ConsignCloud integrates with Shopify, one of the most popular and effective eCommerce platforms online. We like Shopify because it is easy to use and provides a world-class set of tools for stores to maintain an effective online presence. ConsignCloud's integration automatically syncs inventory between the two systems and makes it much easier to run your physical and online stores side by side.

In this article we'll explore briefly how ConsignCloud's Shopify integration works, how ConsignCloud charges for this service, and how to get your own store set up.

Integrating your ConsignCloud and Shopify stores takes less than 5 minutes.

ConsignCloud will sync your data in a few key ways:

ConsignCloud will only sync Inventory and Account Balances between the systems. If you sell an item online, it will be marked in ConsignCloud as sold too, and if we can associate the sale with an account in ConsignCloud we'll update the account history as well. Any consignor split will be calculated automatically like you'd expect.

Shopify itself costs $29/mo, which is in addition to your regular ConsignCloud subscription. You'll be billed separately for your Shopify subscription.

For details on how individual items fields get synchronized to Shopify, see below. In most cases, we will only re-sync a field if its value has changed.

*Note that changes to the SKU won't be synced back from Shopify except for at the point of item creation.

The process for copying products listed in Shopify to ConsignCloud is quite simple. First, enable your Track Product Changes setting. Once that's on, go to Shopify and add the "ConsignCloud" tag to all products you want copied to ConsignCloud, using Shopify's bulk editor.

Note that since Shopify doesn't support consignment accounts, everything will be synchronized as retail items with no account associated. You'll need to edit synced items to add consignor and split information yourself. Once an item is linked to a product, the two cannot be un-linked.

By default, we publish your items to all available sales channels. But if they're being published in "Draft" status, they won't actually show up there. You can control the default in your Shopify settings, and update it on Shopify's end as needed.

If your inventory isn't getting synchronized to Shopify at all, make sure you've marked on the items themselves that they should be listed — this value in settings is only a default. If you have a bunch of existing inventory that needs to be synchronized to Shopify, we recommend using imports to update them all at once.

If your Shopify store has multiple fulfillment services or locations, you can use Shelves to manage what inventory gets listed where — just select a fulfillment location on the shelf form, and all items assigned to that shelf will be listed to the selected fulfillment location.

ConsignCloud does not remove sold inventory from Shopify; instead, it reduces its available quantity to zero. In order to hide out-of-stock items from your Shopify store, you'll need to create a collection that matches all out of stock inventory, and un-list those items from your online store. More information on how to do that here.

While it is possible for ConsignCloud to work with variants, our integration is not fully built out for a one-for-one correspondence between ConsignCloud items and Shopify items with variants. ConsignCloud does not have a variant feature in our software because ConsignCloud is built primarily for consignment stores, which most often deal with unique items with a quantity of "1".

While it is possible to sync a ConsignCloud item with an item in your Shopify store which has variants, right now this integration can run into an inventory tracking issue (explained below), so we would highly suggest stores use this feature with caution and the understanding that they may have to spend time fixing inventory stocking errors in Shopify for items that are synched with Shopify variants.

If you would like to set-up variants in your Shopify store, and have this item linked to your ConsignCloud store, the process is fairly simple. In ConsignCloud, create an item and list the quantity as the total number of variants you will have for the item in Shopify. As an example, if you are selling a "Live, Laugh, Love" t-shirt, but have three variants of Small, Medium, and Large, with a quantity of "1" for each variant, you will list the item in ConsignCloud with a quantity of "3".

(NOTE: Per the norm, you will need to make sure you "List Item on Shopify" during item creation. If you forget to do this, update the item, or run a Bulk Edit to push item over to Shopify).

From there, you will go into Shopify and set-up your variants. In this case, you would create a "Size" variant with three options for Small, Medium, and Large. Each variant would have a quantity of "1".

If an item sells in your Shopify store, the integration is very simple—the correct variant (in this case, let's say the Small "Live, Laugh, Love" t-shirt) will sell, and our integration will adjust the quantity of your ConsignCloud item by a negative amount. In sum, you'll now have two active items for a Medium and a Large "Live, Laugh, Love" t-shirt in your Shopify store, and your ConsignCloud item will now have a quantity of "2".

If an item sells in your ConsignCloud store, there is a large amount of room for error—this is what we caution store owners to be careful of if they decide to use variants. If an item sells in your ConsignCloud store, ConsignCloud does not know exactly which variant needs to be listed as sold in Shopify. Because the variants don't exist in ConsignCloud, it is unknown whether this item was the Small, Medium, or Large "Live, Laugh, Love" t-shirt.

Currently ConsignCloud's integration chooses the top "Option Value" in your variant list and will always adjust the Shopify Item Quantity by "-1" for that item. ConsignCloud will sell that variant until the quantity reaches "0" and then will move down the list to the next variant option.

See the screenshot below for a visual example of which variant stock ConsignCloud chooses to reduce.

This integration is imperfect and can consistently list the wrong variant option as sold, which makes accurate inventory tracking very difficult for items with variants. Though these mistakes can be fixed by manually adjusting the item quantity in Shopify, we would encourage stores to only use this variant option if it is mission critical for your store to also have Shopify variants.

We also have a way to select certain fields on an item that should be initially synchronized to variant options, which you can configure from you Shopify settings within ConsignCloud. There's no way to manage multiple variants from ConsignCloud's end, but this can be a good way to populate fields you want to include in your online store's filters.

A common mistake people often make is assuming that because a product (or line item) in Shopify shares a SKU with an item within ConsignCloud, those two things are automatically linked. This is not the case, items are linked not by SKU, but by product id, which is created when an item is synchronized with Shopify. Be sure to use the process described above to make sure your inventory is correctly linked up.