Print on demand and custom printing: what personal agents can do for a store that makes to order Free & Pro

A print-on-demand store has two kinds of product. Stock designs on stock blanks, which an agent can find, describe and reorder like anything else, and personalised items, where the customer uploads a photo or types a name on the product page. The Personal Agent Protocol, as Agent Adapt implements it for WooCommerce, handles the first kind well and the second kind not at all through the agent API. This page is written for stores on WooCommerce, and the facts come from the plugin as it ships on 13 October 2026. The first store running Agent Adapt is a print-on-demand business, and one of its settings is worth copying.

What customers will ask their assistant

• "Order another of the mugs I got in June, the same design."
• "Has my canvas shipped yet?"
• "Find me a poster of a mountain, A2, under £40."
• "What’s their returns policy on personalised things?"

The first two need the customer to sign in and approve the agent on your store’s own page; the second two need nothing.

Stock designs: what the agent sees

An agent searches by keywords and matches each term against product titles and SKUs. It reads the title, the short description (up to 500 characters), the full description, the price, whether the item is in stock, the first image’s URL, categories, and the attributes and variations with their names and values. It cannot look at the image. So for a poster, "Mountain Lake at Dawn, giclée print, A2 / A3 / A4, matte paper" in the title and short description does the work the artwork does on your website. Variation names should be what a person would say: "Size: A2", "Frame: Black", not "Option 2".

Reordering is a single call: the agent puts a past order’s items back in the cart, with the same variations, and hands the customer a checkout link. The customer pays on your checkout. Nothing about the order is sent to your print partner by the agent; your normal order flow runs when payment arrives.

Personalised products: the limit

Fields that need a form on the product page, such as an upload or a text box from a product add-on plugin, are not part of the agent API. An agent can add the product with its standard variations and quantity, and it will arrive in the cart without the add-on data. How your add-on plugin treats a cart line without its fields decides what happens next: some refuse the line, some let it through blank. Test it before relying on it.

Two sensible options:

• Keep personalised products out of agent reach by setting their catalogue visibility to hidden, if they are only ever sold through a specific page. Hidden products are never served to agents, in search or by ID.
• Let the agent get the customer to the product page. Product details include the product’s URL. An agent that cannot complete personalisation can send the customer there to finish.

Reordering a personalised item puts the original cart line’s product back, not the uploaded artwork; your fulfilment flow would need the original order’s files. Treat personalised reorders as a request to make the same thing, to be confirmed with the customer.

The Pro switch to turn off

With Pro, an agent can ask to cancel a paid order with a refund, and the customer approves the exact terms. For most stores that is a convenience. For a store that sends the order to production the moment it is paid, it is a way to cancel an order that is already being printed. The paid-order cancellation action can be switched off under WooCommerce → Agents → What agents may do, and the first store running Agent Adapt keeps it off for exactly this reason. Unpaid-order cancellation, in the free plugin, is unaffected: an unpaid order has not been sent anywhere.

Return requests (Pro) are safe to leave on. They refund nothing; they add a note to the order and email you, and you decide. Your return window is yours to set; for personalised goods your returns page should say what you accept, because agents quote that page.

What to set up

1. Titles that say what the item is, which blank, which size options. SKUs on every variation; customers reorder from receipts.
2. A short description that carries the facts the picture carries on your site.
3. Stock management on blanks if you run out of them; otherwise everything reads as available.
4. A returns page that says plainly how personalised items are treated, and a terms page with production and delivery times. Both are sent to agents as plain text. See Writing store policies an agent can read.
5. With Pro: paid-order cancellation off, if production starts on payment.

Common questions

Can the agent upload the customer’s photo?

No. Uploads and other product-page fields are not part of the agent API. The agent can send the customer to the product page.

Will the agent know an order is in production?

It reads the order’s status and your shipping method name, and reports what they say. If your fulfilment plugin sets a custom status such as "In production", the agent reports that. Tracking numbers are not part of the API.

Can a customer’s assistant order from my print partner directly?

No. The agent works with your store and your prices. Your store works with your print partner as before.

Do agents see the artwork?

They receive the first image’s URL and can show it to the customer. They do not interpret it. Put the subject in words.