This article covers how to configure inventory and product settings for your Shopify integration in ShipHero — including inventory management, product creation behavior, starting inventory options, warehouse assignment, and how product data syncs between the two platforms. Part of the Shopify Integration Settings guide.
Access these settings by going to My Account > Stores and selecting the Settings button for your Shopify store.
Table of Contents
- Have ShipHero Manage My Shopify Inventory
- Product Creation Settings
- Product Behavior & Syncing
- How ShipHero Handles Duplicate SKUs
Have ShipHero Manage My Shopify Inventory
When you enable "Have ShipHero manage my Shopify inventory," ShipHero becomes the single source of truth for your inventory. Any changes you make to an SKU's available quantity in ShipHero will automatically update on your Shopify store.
Important
Changes to inventory levels made directly in Shopify will not update inventory in ShipHero.
- If an SKU has backorders in ShipHero, a negative inventory count will be pushed to Shopify instead of zero.
- If this setting is off, ShipHero will not push any inventory updates to your Shopify store.
Product Creation Settings
As a best practice, create all new products in Shopify and let them sync to ShipHero. ShipHero does not push new SKUs to your Shopify store. To ensure products and orders are downloaded from Shopify, the setting "Download Products and Orders that are created in Shopify" must be enabled.
If you have products with over 100 variants, please let your implementation specialist know or reach out to support@shiphero.com for assistance. There is a backend setting that needs to be enabled by our team to properly import these types of products into ShipHero.
When a new product syncs from Shopify, you'll need to configure these settings:
1. Determine Starting Inventory
When a product is imported, you have two options for setting its starting inventory value in ShipHero:
-
Match what is in Shopify: This pulls the current inventory from Shopify.
Important
You must create a location named "Unassigned" in ShipHero for this to work correctly. If the location doesn't exist, inventory will be added to the "On Hand" field but won't be assigned to a location, making it impossible to pick and pack orders.
- For multi-warehouse accounts, all Shopify inventory for a product will be combined and synced only to the Primary warehouse.
- This setting will not sync inventory for SKUs that already exist in ShipHero.
-
Start at 0: This sets the inventory to 0 in ShipHero, regardless of the quantity in Shopify.
Warning
If the setting "Have ShipHero manage my Shopify inventory" is enabled, this option will immediately overwrite your Shopify inventory with a value of 0.
2. Manage Which Warehouse SKUs Are Created In
For multi-warehouse accounts, you can choose where new products are created: All Warehouses (the default) or Specific Warehouses. Using Specific Warehouses prevents unnecessary data from being imported. To select specific warehouses, choose it from the dropdown and hold Ctrl or CMD while clicking to select multiple locations.
Product Behavior & Syncing
| Action in Shopify | Result in ShipHero |
|---|---|
| A product is created with no SKU | ShipHero uses the Shopify Product ID as the SKU. |
| An SKU is changed | The product's SKU will be updated in ShipHero. |
| A product is created with no barcode | ShipHero will incrementally generate a barcode. |
| A product name is changed | The new name will appear on new orders but will not update on previously imported orders. |
| Product cost changes |
New products: When creating a new product from Shopify, the cost value is set on the Product Value field in ShipHero. Existing products:
|
How ShipHero Handles Duplicate SKUs
When multiple Shopify products share the same SKU, ShipHero links them to a single warehouse product record. This creates a shared inventory pool where a sale on one Shopify listing automatically reduces the available stock for all others using that SKU, ensuring counts stay accurate and consistent.
While the system allows these duplicates, it treats them as the exact same physical item during the picking and packing process. To track different items separately, you must assign each a unique SKU in Shopify before syncing. This ensures ShipHero creates an independent inventory record for every unique product in your warehouse.
If you update the SKU on a duplicated product in Shopify, ShipHero applies the change only to that duplicate. If the new SKU does not already exist in ShipHero, a new product will be created. The original product remains unaffected.