theprintspace ships from production facilities in the UK, Germany, and the USA — the system routes each order to the nearest facility for fastest delivery. A mix of carriers is used depending on origin, destination, and order type.
Carriers in use
- Royal Mail — UK domestic and some international.
- DHL — international tracked.
- DHL Paket / Warenpost — Germany and EU.
- UPS — heavier or higher-value international.
- USPS — US domestic.
How it's chosen
By default the carrier is selected automatically, based on:
- Order origin — which fulfilment centre handles it (UK / DE / US).
- Destination — domestic vs international, urban vs remote.
- Size and value — larger or higher-value pieces go via tracked courier.
The default optimises for cost and speed — typically a cheap tracked service (for example, Royal Mail tracked for UK domestic, DHL Paket for Germany domestic).
Forcing courier postage
You can override the cheap-tracked default per delivery region. In Settings → Fulfilment → Upgrade to Courier, switch a region on to route every order delivering there through a courier carrier instead.
Courier is tracked and more resilient against tariffs, customs, and import issues. See How to configure fulfilment settings for the full set of switches.
DDP destinations always ship by courier
Only courier postage can carry Delivery Duty Paid (DDP). So when you enable DDP for a country, Upgrade to Courier is switched on automatically for that country's region — DDP-enabled destinations always ship by courier rather than a postal service.
Tracking
Orders that ship via tracked carriers (most international, all courier, and all higher-value) have tracking numbers that flow back into the order record. Postal orders don't include detailed tracking but follow standard carrier SLAs.