How do I pull my supplier's stock levels into Shopify automatically?

What is a supplier stock feed?

A supplier stock feed is a list of product codes and quantities that your supplier publishes and refreshes. Each row says, in effect, "item ABC-123, 40 on hand." You read that list on a schedule and update your store to match. It is the cure for selling an item your supplier ran out of yesterday.

A feed is not the same as your own stock. If you buy from a supplier and ship it yourself, the supplier's number is only a guide to what you can promise. If you hold stock in your own warehouse, the feed tells you when to reorder, not what to show on the site. Most stores with a supplier feed use it for dropshipping (the supplier ships to your customer) or for items they do not stock themselves.

What feed formats exist?

• CSV or Excel file (a table saved as plain text or a spreadsheet): the most common. Columns for code, quantity, sometimes cost.
• XML or JSON file (structured text formats that machines read): common with larger suppliers and distributors.
• FTP or SFTP (a file transfer server where the supplier drops a file): the old standard, and still very common. You collect the file on a schedule.
• URL feed: a web link that always returns the latest file.
• Email attachment: a supplier mails a spreadsheet each morning. This is the hardest to automate and the most common with small suppliers.
• API (a live connection that lets software ask a question and get an answer): the best option when it exists, since you can ask for one item at a time.
• Google Sheet: some suppliers share a live sheet. Many sync apps read these.

How does Shopify take stock updates?

Shopify has two built-in ways. The first is the inventory CSV. You go to Products, then Inventory, then Import, and upload a file of up to 15 MB. The file needs a Handle (the product's web name), a Location, and Option 1 Value to identify each variant, plus an "On hand (new)" quantity. Location names are case sensitive and must match exactly. Quantities must be whole numbers. This is manual: someone has to export, edit and upload.

It also has a safety check. If your file includes both "On hand (current)" and "On hand (new)", Shopify compares the current number to what it expects, and rows where stock has changed since the export do not import (you get an email listing them). That protects you from overwriting a sale that happened in between. If you delete the "current" column, you skip that check, so do that only on purpose.

The second way is the Admin API, a connection that software uses to change data in your store. Its inventorySetQuantities action sets absolute quantities. As of the 2026-04 version, each quantity must include a "change from quantity" value, so an update is rejected with a stale error if the stored number has moved, and leaving the value out returns an error. You can pass null to skip the check, but Shopify warns that doing so can cause inaccurate counts if several things update at once. Shopify also says to use this action only for a system that is the source of truth for stock, and the adjust action otherwise, which applies a change such as minus 2 rather than setting a total. For a feed that reports the supplier's count, set is usually the natural fit only when your own system is the single owner of that number. For more on the CSV side, see my guide to Shopify CSV import.

Which apps read supplier feeds?

• Stock Sync (listed as syncX) is a Shopify app for syncing stock and prices from other sources. Its listing says it connects to Google Sheets, FTP or SFTP, Google Drive, Dropbox and REST APIs (a common kind of web API), and reads CSV, XLSX, XML and JSON. It has a free plan limited to 2,000 products, one supplier feed and manual updates only. Paid plans add schedules: once a day on Starter, up to hourly on Expert, and up to every 10 minutes on Scale. The vendor's own site says paid plans start at $7 a month, with a free tier (as of November 2026), so check the pricing page for the plan that matches your product count.
• Matrixify is a Shopify app for bulk importing and exporting store data. Its listing says it works with Excel, CSV and Google Sheets, can automate updates through Google Sheets, FTP or Excel, and can schedule and auto-repeat jobs. It has a free plan with a 10-item limit per file for products, and paid plans from Basic upward. As of November 2026 the vendor's pricing page lists Basic at $20 per 30 days (up to 5,000 products per job), Big at $50 (up to 50,000) and Enterprise at $200 (unlimited). Those limits apply to each import or export job, with no monthly cap on the number of items, though Shopify's own limits still apply. It is a general bulk tool, not a supplier-feed specialist.
• Your supplier's own app or connector: some distributors publish a Shopify app that syncs their catalogue. Ask your supplier before you buy anything.
• Automation tools such as Zapier (a service that connects apps with simple rules) can move a Google Sheet row into Shopify, but they get slow and costly at thousands of rows.

Can a supplier stock feed go into QuickBooks? QuickBooks is accounting software. It records what you bought and sold. The feed belongs in the system that sells (your store); accounting then picks up the sales and purchases. Do not point a supplier feed at your books.

How to set it up, step by step

1. Ask the supplier for the best feed they have. API first, then a URL or SFTP file, then a spreadsheet by email.
2. Look at the file. Note the code column, the quantity column, how out of stock is shown (0, blank, "N", or the row is missing) and how often the file changes.
3. Match codes to your SKUs. If the supplier's code differs from yours, build a mapping table, one row per product.
4. Decide your rules. Subtract a buffer (a safety stock you hold back), cap the number you show, and decide what happens when an item is missing from the file. Missing should never mean zero without a check.
5. Connect the feed in your chosen app and run it on a few products first.
6. Set the schedule. Match it to how often the supplier updates. Hourly updates on a feed that changes at night waste your app plan.
7. Turn on alerts. You want an email when a feed fails or when more than, say, 20% of items drop to zero at once.
8. Check weekly for a month. Compare 10 items against the supplier's own site.

Common failure points

• The file layout changes and the sync quietly reads the wrong column.
• Duplicate codes. Two products share a code and one overwrites the other.
• Feed down. The sync fails, and your site keeps showing yesterday's stock.
• Half-empty file. A truncated file is read as "everything is out of stock."
• Pack sizes. The supplier counts in cases, you sell singles.
• Bundles. A kit built from three items needs the lowest of the three. The guide to Shopify bundle inventory covers this.

A worked example with made-up numbers

A store sells 1,200 products from three suppliers. Supplier A posts a CSV on SFTP every hour. Supplier B emails a spreadsheet at 6 a.m. Supplier C has a REST API. With apps, the store uses one sync app for A and C and a manual routine for B, 15 minutes each morning. Add up the time: 15 minutes a day is about 5 hours a month, and every sick day is a day of oversold items. A small custom handler that collects all three, maps their codes, applies a 2-unit buffer and updates the store takes that 5 hours to zero. It also gives one log to look at when something looks wrong.

When do many suppliers need a custom handler?

I would look at a custom handler once you have four or more suppliers, a feed that arrives by email, codes that need mapping, or rules like "never show more than 10." An app handles one format well. It handles ten formats badly. A handler reads each source in its own way, cleans it to one shape, and then updates your store through the API. I cover the wider picture in inventory management system, multichannel inventory management software and AI for supplier price lists.

How I'd approach this

Start with the app, not the build. Pick your best-selling supplier, get the feed running on 50 products, and watch it for a month. Write down every manual step that is left. If the list is short, you are done. If it has email files, code fixes and rules the app cannot hold, that list becomes the plan for a custom handler. Also read my guide to Shopify inventory management so your buffer and reorder rules are set before you automate anything.