Overview
Synkro provides a highly customizable syncing system between multiple Shopify stores. In this short guide, you will learn how to connect your Shopify stores together and tell Synkro how to tie your inventory locations together to achieve a bi-directional or uni-directional sync between products and variants that share the same SKU or Barcode.
Step 1: Install Synkro in your first store
To begin the installation process, install Synkro in your first Shopify store. It does not matter which store you select as your first store, but often merchants will choose to install Synkro on their “primary” store first.
Step 2: Create a Synkro account
Now that the Synkro app is installed on your first store, your next step is to create a Synkro Account. This account is used to connect all of your Shopify stores together for syncing purposes.
At this point in the installation process, you will be presented with an option to continue with Synkro as a Multi-store merchant, or as a 3rd party store connecting to another Synkro Dropship source. If your intention is to sync inventory between products within a single store, you should still follow the instructions for Multi-store merchants by creating a Synkro account - even if you don’t intent on installing Synkro in more than one store.
Single-store syncing installation is complete
If your intention is to sync inventory between products/variants within the same store, and you have no additional stores which you wish to connect, your installation process is almost complete!
At this point, Synkro will immediately begin working for this store which it is installed in. The next time an inventory change occurs on one of your products, Synkro will sync that new inventory to other products/variants within your store that share the same SKU.
Multi-store installation continues
For merchants who wish to connect multiple stores together for inventory syncing, continue on with the next steps to connect your other stores together under the same Synkro account.
Step 3: Install Synkro on other stores
For the rest of your stores, the Synkro installation process will be the same as installing Synkro on your first store, except that when you are prompted to log in or create an account, you should sign in to the same Synkro account which you created in Step 1.
Repeat this process for all of your other Shopify stores before proceeding to the next step.
Step 4: Connect your inventory locations
Before Synkro can begin syncing inventory levels between separate stores, Synkro must know how to connect the different inventory locations which exist in your separate stores. For this, Synkro requires you to configure your “Multi-store Location Connections” setting.
Navigate to your Synkro Settings
From your main store, navigate to your Synkro settings by clicking the dropdown menu in the Synkro app where you see your Synkro Account name. Then, click on the “Settings” button.
Configure your location connections
In the Synkro settings, ensure that you are in the “Location connections” section and you will see all of your connected stores listed along with each of their location connections.
In this example, you can see both of the stores “extreme-snowsports.myshopify.com” and “extreme-snowboards-wholesale.myshopify.com” along with the three inventory locations which each store contains. These locations all happen to have the same names (“My Custom Location”, “Shop location”, and “Snow City Warehouse”), but having the same location name is not a requirement for connecting locations between stores.
In this example, we have connected all three inventory locations together between the two connected stores in a bi-directional syncing manner. Once you are happy with your location connections, click “Save” underneath the section to finish.
Installation complete
Congratulations! You have finished connecting your stores together with Synkro 🚀
At this point, the next time an inventory change occurs in one of your connected stores, Synkro will sync the inventory level of the changed product/variant to other products/variants within your connected stores which share thes same SKU. You can test this out by changing the inventory level of a product in one of your connected stores, then checking other variants in your connected stores which share the same SKU. After a few seconds, you will see their inventory levels set to match the new inventory level.
Next steps
Syncing all inventory from one store to another
For some merchants, inventory levels between their connected stores are not already in a synced state before installing Synkro. Synkro works “reactively”, so it only syncs inventory changes when they occur, and only for the products/variants which the inventory change occurred on. For this reason, it may be necessary to copy all inventory levels from one store to your other connected stores.
To request a full store inventory sync, please send us an email at eric@techvomfass.com with the subject “Full store inventory sync request” and be sure to include which of your connected stores contains the correct inventory data so we can use it as the reference when syncing to your other connected stores.
Once this “Full store inventory sync” is complete, Synkro’s reactive syncing behaviour will keep your inventory levels in sync from this point forward.
Check for duplicate SKU values in your store
Synkro syncs inventory levels between products/variants which share the same SKU value. This includes products/variants within the same store which share the same SKU. Sometimes, merchants aren’t aware that they have multiple occurrences of the same SKU within the same store and are surprised to find that inventory is synced between these items.
To request a full report of all duplicate SKU values within your stores, please send us an email at eric@techvomfass.com.
Sync by Barcode instead of SKU
For some merchants, the SKU value of a product/variant is not suitable for inventory syncing purposes. In this case, you can easily switch to “Barcode syncing mode” by navigating to the “Syncing options” tab within your Synkro settings. Then, under the “Sync product variants based on” heading, select “Barcode” and then click “Save” underneath. This setting applies to all of your stores connected under your Synkro account.
