, as does SmallRun. So I fired up Claude Code and fed it the API info and links and guided it to make me a script to check SmallRun for an order. If there's an order, just like with Etsy, it'll set up the order in Printify and transfer the info automatically. No manual error.
I even set up a web-based cron job to check SmallRun daily and alert me thru Pushover (an app I use for notifications on other projects I've built and have running) if there's anything for me to do (I get order alerts from Etsy via the seller app on my phone).
As for shipping tracking, Printify will send the info to the buyer on my behalf. But I have my script also check for the shipping tracking info that Printify generates, so I can automatically transfer the tracking info to SmallRun. Again, no more errors.
[Printify does not notify me about delivery. Etsy probably has their own tracker there. And I haven't figure a good way to set up delivery notification via API. So I use Aftership on my phone to track shipments. iOS handoff makes copy-paste easy.]
To add a wee more geekiness: I use Pythonista on my phone when I want to run the script manually with an Apple Shortcut and Siri, when away from my computer. Kinda kludgy, but works.
Friction and seams are good
I could tell the script to let Printify automatically send the info to production (their production partners). But I prefer to review things before sending it off to production. This also sets me up to send a 'thank you for ordering' message I prefer to send myself (at this stage, I do not let SmallRun, or even Etsy, automatically send messages to my customers (save for the tracking number)).
I also don't let the script mark the order as shipped in SmallRun, as I prefer to do that. As that keeps me in the loop.
Why not automate it further? Long ago I learned that 'seamless' experiences can bite you in the butt, so often I break the flow of an automated process for me to check on it. A wee bit of friction and evident seams are good checks in my process (and not like I have thousands of sales, haha), so it works.
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