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3D.MBA

Commerce & configuration

Ecommerce integration explorer

Configure a product, then see the exact payload Shopify, Woo or commercetools receives.

PracticalJSONglTF

1 — Configure

$360 ATL-FABC-META-POLG-STAN-W5-1010
Upholstery
Frame & base
Accents
2 — Commerce platform
Hosted SaaS 2–3 weeks
Mount point
Theme app extension (app embed block) on the product template

Survives theme updates and Online Store 2.0 section changes. Script tags are deprecated for this and will break on a theme swap.

Cart mechanism
Line item properties
properties[_config]
Pricing
Draft order or a per-configuration variant

Shopify prices variants, not configurations. Above roughly 100 combinations you stop creating variants and move to a Draft Order or Functions-based price adjustment.

Watch out: A property whose name starts with an underscore is hidden from the customer but still reaches the order. Use it for the state hash; use a visible property for the human-readable summary.
100 variants per product (2,048 on Plus with the variants API)3 option names per productLine item property values capped at 8 KB

3 — What actually crosses the wire

{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "VARIANT_GID",
      "quantity": 1,
      "properties": {
        "Configuration": "Casters, Five-star base, Gas column, Seat pan",
        "SKU": "ATL-FABC-META-POLG-STAN-W5-1010",
        "_config": "{\"sku\":\"ATL-FABC-META-POLG-STAN-W5-1010\",\"product\":\"atlas-chair\",\"slots\":{\"upholstery\":\"fab-charcoal\",\"frame\":\"met-alu\",\"accent\":\"pol-graphite\"},\"toggles\":[\"arms\",\"lumbar\"],\"variants\":{\"size\":\"standard\",\"warranty\":\"w5\"},\"currency\":\"INR\",\"total\":360,\"v\":1,\"hash\":\"655f3f68\"}",
        "_hash": "655f3f68"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Generated from the configuration above — change an option and the payload changes. Identifiers are placeholders; the shape is the platform's.

The whole path, and who owns each step

  1. 1
    Configure Browser
    The rule engine runs client-side for responsiveness. Every state also encodes into a URL fragment so the configuration is shareable and recoverable.
  2. 2
    Revalidate Your API
    The same rule engine runs server-side against the posted state. This is not optional: the browser copy is a convenience, and anything that sets a price must be recomputed where the customer cannot reach it.
  3. 3
    Price Your API
    Base, options, variant multipliers, volume breaks and lead-time surcharges resolve to a single figure plus a breakdown the customer can see.
  4. 4
    Add to cart Platform
    The configuration travels as line item metadata, and the price as whatever price-override primitive the platform provides. This is the step where platforms genuinely differ.
  5. 5
    Order placed Platform → your API
    A webhook delivers the order. Re-verify the signed state hash before acting on it — an order webhook is an untrusted input like any other.
  6. 6
    Emit BOM & routing Your API → ERP
    The configuration resolves to a deterministic SKU, a bill of materials and a routing. This is the payoff: the factory receives a buildable spec rather than a screenshot in an email.

What this is

The same configuration rendered into twelve platforms' cart, order and BOM payloads — generated live from whatever you configure.

The 3D is the easy part. What decides whether a configurator ships is whether the platform can carry a price that is not attached to a variant, and every platform answers differently: Shopify caps variants and pushes you to draft orders, WooCommerce lets PHP set any cart price you like, commercetools models externalPrice as a first-class concept, and Squarespace cannot do it at all. Each platform lists its mount point, price strategy, real limits and the mistake people make.

Things worth trying

  • Switch between Shopify and WooCommerce and compare the cart payloads
  • Read why Shopify's 100-variant cap forces a draft-order approach
  • Follow one configuration through cart → order webhook → BOM
  • Find the platform where the honest answer is 'use a quote form instead'

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Bring us the product you were told could not be configured.

Tell us the option count, the CAD you already have and the frame budget you need to hit. An engineer reads it and replies with a straight answer — including when the answer is that good photography would serve you better.

Book a demoTry the configurator

We reply to every enquiry within one business day, in your timezone — with a frame budget, not a brochure.