Dropshipping - Source Stores

Information for Suppliers, Vendors and Brands who want to dropship

Claudia avatar
Written by Claudia
Updated yesterday

Available for all integrations, with the exception of Syncio add-ons features (Orders, Product Settings and Beta Payouts add-ons), which are only integrated with Shopify.

You don’t need to operate multiple Shopify stores to get the benefits of store to store syncing.

Syncio can connect your inventory to any 3rd party retail partner on Shopify. Once connected to your store your partners can sell synced virtual copies of your products without the risk of them handling physical stock.

Suppliers, vendors and brands can use the Syncio Source Store app for FREE.

How Syncio can help with the Dropshipping process.

When you have connected your online store with your supplier's store using Syncio and the products that you want to sell are also synced up.

Some processes that Syncio can automate:

• Stock syncing
• Product attribute syncing. Via the Product Settings add on (Note this feature is managed on the retailer's Syncio app)
• Automatic Order pushing so you'll receive orders directly into your Shopify admin.
Via the Order Add-on (Note this feature is managed on the retailer's Syncio app)

The syncing process is two-way for most processes but some sync processes are limited to just one-way. The Syncio app is designed to protect your stock and product data from being overwritten by your retail partners.

See this guide for more information about How the Syncio Sync works.

Syncio is split into two apps to facilitate reliable syncing of stock and information:

Source Stores: Contains & shares the original parent products and stock data.

Destination Stores: receives product and stock data from the parent source.

Fig.1 A simplified overview of the Syncio orders workflow

What this article covers:

1) Installation Guide

2) Connecting to Another Store

3) Inventory Locations [MUST HAVE]

4) Ensure that Your Products are Sync-Ready [MUST HAVE]

5) Hiding certain products that you don't want your partners to Sync [OPTIONAL]

6) Making the products that you want to share easier to find for your partners. [OPTIONAL]

7) What Happens When I Receive an Order Containing a Synced Product?

8) Returning and Refunding Products

9) Revenue Split, Commissions, and Payouts

What you'll need:

1) Syncio app installed onto your Shopify Account as the Source Store.

Things to Look Out For:

1) Ensure that SKUs for each variant are unique and matching on your store and the destination store.
2) Ensure that you have assigned the correct inventory location to your retail partners.

3) The maximum number of products that Syncio can support for a source store is 10,000.


1) Installation Guide


2) Connecting to Another Store

After installation each Syncio app is given a Syncio Key, you can either share this key with other stores so they can enter it in their Syncio app to connect.

If you were given a key from a destination store. Paste the key in connect store section on the Destination Store page on Syncio.

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Sections 3-7 contain a list of tips that you can look into to ensure that your is set up correctly before your partners start to sell your products.

3) Inventory Locations [MUST HAVE]

Assign a specific location for your retail partners.

You can assign a specific location or select All Locations.

4) Ensure that Your Products are Sync-Ready [MUST HAVE]

  • If your products have SKUs, ensure that they are all unique per variant.

  • If your products do not have SKUs, please leave them blank and Syncio can auto generate SKUs for your products.

  • After a sync has been established do not change your SKUs, doing so will break the sync.

5) Hiding certain products that you don't want your partners to Sync [OPTIONAL]

  • If there are certain products on your feed that you don't wish to share. Go into Shopify and add the tag: syncio-hidden

  • Syncio will then hide these products on the destination store app. So your partners can't sync them if they haven't.

  • Important: The syncio-hidden tag will work upon the tag being added but only for non-synced products. If a store has already synced a product and THEN the tag is created by the source store, that synced product will still be synced and can't auto-hide afterwards.

6) Making the products that you want to share easier to find for your partners. [OPTIONAL]

  • Add an easily identifiable tag to any product that you want to make available. For example: SYNCIO-SHARE, Store-Name-SHARE, OKAYFORDROPSHIP.

  • Alternatively share with a list of tags from certain collections.

  • Your partners can then easily search up your products in Syncio to sell.

7) What Happens When I Receive an Order Containing a Synced Product?

After a paid order containing one of your synced products is created on your partner's store, Syncio will automatically sync back the necessary stock adjustment back to your inventory.

Depending if your retail partner has the optional Destination Store Order Forwarding Add-on (See Guide) activated.

There are two main methods for them to get that order to you for fulfillment.


1) Without using Syncio (Fully Manual Process)

If your partners don't have the Order Forwarding Add-on, they will need to communicate the order back to you outside of Syncio. Here are some options.

1) Take a screenshot of the order and email it to you
2) Copy the order and email it to you.
3) Export the order and email it to you.

Fulfilment updates using this method are also manual and must be communicated outside of Syncio.

2) With the Syncio Order Forwarding Add-on (Automatic)

This function allows your destination store partners to automatically send a copy of an order containing synced products back to your Shopify admin for fulfilment. Each one of these orders can be identified at a glance as they will be tagged with:

1) The name of the shopify store where it came from

2) A note referencing the original order number from your retailer.

Syncio can also split orders so you'll only see and receive line items related to your store only whenever amulti-supplier orders is made on the retailer store. This also protects your product information from other suppliers.

When you marks these 'pushed' orders as fulfilled and add tracking information. Syncio can automatically sync back the tracking ID to the original order. There is no need to email the destination store manually!

Important! In order to continue send synced updates ensure that an active sync remains for any products in a pushed order.

8) Returning and Refunding Products

If a return needs to be made Syncio can automatically adjust the stock for the supplier whenever your partner cancels/ refunds an order.

However in the event where a product has been lost or a customer doesn't need to return a product. Your partner can choose to disable the Restock option in Shopify. This prevents the refund from restocking to your store.

Syncio currently doesn't have any functionality to help manage a returns process (coming soon!). So you'll have to co-ordinate with your retailers to mange a return outside of Syncio.

9) Revenue Split, Commissions, and Payouts

Syncio currently doesn't have any functionality related to automating revenue split between your retail partners and yourself yet.

Organising commissions will have to be made externally of Syncio. Automation of invoicing and payments is coming soon.

When determining commissions we recommend the following approaches:

1) Base the sales on your partner's Shopify order/ sales data as it the most accurate.

2) Alternatively use your cost prices to work out the commission based on the number of products your partners have sold in a given time period.

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