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Sales channels and Shopify

A sales channel is a place you sell, such as a Shopify store. Orders come in from it and stock levels go out to it.

Each channel is provided by an app. Shopify and Amazon are the two built in. Connecting one installs its app. You then pair the channel's locations with yours and choose the catalogs that price it. An order it takes becomes a sales order in Manifold, marked with the channel it came from.

The Sales channels screen

Settings › Sales channels lists the channel apps you have installed and the channels each provides, with how many catalogs price each one and its status. A Shopify store shows the same status as on its own page (below). Edit opens the channel's own settings. Below, Connect a channel offers each channel app.

Connect a Shopify store

A store belongs to one organization at a time. You can connect as many stores as you sell through; each is its own channel. There are two ways in.

From Shopify:

  1. Install Manifold on the store from the Shopify App Store.
  2. Open Manifold from the store's Apps menu in the Shopify admin.
  3. Sign in to Manifold, or create an account. If you have opened Manifold from this store before, your Shopify login signs you in.
  4. Manifold asks which organization to connect the store to. Choose one of yours, or A new organization named after the store with you as its owner. Only organizations you own or administer are offered. Choose Connect store.
  5. The store shows Connected.

From Manifold:

  1. Go to Settings › Sales channels › Shopify, type the store domain (my-store.myshopify.com) under Add a store and choose Add store. This reserves the store for your organization.
  2. Choose Open in Shopify and install Manifold there. The store then shows Connected.

Store statuses

Awaiting install
Reserved here, not yet installed in Shopify.
Connected
Installed and working. Orders come in, and stock and prices go out once you go live.
Disconnected
The app was uninstalled in Shopify. Nothing moves. Its history stays.

If Shopify has not approved a permission Manifold now needs, a warning shows on a Connected store. Choose Approve in Shopify, or open Manifold from the store's Shopify admin. Updates Manifold sends to the store that need the permission are refused until you approve it.

Bring in what the store already has

The setup walk offers to copy the store's products, customers, companies, stock and orders into Manifold. Closed orders come in as history. Open orders become live orders. See Getting started and Import & export.

Set up the store

Open the store from the list (Edit). Work through its sections in this order.

  1. Locations. Every Shopify location must be paired with one of your locations. Manifold pairs those with the same name and asks about the rest: pair each with a location you have, or create a new location in Manifold for it. Check each pair before you confirm: it can't be changed later. If you paired one wrongly, the only way out is to remove that location in Shopify (move its stock to another Shopify location first), create it again there, and press Re-read locations: Manifold asks about it as a new one. Until a Shopify location is paired, Manifold ignores its stock and order assignments. Locations inactive in Shopify are listed but not paired. A paired location cannot be archived while the store is connected.
  2. Catalogs. For each of the store's Shopify catalogs, and for Store base prices, choose the catalog that prices it. Only catalogs in the Shopify catalog's currency are offered. A Shopify catalog with no price list yet must get one in Shopify first. Read Prices below before you choose.
  3. Orders. Open a fulfilment order for each incoming Shopify order is on by default: each Shopify order becomes a sales order here. These are not Shopify's own "fulfillment orders". Untick it to stop the store's orders coming in.

The Costs setting applies only when products are pushed to the store through the API. Price, stock and weight pushes do not send costs.

What comes in

  • Orders. Each Shopify order becomes a sales order with its lines, line properties, discounts, shipping and tax. One Shopify line is one order line.
  • Edits. When an order is edited in Shopify, the difference is applied to the same order in Manifold. Units already picked or packed are not touched.
  • Payments and refunds. What Shopify has collected is recorded as payments on the order. Refunds made in Shopify are recorded as refunds.
  • Payment terms. Set from how the buyer paid. Net terms, an authorised card or cash on delivery is on account: parcels ship regardless. A pending manual method, such as bank deposit, is prepaid: parcels wait for payment. An order paid at checkout takes the customer's terms, or your default. See Orders.
  • Cancellations. An order cancelled in Shopify is not cancelled in Manifold, and its stock stays held. Cancel it in Manifold too.

Orders arrive as Shopify sends them. Sync orders under Jobs fetches anything changed since the last sync, in case one was missed.

Fulfil in Manifold, not in Shopify. A fulfilment made in Shopify is not read back: the order stays open in Manifold, its stock stays held and it still waits to be picked.

What goes out

From go-live, Manifold sets each paired location's stock in Shopify. Shopify's own figure is replaced. Count your stock in Manifold first: wrong counts here become wrong counts in the store. See Stocktake and Going live.

  • Stock. For each SKU in the catalogs that price the store, each paired location's stock in Shopify is set to what it can sell: on hand, less units held for open orders. A kit sends how many whole kits its components make. It is sent as stock changes, and Manifold also checks every few minutes for anything missed. Variants Shopify does not track inventory for are skipped.
  • Prices. Each chosen catalog's prices and compare-at prices replace Shopify's, for every SKU the catalog prices. They are sent when a price, a pricing rule, a cost or a catalog choice changes. A SKU the catalog does not price is left alone in the store's base prices. On a Shopify catalog, its fixed price is removed, so Shopify's own adjustment for that catalog prices it. Price the catalog fully, and check it with View as, before you choose it. See Catalogs and pricing.
  • Weights and sizes. Each SKU's packed weight and box go to the store's Weight and Packed product size when they change. A SKU with neither keeps what the store holds.
  • Shipments. When a parcel ships in Manifold, Shopify marks it fulfilled, with its tracking. Shopify is not asked to email the buyer.

Manifold does not create or edit products in Shopify. Add new products in Shopify; Manifold matches its variants to your SKUs. Matching ignores case and surrounding spaces, since SKUs are stored in upper case. A variant with no SKU is never matched, and a SKU the store has no variant for is skipped and counted in the job's result.

Choosing Not mapped for a Shopify catalog stops its prices being sent. It does not clear prices the store already holds.

Jobs

The Jobs card runs each sync by hand and shows when it last ran and how it ended.

Sync orders
Bring in orders Shopify changed since the last sync.
Sync all stock
Set every paired location's stock in Shopify to Manifold's figures.
Push prices
Send the prices of every catalog that prices the store. Needs at least one chosen.
Push weights & sizes
Send each SKU's packed weight and box. Needs at least one catalog chosen.
Re-read locations
Read the store's locations again, pair what matches by name, and ask about the rest.

Read-only mode

Until your organization goes live, nothing is sent to Shopify. Orders keep coming in from Shopify, and syncs still run, so you can run Manifold beside your current system. Stock, prices, shipments and checkout rates go out from the moment you go live. Changes made while read-only are not sent later; the store is brought up to date from how things stand at go-live. See Going live.

Moving from Cin7 or another system that runs the store today? Connect the store now: the two do not both send stock until you go live. Turn the old system's Shopify integration off just before you go live (the switch-over checklist).

Each store also has its own Read-only mode switch under Connection. With it on, orders keep coming in and nothing is sent to the store. The store is written to only when both the organization and the store are out of read-only mode.

Checkout rates

Manifold can price shipping at the store's checkout. The store's page shows the state under Checkout rates, and the rules are set in Settings › Shipping › Checkout rates. See Shipping.

Activity log and location alerts

  • Activity with Shopify lists the messages Shopify sent and the calls Manifold made. The full request and response show only for exchanges that happen while the page is open; they are never stored.
  • Recent changes under Locations lists location changes, made here or in Shopify. Owners and admins are emailed for each one.

Disconnect a store

Under Danger zone, Disconnect store stops the store's orders arriving, forgets its access to Shopify and removes it from the list. Orders already in Manifold, and their history, stay.

To reconnect a store that shows Disconnected, choose Open in Shopify and install Manifold again. To reconnect a store you disconnected here, add it again under Add a store.

Billing through Shopify

A business that started by installing Manifold from Shopify pays for Manifold through its Shopify bill. See Billing.

Amazon

Connect an Amazon seller account from Settings › Sales channels. Each marketplace you sell in becomes its own channel. Merchant-fulfilled orders come in, stock goes out from the locations paired with each marketplace, and shipments are confirmed back to Amazon.

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