Products, and the three ways buyers order them

A product is one thing a buyer can order from your shop page: a name, a price, photos, and the choices you offer, like colors and sizes. You add and edit them on the Products page.

The setting that matters most is the one people skip. Every product is set to one of three ordering modes, and that mode decides what your buyer is asked when they order. Get it right and the order arrives complete. Get it wrong and you are back to messaging someone to find out what they actually wanted.

What kind of item it is

When you click Add a product, the first thing Broidry asks is what kind of item it is: a hat, a tee, a sweatshirt, a blanket, a tote, and so on. That answer is the item's shape, and it decides which spots a design can go in, because a hat has a front and a sweatshirt has a chest, two sleeves and a back. It is not the exact garment — you pick that, a Richardson 112 or a Gildan 18000, inside the product under Item options.

If you get it wrong, or you change your mind later, open the product and change the Item type menu near the top. Your name, price, photos and description all stay. The only thing that changes is which spots you can put a design in, and any spot that does not exist on the new shape drops off, which is why a sweatshirt's sleeve spots are not there after you switch it to a hat.

Products that come in from an Etsy or Square import arrive with the item type already guessed from the name of the listing. Check that column in the import preview before you bring them in, because the guess is only reading words — a name that does not say what the item is, like "Game Day Ready," has nothing to go on and is filed under Everything else.

The three modes

"Buyers add names or words" is the normal custom-embroidery mode. The buyer types their wording, picks a font and a thread color if you offer those choices, and confirms the spelling before submitting. Use it for name sweatshirts, monogrammed totes, personalized anything.

"Buyers send a logo" is for business work. The buyer uploads their logo file instead of typing words, which is what a team, a salon, or a contractor ordering shirts actually needs. Their file arrives attached to the order.

"Buyers get it exactly as shown" is for a piece that is not personalized at all — a finished design you stitch the same way every time, or an item you have already made and want to sell. The buyer picks their size and color and orders it as photographed. Broidry changes the buyer-facing wording to match: the button reads Order this piece instead of Personalize yours, and the form stops asking for wording and fonts, because there is nothing for them to type. If you want buyers to be able to choose the thread color anyway — the same design stitched in their team or school colors — turn on "Let buyers pick the thread color" in that listing's Item options. Everything else a buyer could have chosen goes quiet: the wording, the fonts, the spots, and the reference-photo upload, which grays out so it cannot be switched on for a piece where a photo would change nothing.

There is one more choice you can hand a buyer on a piece sold exactly as shown, and it is for appliqué. If the design is cut from fabric, turn on "Let buyers pick the fabric" on that set design. The design itself never changes. The buyer only picks which fabric the letters are cut from, off your fabric shelf, and every order names the fabric so nobody has to message you to ask. Answering is required, because the fabric is what the letters are made of.

The fabric a buyer picked shows at the top of the order, in its own Fabric column beside Color and Size, with the photo from your fabric shelf. It also prints at the top of the work sheet and shows on the order's card on your board, in both the card view and the list view. On a group order, open the production sheet and the "Fabric to cut" card counts the pieces for each fabric, split by garment color and size, so you can cut everything from one fabric in one sitting. Your buyer sees the fabric and its photo on their own order page, and the fabric's name is in their confirmation email.

Under that switch is a list of your shelf. Leave every fabric unchecked to offer the whole shelf. Check off a few and buyers see only those, which is how you list the school crewneck in the six fabrics you photographed it in.

How this product is made

Not everything an embroidery shop sells is embroidered. If you also print, engrave, or do something else, say so on the product itself — the editor has a row called How this product is made, with embroidered, printed, engraved, and other. Every product you already have is set to embroidered, so nothing changes until you change it.

That one setting rewrites what the buyer reads. A printed piece never says "stitched" anywhere: not on the order form, not on the review step, not on the confirmation page, and not on the quote line, which says printed instead of embroidery. The "real embroidery, never printed" promise also comes off that listing on its own.

It follows the order out of the app too. The emails your customer gets say printed, not stitched: the estimate promises nothing is printed until they have approved it, and their payment receipt puts them on your print schedule. So do the ready-made messages on the order page — the proof waiting on them is a print proof, not a stitch-out.

One more place, and it is the one nobody thinks to check. If you have not written your own search description on the Storefront page, Broidry writes one for you, and it used to call every shop an embroidery shop. Now it reads what you actually sell. A shop whose products are all printed shows up as Custom Printing; a shop that stitches anything at all is still called embroidery, because that is the fairer description of a shop doing both.

It changes the price too, because your rate card counts stitches and a print has none to count. A printed or engraved product charges the price you typed on it, plus any size or add-on charges you set, exactly the way a product sold as shown does — your rate card is never asked about it. On the owner side, a quote built from that product opens with Price this item myself already on, so you type what the job is worth instead of a stitch count.

The embroidery-only choices — appliqué, 3D puff, and thread color — only apply to embroidered products, so they stay put when you mark something printed.

The one thing it takes AWAY is a time estimate. Your Schedule works out how long a job will take by dividing its stitch count by your machine speed, and a printed piece has no stitches to count. Rather than show you a finish date built on a number nobody measured, Broidry shows none: the order sits on your list marked no time estimate, and it does not book machine hours or push the stitched work behind it. Your ship date still counts, so a printed order that is past its date still shows up as overdue.

Colors and sizes belong to the garment

Under Item options you check the garments a product is offered on, and right below that you fill in the colors and the sizes it comes in. Those two lists are shared by every garment you checked, but a buyer never picks from them the way you see them. A buyer picks their garment first, and is then offered only the colors that garment comes in and the sizes it is made in. If your listing offers a Gildan 18000 and a Comfort Colors 1566, someone who picks the Gildan cannot be sold Salmon, because Gildan does not make it.

So the click-to-add swatches are listed under the name of the garment they belong to, one row per garment, and under your chosen colors Broidry writes out what a buyer actually sees for each one. The sizes card does the same thing, which is how one listing sells youth sizes on the garment that has them and adult-only on the garment that does not.

One line there is worth reading closely. If it says a garment shows every color it comes in, none of the colors you picked exist on that garment, and Broidry falls back to its whole chart rather than leave a buyer with nothing to choose. Either add a color that garment really comes in, or take that garment off the listing.

Sizes only narrow for a garment that has its own sizes entered. Open the garment on the Supplies page and fill in the Sizes card with what it comes in, like Youth XS through Youth XL for a youth hoodie. If a garment you checked on a product has no sizes entered, a yellow note under the product's sizes says so, because a buyer who picks that garment is shown every size on the product, even ones it is not made in.

On a product with no garment checked, Broidry leaves off any garment that is not made in a single one of the product's sizes. So adding a youth crewneck to your Supplies never puts it on an adult crewneck product. To sell a design in youth and adult sizes, check both garments on that product.

The garments you can check are not limited to the kind of item the product is. A design you sell on a crewneck, a hoodie, a quarter-zip and a tee is one product with all four checked — you do not need a near-copy of the listing for the tee. Each row says which item type it is, so you can see what you are checking. Whichever garment the buyer picks is the one they get: the page draws it, offers that garment's spots, and narrows the colors and sizes to it. Words a buyer already typed are kept wherever the new garment has the same spot and dropped where it does not, because a full back cannot be stitched on something that has no full back. Prices still have to work across the whole set, so a crewneck checked beside a cheaper tee needs to carry its own difference or you cover it.

Placements: where the stitching goes

Each product holds a list of placements — the spots on the garment you are willing to stitch, like the left chest, the full front, a sleeve, or the back of a hat. Each placement can either take whatever the buyer types, or hold a set design you always stitch there.

Placements are how you keep an order honest. If you only stitch the left chest on a particular polo, list only the left chest, and no buyer can order a full back you were not planning to make.

Crewnecks and t-shirts have a Big back and a Back neck, and hoodies have a Hood and a Back neck alongside the Big back they always had. If your shop was already open when these were added, on September 21, 2026, all of them arrived switched off, so no buyer could order a back you never agreed to stitch. To turn one on, open the Products page and find the card called "What I offer". Under each item there is a row called Placements. A spot that is grayed out with a line through it is off: click it, then save. A shop opened after that date has them on from the start and turns off any it does not stitch, the same way.

A placement can also carry its own price, and you choose what that price counts. Next to the extra charge there is a dropdown: once per garment, per name they add, per letter stitched, per word stitched, or per inch. Pick per name and a buyer who types three names is charged three times the extra — the number moves as they type, so a four-name tote and a one-name tote are not the same price by accident. The buyer types more than one name into the same box, separated by commas. If some names come with the price, type how many in the box that reads "the first ___ names come with the price": with 1 there, the first name is free and every name after it is charged, so one name on a sweatshirt costs the listed price and a second name adds the extra. Per inch reads the number the buyer types into that spot's box.

A placement can be something the buyer chooses to add, with its own price. Open the spot and look at the checkbox "Included with every order". Checked, the spot is part of the item and every buyer gets it. Unchecked, it is an optional add-on: the buyer sees it under "Want to add anything?" with its price next to it, clicks it to add it, and the price is charged only when they do. That is how you offer a second name on the other sleeve for a few dollars more: add a placement called "Second name", leave "Included with every order" unchecked, and type the extra in "Adds to the price".

Choice lists: one question, your answers

Some products need one more answer that is not wording or placement: which dog breed, which school, which sport, which backing. A choice list is that question, written once with all its answers, and attached to any products that need it. The buyer picks from your list in the order form, the answer is required before they can submit, and it prints exactly as written on the order and the run sheet — so "Golden Retriever" arrives spelled the way you spell it, not the way a text message does.

An answer can cost extra. When you type the answers, write the price after the ones that cost more, like "Velcro +1.50" on its own line. You can change a price later too: find the list under "Customer choices on this product" and open "Edit what these answers cost". Your customer sees the price next to the answer before they pick it, it is added for each piece they order, and it shows on their total as its own line. So a patch with velcro on the back costs more than the same patch with a plain sew-on edge, and you never send a second invoice for the difference.

A list is shared by every product you attach it to, and so are its prices. If velcro costs more on your patches than on your keychains, make two lists.

The "somewhere else" option

Underneath the placements there is a checkbox called "Let buyers describe a spot I didn't list." Leave it on and a buyer who wants something in a spot you did not think of can describe it in their own words. Turn it off and they can only pick from your list.

There is a real trade-off here, so choose on purpose. Leaving it on catches orders you would otherwise lose, and it is where some of the best custom work comes from. Turning it off means every order that arrives is something you already know how to make and price. New shops usually leave it on; busy shops usually turn it off.

When you do not want buyers picking a spot at all

Some products only ever get stitched one way, and asking the buyer where the name goes is one more thing for them to get wrong. At the top of "Where can people put their design?" there is a control called "Do buyers choose the spot?" Switch it to "It always goes in one spot" and pick the spot, and the whole question disappears from the order form.

Your buyers still type their wording and still pick a font and a thread color if you offer those. The only thing they are not asked is where it goes, because you have already answered it. That one setting handles the escape hatch as well, so there is nothing else to remember to switch off.

A hat never shows this control, because a hat only has one spot to begin with and there was never a question to ask.

Priced, or Quote me

Separate from the ordering mode, every product is either Priced or Quote me. Priced means the number is on the product and a buyer can order it without waiting on you. Quote me means there is no number yet — the buyer asks, and you send them a price.

Pick Priced, type your number into the "from $" box beside it, and that is the price. Buyers pay it, plus any size upcharge or paid add-on you set further down the product, and nothing comes back to you to quote. Your shop minimum does not top it up. The one thing added on top is your rate card's fee for appliqué or 3D puff when a buyer picks one. If the price you typed already includes the appliqué work, set "Appliqué lettering on this product" to "Offered, price covers it" and the appliqué fee is not added. This works the same whether buyers personalize the piece or get it exactly as shown, so you never have to choose between putting a price on something and letting a customer put their own name on it.

A piece is often one big word with a smaller one under it — "softball" under an appliquéd "TIGERS". Turn on "Let buyers add a smaller second word" on the product and the wording step gives buyers a second box, plus "Below the main word" and "Above it" to say where it goes. The second word is stitched in plain thread, so it reads against an appliquéd word, and the price you set under "Second, smaller word" on your Pricing page is added when a buyer uses it. Leave it off on products where you do not actually stitch a second line, since it is extra stitching and a second hooping pass.

Some designs only exist as appliqué, and a buyer should not be able to order one stitched plain. Under the appliqué setting on the product is a switch called "This product is appliqué only". Turn it on and appliqué is the only lettering style the order form offers, and every order on that product comes in as appliqué. Leave it off and buyers choose between appliqué and plain stitched letters, the way they always have. The switch only shows on a product that offers appliqué, and it is ignored while you have no appliqué fabric on your shelf, because leaving a buyer with no lettering style at all is worse than leaving them the wrong one.

When you have two or more priced products, every priced product's order form gets a second button, "Add to cart and keep shopping". A buyer can fill in a hat, add it, fill in a tote, add that, and press "Check out" on the bar at the bottom of your shop page. They type their name, email and pickup or shipping once, and every piece arrives on your board as one order group, the way "Add another item" groups them for you. If you take cards up front, they pay once for the whole cart. Shipping is charged once, on the first item. Quote-me products never go in the cart, because they need a conversation before a price.

A product that comes in several colors can show the right photo for each one. On the product's Photos card, each photo has a small menu that says "Any color"; pick the color that photo shows. When a buyer picks that color on the order form, the photos jump to it, and the small dot on each thumbnail shows which color it is. A photo left on "Any color" shows for every color, the way every photo did before.

A product type you made can show your own photo instead of a drawn shape. On the Products page under "Your own product types", press "Add a photo" on the type, upload one picture of the item, then pick a spot and drag a box on the photo to say where the stitching goes. From then on, buyers see that photo on the product tile, in the live preview, and under their own words as they type, on every product of that type. "Go back to the drawn shape" undoes it.

When a product is out, check "Sold out right now" under the Live or Hidden button. It stays on your shop page with a Sold out label, and the order button becomes "Notify me", so buyers can ask for an email when it is back; uncheck it and they are emailed. To sell out one color only, open Item options, find that color under "Colors it comes in", and press "in stock" so it reads "sold out"; the swatch stays on the order form, grayed, with Sold out under it. A size sells out on its own when the garment counts stock in Supplies and that color and size hits zero.

To stop a product at a number, type it under "Stop selling at this many", right below the sold out checkbox, and click "Save the limit". Once that many pieces are ordered the product shows Sold out by itself, the same way the checkbox does. Every order for the product counts, including ones you add yourself, and canceled orders do not. The line beside the box shows how many are ordered and how many are left. Saving a different number starts the count again from zero, so for a second batch of 100, type 100. When you raise or remove a limit that was reached, everyone who asked to be notified is emailed.

A product marked "Printed" is priced by the size of the print, not by stitches. On the Pricing page, under "Printed work, by the size of the print", there are four sizes measured on the print's longest side, each with a price; rename them, change the prices, or add a size you sell. When a buyer orders a printed product, every spot asks "How big is the print?" with your sizes and prices, and their pick is the price of that print. A product you gave its own price keeps that price; these sizes are for products you let Broidry price.

A product marked "Engraved" works the same way by material. On the Pricing page, under "Engraved work, by what the piece is made of", each material (wood, leather, glass, metal, tumbler to start) has a price; rename them, change the prices, or add one. When a buyer orders an engraved product, every spot asks "What is it engraved on?" and their pick is the price of that piece. The same panel has "Laser time, per minute": set it, and when you build a quote yourself the order's Build Quote page gets a "Minutes on the laser" box that adds the time at that rate.

You can sell a design's machine files as a download. Add a product, set "How this product is made" to "A file to download", and pick the design whose files it sells (only designs with files uploaded are listed). Give it a price. Buyers see "Buy the file", type their name and email, and pay; the moment the payment comes in, every machine file on that design is theirs to download from their order page, and their receipt links there. If you take payment another way, the links open when you mark the order paid. Nothing is made or shipped, and the order still sits on your board like any other.

Team wear is a name and a number. Open the spot that takes the number, press Edit, and check "This spot is a number". On the order form that spot takes digits only, up to three, and when a buyer turns the order into a group, every person on the list gets a Number box beside their name and size. The number prints beside the name on the order and on the run sheet.

A product can cost less per piece when someone orders more. Under the price is "Price by quantity". Click "+ Add a quantity price", type the quantity it starts at, like 12, and the price each at that quantity, like 11. Add another row for 48 and up if you have one. The product page shows every row under "Options that change the price" as "12 or more: $11 each", the running total on the order form switches to that price the moment the buyer's quantity reaches it, and a sale takes its percent off the price they are actually paying at that quantity. Quantity 1 is always the price in the "from $" box.

One thing to know before you pick Quote me: it depends on a shop-wide setting. If "Let buyers request a quote" is turned off, a Quote me product is hidden from your shop page, because there would be no way for a buyer to ask you anything. You do not have to go looking for that setting. The product editor tells you it is happening, right on the product, and gives you a button there called "Let buyers request a quote" — click it and this product, and every other Quote me product, appear on your shop page. If you would rather sell this one at a set price, type a price above instead.

Every product offers buyers "Making these for a group or team?" on the size step. For a piece people only ever buy one of, uncheck "Offer this for a group or team" in that product and the question goes away.

The link to one product

Every product has its own web address, and it is at the top of the product editor in the card called "Link to this product". Press "Copy link" and paste it straight into a Facebook caption, a text, or an email. The address is built from the product's name, so it reads like the product — /s/your-shop/nurse-life-sweatshirt — which means someone can type it off a phone screen, and it does not look like spam sitting next to your words.

You can change it. Press "Change the web address", type the address you want under "Web address for this product", and press "Save the address". The old address keeps working, so a link already sitting in a caption, a text, or a customer's email still opens the product. Until you type your own address, renaming the product moves the address along with the name; once you have typed one yourself, it is yours and renaming the product leaves it alone.

Changing several products at once

When more than one product is on your Products page, a button appears at the top called Change or delete several. Click it, then click the products you want, and a panel opens with the settings that are safe to change in a batch: whether they show on your shop page, your return policy, appliqué, which fonts they offer, a price change across all of them, a sale percentage, a tag to put on all of them or take off all of them, and one of your shop categories to put them all in or take them all out of. You can also delete the ones you picked. It exists because a shop that imports forty products from Etsy should not have to open forty editors to make them all live.

That panel is also where you add one photo to all of them. If you have made a thread color chart, a size guide, or a care card that belongs on every product rather than on one, choose it under Add a photo to all of them and it goes onto each product you picked. It is added after the photos each product already has, and it never becomes the cover photo, so what your customers see first on your shop page is still the product itself.

A product holds eight of your own photos, but a photo you add this way does not count against that, so it is added even to a product whose photos are already full. That matters most right after an import, because products brought over from another shop usually arrive holding a full set. Adding the same photo a second time does nothing, so if you are not sure whether a batch went through, you can run it again without ending up with the chart twice.

Before a product goes live

1. 1Add at least one real photo. A product without a photo still works, but a buyer will not order a blank square.
2. 2Set the ordering mode to match how you actually make this piece.
3. 3List every placement you are willing to stitch, and no others.
4. 4Decide whether to allow the "somewhere else" option on this product.
5. 5Open your own shop page and order the product yourself, all the way through the form. You will find the missing question faster than any checklist will.

What the switch on each product tile does

The red switch at the bottom right of every product tile shows that product on your shop page, or hides it. That is all it does. Hover over it and it tells you which way it is set right now.

It never deletes anything. Switch a product off and its tile stays on your Products page with a Hidden label on the picture, and its photos, price, colors, sizes and description are all still there. Switch it back on and buyers can order it again at the same web address. Deleting is a separate button: open the product and choose "Delete this listing" at the very bottom, under everything else.

One thing to know before you switch a product off: a link straight to that product stops opening for buyers, so a link you already posted shows them a page-not-found. If you want the product off your shop page but still orderable by its link, leave the switch on and check "Keep this off my shop page" inside the product instead.

It says live, but it is not on my shop page

Switching a product on is not quite the same as putting it on your shop page. Two other settings take a switched-on product off it, and the product tile now tells you when one of them is doing that. It says Not on your shop page right on the picture, the line under the product says why, and opening the product explains which setting to change.

The first is a checkbox in the product called Keep this off my shop page. It is meant for a one-time piece you only want to send to one person, so the product works by direct link and nowhere else. Uncheck it and the product joins your shop page.

The second only affects products set to Quote me. If your shop has quote requests switched off, those products come off your shop page, because there is nothing for a buyer to do at the end of them. Turn Custom quote requests back on from your Storefront page, under What's on the page, or give the product a price instead.