Shopify Etsy integration that keeps one stock count

On most Shopify pairs the first thing to check is Shopify’s own free app, Marketplace Connect, and we say so on those pages. Etsy is the exception. Shopify’s help page lists Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Target Plus, with a note that new connections to Etsy can’t be made through the app; merchants already selling on Etsy through it can carry on. The note is here. A guide recommending Marketplace Connect for Etsy was written before that changed, and following it costs you an afternoon finding out.

So on this pair the field is third-party apps, ours among them. What separates them is how each handles the two Etsy rules below, and whether they say what they do when a product doesn’t fit.

Etsy has no way to tell an app the moment something sells or the moment you edit a quantity, so every tool that links it is on a timer, and the only honest question is how long. Ours: stock every two minutes, orders every five. Edit a quantity in Etsy and your other shops follow within two minutes. Sell the mug on Etsy at 3:07 and Shopify’s count drops by 3:12. A Shopify sale goes the other way in under a second, because Shopify does announce its sales and Etsy accepts the update as soon as we send it.

The five minutes is real, and the way to close it isn’t a faster promise. On the few items that can sell twice in five minutes, hold one back. An item selling twenty a day sells one every 70 minutes; five minutes of that is a fraction of a unit and a buffer of one covers it with room over. The buffer belongs on those items, not across a catalogue of 3,000.

We match Shopify and Etsy by SKU first and by title second, so the cleanest start is a code on every product that’s the same in both shops. Etsy holds a SKU to 32 characters against Shopify’s 255, so shorten the long ones first. And no two listings in the same Etsy shop may share a SKU: Etsy sellers reuse codes more than anyone, a colourway on one code, a blank left over from a duplicated listing, and it’s harmless on Etsy. Two listings with the same SKU get flagged “Multiple same SKU” and sit out of sync until each has its own. Fix those on Etsy before you connect.

The second rule has no workaround. An Etsy listing carries at most two option types. A t-shirt that’s size, colour and print on Shopify has nowhere to be all three on Etsy, so we stop on that product and tell you, rather than dropping an option and selling the wrong thing. Fold it to two options on the Shopify side, or leave that product Etsy-only.

Then decide which shop holds the right count today, match, and turn the sync on. Orders from both shops land in one list; a tracking number you add goes back to the Etsy order, where the buyer and Etsy’s metrics both look for it. Nothing is written to a live shop until you’ve looked at the match.