merchantCENTRAL Channel Shopify

Overview

AD merchantCENTRAL Channel Shopify turns a Shopify shop into a channel in merchantCENTRAL — next to Amazon, eBay, Otto, Kaufland and Shopware.

The app is not a Shopify connector of its own. The transport to Shopify stays with the free Microsoft Shopify Connector that is part of Business Central online: sign-in, API, webhooks, variants, orders, refunds and the fulfilment report. This app requires it, replaces none of it and never calls Shopify itself. It stores no credentials.

What it adds is what Microsoft's connector does not have:

Building block	What merchantCENTRAL contributes	More
Channel cockpit	Listing decision per item and shop, orders, errors and revenue next to the other channels	Dashboard
Stock	Supplier availability instead of warehouse stock, minus what other channels sold	Stock and Allocation
Prices	Best valid price of the central price list, compare-at price by EU rules	Prices and Compare-at Price
Content	Description, SEO title and description, tags, metafields, brand as vendor	Shop Card
Tracking	Tracking link from the merchantCENTRAL shipment modules	Shop Card
Customer documents	Invoice, credit memo and shipment in the shop's design	Customer Documents

Licence

The licence is held per tenant and module (SHOPIFY) through the merchantCENTRAL hub. One licence covers any number of Shopify shops. Without a licence or a running demo the app contributes nothing — not even inside Microsoft's own runs. See Licensing.

Who does what

Task	Microsoft Shopify Connector	merchantCENTRAL Channel Shopify
Connection, sign-in, API version	yes	—
Create and update products	yes	decides what is listed and supplies content, price and stock
Send stock	yes	supplies the quantity
Send prices	yes	supplies price and compare-at price
Fetch orders, create sales orders	yes	shows them in the cockpit, holds them back from other channels
Report fulfilment and tracking	yes	supplies the tracking link
Refunds, returns, payouts, B2B catalogs	yes	—
Translations into further languages	yes	—

Architecture

flowchart LR
  subgraph BC["Business Central"]
    HUB["merchantCENTRAL Hub<br/>item pool, prices, suppliers"]
    MCSH["Channel Shopify<br/>add-on"]
    MS["Microsoft<br/>Shopify Connector"]
    HUB -- "channel rows, prices, stock, content" --> MCSH
    MCSH -- "contributions through events" --> MS
    MS -- "products, orders" --> MCSH
    MCSH -- "orders, status" --> HUB
  end
  MS <-- "Admin API" --> SHOP["Shopify shops"]

Every contribution hangs on an event Microsoft's connector publishes. If one fails, Microsoft's own value goes out and the cause is recorded in the Enrichment Log. A failure never takes the whole run down.

Prerequisites

merchantCENTRAL hub installed and set up.
Microsoft Shopify Connector installed — preinstalled in new environments, free.
At least one shop connected in Microsoft's connector (Shopify Shop Card → Request Access).
AD merchantCENTRAL Channel Shopify installed.

Setup in five steps

Open assisted setup and choose Set up merchantCENTRAL Channel Shopify — see the Setup Wizard.
Switch merchantCENTRAL on for the shops you want, in the wizard or per shop on the Shop Card.
Switch on stock: Use merchantCENTRAL Stock — otherwise the shop sends no stock at all. See Stock and Allocation.
On the shop card, pick the Central Price List if prices should come from the Price Engine. See Prices and Compare-at Price.
On the Setup Card, enable the channel (demo or licence), run Check Setup and release the scheduled runs once the first sync looks right.

Limits

One description per item. The central description replaces the text in the shop's language. Further languages are translated by Microsoft's connector from item translations.
One picture per product, taken from the item picture. Two shops cannot show different pictures. See Item Card.
SEO on new products. Microsoft does not send the SEO fields when a product is created. They go out with the first update that changes something else about the product.
Allocation per item, not per variant.
No product documents. Microsoft's connector cannot upload files to Shopify.

Trademarks

Shopify is a trademark of its respective owner, used here descriptively. This app is an independent product of ALTENBRAND Datentechnik GmbH and is not affiliated with Shopify.