Ops & Supply

How to sync shopify inventory across channels as DTC Brand Founders

Ops & SupplyFor DTC Brand Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You're running Shopify as your source of truth, but the moment you add a wholesale marketplace, a 3PL, or an Amazon FBA channel, that truth evaporates. A unit sells on Faire at 11am and your Shopify inventory doesn't know until someone checks manually — then a DTC customer buys the same unit at noon and you're canceling orders and writing apology emails. Your current fix is a Google Sheet your ops person updates every morning, a Shopify export nobody remembers to pull, and a standing Slack message that says 'did anyone update inventory after yesterday's wholesale drop?' You're losing sales to stockouts you didn't see coming and losing margin to emergency reorders because your velocity data is three days stale.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

Ops & SupplyFor DTC Brand Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A real-time inventory dashboard that shows stock levels across your Shopify store, wholesale marketplaces, and 3PL in one place — no spreadsheet reconciliation required

Automated channel sync so a unit sold anywhere immediately decrements everywhere, eliminating oversells and the customer support nightmare that follows

Reorder alerts triggered by actual sell-through velocity and lead time, so you stop running out of your best SKU and stop over-ordering your slowest one

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Marketplace Sync Inventory Planner

Data sources & config

Shopify connects from Starch's integration catalog — the agent queries it live when your sync app runs. Slack connects from Starch's integration catalog for alert delivery. For marketplaces without a direct API (certain wholesale portals, regional marketplaces), Starch automates them through your browser — no API needed. Google Sheets can be connected from Starch's integration catalog if you want to push a daily inventory snapshot to a sheet your team already uses.

Prompts to copy

Connect my Shopify store and show me current inventory levels by SKU across every sales channel I'm on. Flag any SKU where available stock across channels is inconsistent.

Build me an inventory planner that pulls from Shopify and shows days-of-stock-remaining for each SKU based on the last 30 days of sell-through velocity. Trigger a reorder alert when any SKU drops below my lead-time buffer.

Every time an order comes in from any channel, decrement inventory in Shopify immediately and post a Slack message to #ops if any SKU drops below 50 units.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect Shopify from Starch's integration catalog. Starch queries your live inventory, order, and SKU data each time an automation runs — you'll see product IDs, variant-level stock, and fulfillment locations.

2 Map your SKUs across channels. Tell Starch: 'Match my Shopify SKUs to my Faire and Amazon listings by UPC or title.' Starch handles the mapping; you review and confirm any mismatches.

3 Set up Marketplace Sync (currently in development — request beta access) to watch for orders across every channel and push decrements back to Shopify in real time. While Marketplace Sync is in beta, describe your channels to Starch and it will build a custom sync automation for the channels you're on.

4 Tell Starch your lead times and reorder minimums by SKU: 'My hero SKU has a 21-day lead time and I want a reorder alert when I have fewer than 63 units left.' Starch sets the trigger.

5 Wire in Slack from Starch's integration catalog so every reorder alert, oversell risk, and daily inventory summary hits a channel your ops team already watches.

6 Configure the Inventory Planner app (currently in development — request beta access) to track days-of-stock-remaining using rolling 30-day velocity. In the meantime, prompt Starch to build a custom dashboard: 'Show me days of stock remaining per SKU using Shopify order data from the last 30 days, with a red flag on anything under two weeks.'

7 Set up a weekly inventory review automation: 'Every Monday at 8am, pull Shopify inventory and last week's sales by SKU, calculate sell-through rate, and post a summary to #inventory-review.'

8 If you have a 3PL or co-packer with a portal, Starch automates it through your browser — no API needed. Tell Starch: 'Log into my 3PL portal every morning and pull current on-hand quantities by SKU into my inventory dashboard.'

9 Build a channel allocation rule: 'When total inventory for SKU X drops below 200 units, hold 100 for DTC and cap wholesale fulfillment at 100.' Starch enforces this across your sync.

10 Connect Google Sheets from Starch's integration catalog if your buyer relationships require a shared inventory sheet. Starch pushes a daily snapshot automatically so the sheet stays current without anyone touching it.

11 Set up an oversell response automation: 'If an order comes in for a SKU with zero available inventory, immediately tag the order in Shopify as needs-review and send me an email with the customer details.'

12 Review your first week of sync logs in Starch and tune the reorder thresholds by SKU based on what you actually see — then set the weekly summary to include a running count of oversell incidents so you can track them going to zero.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

Try it on Starch →

Worked example

Spring Restock Cycle — April 2026

Sample numbers from a real run

Shopify DTC units sold (7 days)	340
Faire wholesale units sold (7 days)	180
Amazon FBA units sold (7 days)	95
Total units decremented across channels	615
Oversell incidents before Starch	7
Oversell incidents after Starch (same period)	0
Emergency reorder cost avoided	4,200

Before April, you were selling 615 units a week across three channels and catching oversells after the fact — seven cancellations in the prior seven-day window, each one a customer support ticket and a chargeback risk. Your hero SKU, a 12-pack bundle, went out of stock on Shopify three days before your planned DTC email drop because Faire had drawn down 180 units nobody accounted for in the Shopify count. After setting up Starch's sync automation, every Faire and Amazon order triggers an immediate Shopify decrement. The Monday morning Slack summary showed 615 units sold, 0 oversells, and a reorder alert on the 12-pack bundle at 58 units remaining — exactly matching the 21-day lead time buffer you set. You placed the PO the same day instead of scrambling two weeks later. The $4,200 in avoided emergency freight costs covered several months of Starch.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Oversell incident rate by channel (target: zero per week)

Days of stock remaining by SKU at current sell-through velocity

Inventory accuracy rate: Shopify on-hand vs. actual units across all locations

Reorder lead time compliance: POs placed before buffer threshold is breached

Channel fill rate: orders fulfilled vs. orders placed, by channel

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Shopify + manual Google Sheet reconciliation

Works until you're on more than one channel and someone forgets to update the sheet — which is always.

Linnworks or Cin7

Purpose-built inventory management with strong multi-channel sync, but they require significant setup time, ongoing admin, and don't connect your inventory data to your ad spend or financial reporting the way Starch can.

Faire's built-in inventory sync

Syncs Faire to Shopify only — doesn't account for your 3PL, Amazon, or any other channel, so you're still reconciling everything else manually.

Zapier-based Shopify automations

You can wire up basic triggers but you're building and maintaining each zap yourself, there's no inventory intelligence layer, and multi-step logic with conditional reorder rules hits Zapier's limits fast.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — shopify marketplace sync, inventory planner all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does Starch actually write back to Shopify, or does it only read?

Starch connects to Shopify from its integration catalog and can both read and write — including updating inventory quantities, tagging orders, and triggering fulfillment actions. The exact write permissions depend on how you configure the connection when you set it up.

Marketplace Sync and Inventory Planner say 'currently in development.' What can I actually use today?

Both are in development — request beta access to get notified when they launch. In the meantime, you describe your inventory sync workflow to Starch in plain language and it builds a custom automation for your specific channels. The App Store templates are a faster starting point, but the custom path works today.

My 3PL doesn't have an API. Can Starch still pull their inventory data?

Yes. If your 3PL has a web portal you can log into, Starch automates it through your browser — no API needed. You tell Starch: 'Log into my 3PL portal and pull on-hand quantities by SKU every morning,' and it does. This is a first-class pattern, not a workaround.

Is Starch SOC 2 certified? I need to know before connecting Shopify.

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today. If that's a hard requirement for your team, it's worth knowing now. Starch connects to your Shopify store using standard OAuth — your credentials are not stored in plain text — but formal compliance certification is not in place yet.

Can I use this if I'm on Faire, Amazon, and my own Shopify store all at once?

Yes — that's exactly the scenario this is built for. Shopify connects from Starch's integration catalog. Amazon connects via Starch's integration catalog as well. Faire, if it doesn't have a direct integration available, can be automated through your browser. Starch pulls them into one inventory view and keeps decrements in sync across all three.

Will this replace my ops person's morning inventory check?

It should replace the manual reconciliation part — the pulling exports, cross-referencing spreadsheets, and posting updates to Slack. Your ops person still makes the calls that require judgment (which PO to place, which channel to prioritize when stock is tight). Starch handles the data plumbing so those decisions are based on current numbers instead of yesterday's sheet.