Integrations

Shopify integrations with ERPs and external systems

I connect Shopify to the ERP, warehouse or PIM you already run: inventory, prices, customers, orders and invoices. The hard part is never GraphQL, it is deciding who wins when both sides change the same field.

Facts checked on 21 October 2026

The three decisions to make before any code

None of them is technical, and all three are expensive if left undecided:

Which system owns each field. If the ERP and Shopify can both modify inventory, you have to decide the direction and write it down. Almost every integration I have seen break had left this half-decided.

What happens to what fails. A rejected line cannot fail silently. You need retries, a log and somebody who looks at it. Without that, the failure shows up three weeks later as “we’re missing an order”.

How things are identified. The ERP’s reference and Shopify’s catalog SKU almost never match. That mapping has to live somewhere, and the usual home is a metafield.

What the platform brings

The Admin GraphQL API has a budget per query and per time window: a sync that walks 20,000 variants one at a time eats it, and the same sync in batches does not. For large loads there are bulk operations, which take longer to write and are the difference between a nightly sync that finishes and one that stops halfway.

And in the other direction, webhooks: Shopify tells you about a new order instead of you asking every five minutes.

In B2B there is one more field

A wholesale portal adds companies, their locations and their price tier. If the ERP decides which tier a customer belongs to, that assignment gets synced too — and it is worth deciding who may change it from Shopify: usually, nobody.

Frequently asked questions

Custom app or an off-the-shelf connector?

If your ERP is one of the big ones and your data model is standard, an off-the-shelf connector is cheaper and somebody else maintains it. A custom integration earns its place when the model is not standard: B2B pricing per company, inventory per warehouse, SKUs that do not match.

Can a Shopify Function query the ERP?

No. A Function makes no network calls. If a cart rule depends on ERP data, that data is synced into a metafield first and the Function reads it from there.

How often does it sync?

It depends on the field. Inventory, as close to real time as the ERP can stand, with webhooks in the Shopify-to-ERP direction. Prices and catalog, in batches overnight, which is when you can retry without rushing.

In the glossary

Admin GraphQL API — The Admin GraphQL API is the interface an app or an external system uses to read and write a Shopify store’s data: products, variants, inventory, orders, customers, B2B companies and metafields. It is the route ERP integrations and automations come in through.
Metafields — Metafields are custom fields added to a Shopify object — product, variant, customer, order, company — to store data the platform does not ship with. They are typed and validated, and they are readable from the theme in Liquid, from the API, and from inside a Shopify Function.
Draft order — A draft order is an order created from the admin or the API before a payment exists, with its lines, its customer and its prices already set. In B2B it is the usual way to turn a quote into an order and to enter an order taken over the phone or by email.

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