Integration · Shopify

Shopify orders and stock, in step with your back office.

Orders arrive in your system without retyping, stock levels agree in both places, and customers are one record, not two. Shopify stays the shop; your system runs everything behind it.

Get a quote What it can do

Shopify is a good shop. It handles the catalogue, the checkout, payments and the storefront. What it doesn’t do is run your warehouse, your supplier orders, your wholesale accounts or your accounts. That is usually where a custom back office comes in, and where the pain is: orders copied into a stock sheet, counts that disagree, customers in two places.

A Shopify integration connects the two. Shopify’s API lets a system read orders, products, customers and inventory, and update them. Shopify can also send a webhook when something happens, such as a new order. Used together, they make the back office the place where stock and fulfilment are managed, with the shop reflecting it. The retail inventory page shows the back-office side.

What you can automate

Shopify, wired into your system.

Orders into the back office

A new Shopify order creates a job in your system with the customer, the lines, the shipping choice and the payment status, ready to pick, pack or deliver. Nobody copies it from an email.

One stock count

Stock lives in one place and Shopify shows what is available. A sale reduces it, a goods-in increases it, and a manual correction is made once. The Shopify stock sync page goes into this in detail.

Customers as one record

A Shopify customer matches a client in your CRM, so a wholesale buyer’s orders, quotes and invoices all appear together, and a person who orders twice doesn’t become two people.

Fulfilment and tracking

Pick lists, packing slips and courier labels are produced from the order, and the tracking number is sent back to Shopify so the customer is notified.

Returns and refunds

A return booked in the back office restocks the item and issues the refund in one step, with a note on the customer’s record explaining why.

Supplier orders and low stock

When a line drops below its reorder level, the system proposes a purchase order and tells you what to buy, instead of a person walking the shelves with a clipboard.

How it’s built

Connected, then watched.

01
Map the shop to the back office
Products, variants, stock locations, customers and tax. We decide which side owns each, and how a product that exists in only one place should behave.
02
Get access the proper way
You, as the store owner, grant my app access to the store, with only the data it needs. I don’t need your Shopify password and I don’t keep it.
03
Webhooks plus a safety net
Shopify can notify the system near-instantly of new orders and changes. Shopify’s own guidance is that delivery isn’t always guaranteed, that the same event can arrive twice and that ordering isn’t guaranteed. So handlers are built to ignore duplicates, and a scheduled reconciliation fetches whatever changed since the last run to catch anything missed.
04
Work within the limits
Shopify rate-limits its API by the cost of each query, and the allowance depends on the plan. Bulk jobs such as a catalogue import are paced, and a failed call is retried rather than lost.

Worth knowing

I have moved a retailer onto Shopify, but I haven’t built a back-office sync to Shopify for a named client yet. The sync described here uses Shopify’s public API and the same sync patterns running in other systems I have built.
Shopify’s plan fees, transaction fees, apps and payment charges are billed to you by Shopify and its providers. Some features depend on your plan.
If you sell a few dozen products and stock is counted in a spreadsheet once a week, Shopify’s own inventory tools or a ready-made app may be all you need. A custom sync pays off when stock, wholesale or fulfilment rules are the complicated part.

Proof

Built before, running now.

I haven’t built a Shopify back-office sync for a named client yet. ChefWorks is a real Shopify build, and the stock, order and sync building blocks behind the integration run live in Storex and other systems.

Retail · LiveChefWorks

A chef apparel retailer moved onto Shopify, chosen as the best fit for how the shop actually sells. This is a store migration, not a back-office sync.

Read the case study

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Do I need to leave Shopify to get a custom back office?

No. Shopify stays the shop. The back office sits behind it, and the two stay in step. That is often cheaper and less risky than rebuilding the shop.

Can you sync stock in both directions?

Yes, with a clear rule about which side wins when they disagree. The usual answer is that stock is counted and corrected in the back office, and Shopify displays what is available.

Will it handle wholesale and retail customers differently?

Yes, as far as your rules go: different price lists, minimum orders or invoicing on terms. Those rules live in the back office, which is one reason to have one.

How long does a Shopify sync take?

The quote builder puts “Shopify or WooCommerce” at roughly 20 to 40 build hours, on top of the 30 to 50 hours of shared groundwork every system needs, and a stock module at 50 to 110. Fulfilment rules and returns are what stretch it.

Can you build the Shopify store itself too?

Yes. See websites that feed your system. Shopify is often the right shop, and I say so when it is.

Go deeper

Get a fixed quote.

The quote builder opens with Shopify already selected. Add the rest of your system and I reply with a fixed quote.

Start the quote builder Or talk to me first