How to sync products between two Shopify stores
A second Shopify store is the normal next step when one market needs its own language, currency, domain and payment methods, or when a wholesale channel should not look like the retail one. Shopify Markets covers some of that inside one store, but the moment you need different themes, apps or checkouts you end up with two stores and one catalogue to keep in step.
The options
- CSV export and import: fine for the first copy, painful for the hundredth update. Images re-upload every time and variants get duplicated when handles differ.
- Shopify Flow: can react to inventory changes but cannot create products in another store.
- A sync app: watches the source store through webhooks and mirrors changes to the destination, with rules for what is copied and what stays local (price, title, tags).
- Custom scripts on the Admin API: full control, your maintenance.
What has to stay local
Price is the obvious one: the second store sells in another currency or with a different margin. Titles and descriptions are translated. Tags often drive collections that differ per store. A good sync keeps SKU, images, options, weight, barcode and inventory in step, and leaves the rest alone after the first copy unless you say otherwise.
How Syncline does it
Syncline links a source store to destination stores and mirrors products, variants, images and inventory through Shopify webhooks, so a change in the source lands in the destination within seconds. You decide what happens when a product is deleted at the source (set the copy to draft, delete it or leave it), and inventory is written to the destination's fulfilling location.
Before you connect
- Make sure every product has a unique SKU in the source store. Sync by title is a trap.
- Pick the direction: one source, N destinations. Two-way sync of the same field creates loops.
- Do a dry run on a collection of ten products and check the destination before enabling the whole catalogue.