Shopify App for eBay: Multi-channel Inventory Management

Finding the right market to showcase your product is as crucial as creating it.

The statement holds true for every business niche, on and off the online market. The merchants are going for extents to find a market that offers them massive sales along with an assurance that the demand graph doesn’t settle down that easy.

A recent report by MarketingCharts confirms that

More than 63% of consumers start their online shopping searches on Amazon.

What makes the likes of Amazon and eBay popular, is the marketplace they have offered to their customer. The merchants can use these as an open platform to showcase their products to a larger customer base.

The merchants can further use the marketplace as an extension to their existing online store. They can sell the same products across both channels for a better grip over the market. We call this Multi-channel selling.

In the following Gif file, we can find a merchant managing the same product across eBay and Shopify:

Roadblocks at implementing Multi-channel E-Commerce

Selling the same products across two different channels can deliver some excellent numbers. However, it is equally daunting to manage both the stores simultaneously.

Our client owns an online store on eBay for selling Vintage watches. Moreover, he owns a parallel store on Shopify to sell the same collection of watches. Initially, he managed to align them manually by uploading individual products across both channels.

However, with a gradually expanding collection of watches and the need for updating the product details, the tasks seemed to get repetitive, and time-consuming. Following were the most common details that had to be updated on both the stores in every other minute:

• New products
• Updated product description and details
• Available quantitiesThat is when the client felt the need for an automated tool that somehow syncs the data between eBay and Shopify saving him precious time for more essential job functions. Our Shopify custom development team took this as a challenge to deliver a custom Shopify app for multichannel inventory management. The client’s stores can now sync their data in real-time without the manual interference of the merchant.

Let’s learn how we achieve the feat.

Solution: Custom app development for Shopify eBay Integration

This wasn’t the first time when a Shopify merchant felt the urge for a Shopify and eBay integration. The Shopify app store has plenty of pre-designed apps that can readily integrate any Shopify store with its parallel eBay store. However, not all of them stood up to their expectations. Common issues faced by consumers are as follows:

• The apps fail to migrate products even after a waiting period of several days
• Demands excess involvement of merchant for the sync
• Highly unstable with their functioning

And more.

Moreover, the client wasn’t convinced with the performance of these ready-made Shopify eBay integration apps.

Keeping in the eye of the client’s needs and expectations with the integration tool, we designed a feature-rich custom app from scratch.

Adding new products to the Shopify

Going by the manual process, a merchant needs to first add a product to his eBay store, followed by adding the same product in his Shopify store. While it might look okay for a limited number of products, it is equally daunting for bulk products.

Our Shopify eBay integration app, however, can do the part for you. The app is designed to sync new eBay product additions to the Shopify store. It includes the likes of the product details, pictures, and more. The application also ensures that both the stores

With that, merchants can focus on adding new products to the primary(eBay) store only.

Keeping a check on duplicate products

Synchronizing products in an automated pattern meant no manual interference in the process. That is, the merchant literally had zero involvement while importing eBay products to Shopify. That leaves us with a big question- what if the product is already present on the other side? Can we somehow stop the repetition of products?

The Shopify development experts have the solution for that. We verified the products using the Product Id. This attribute is unique to every product. The app verifies it across the stores. If a product with the same Product Id is already present, it skips the importing to the next product in the queue.

Synchronizing product details between the stores

Managing products across two different stores entails several challenges. Synchronizing the content tops them. The merchant is required to import every detail from his primary eBay store to Shopify while updating the product listings.

Our custom Shopify app for eBay updates the Shopify store with every piece of information stored in its eBay counterpart. In the following picture, we can find the description part being exactly the same for both the online stores.

The integration allows both the stores to stay in a continuous touch and exchange data. As a result, content updates in the eBay store are reflected on the Shopify store in real-time.

Multi-channel Inventory Management

One of the major issues with manually managing multiple stores is the continuous change in product quantities. With every new order, the stock levels in your inventory need to be updated across both the stores. Above all, it has to apply to all the products.

Having said that users can purchase from both the stores, our custom app for eBay and Shopify integration is designed for managing a real-time inventory update at either end. That is, every new order from one store reflects a change in the stock quantity on the other store.

The Shopify merchants don’t have to keep a check of all the products, their orders, the exact available quantities and manually updating the same for every product. They can keep a centralized check on all the eBay products, the stock allowing them to have a better grip of inventory.

In the picture below, we can find the stock quantities of a few products and their current availability on the eBay store.

With that, the custom app helps to establish the much-needed Shopify eBay inventory sync allowing the merchants to keep better control of both their stores centrally.

Our experience with Shopify Multichannel Inventory Management

The panel of in-house eCommerce experts at The Brihaspati Infotech has been delivering some excellent tools for the eCommerce industry. The team is equipped for every eCommerce platform to deliver applications meant for eCommerce stores as well as private stores.

Time and again, they have proved their worth by developing custom eCommerce applications tailored to the clients’ needs. In one of the previous blogs, we have discussed a similar Shopify Etsy integration app that allows the merchants on Shopify to import all their products from their Etsy store.

Final Words on Shopify Multichannel integration

In a market that offers a new competition every other minute, it is important that your store offers better visibility and ease to sell products. The online community of developers can help you achieve the feat saving you your precious time. You can directly hire Shopify experts from us.

Moreover, if you are skeptical about your next step, you can always contact us. Our experts are here to discuss your project and put the best idea on the table.