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Creating Products in Shopify and How They Sync with ShipHero

Updated

Updated with ShipHero’s 2025 duplication improvements

This guide explains the right way to create products in Shopify and how/when they import into ShipHero. It covers manual creation, duplication, CSV imports, and the impact of product status (Published vs Draft) on syncing.

 

Creating Products in Shopify

Shopify offers several creation methods. Each product (and variant) should have a unique SKU and barcode to ensure clean ShipHero syncing.

Create Products Manually

  1. Go to Shopify Admin → Products → Add product.
  2. Complete core fields:
    • Product Title
    • Product Media
    • Tags
    • Base Price
    • Cost per item
    • SKU
    • Barcode
    • Weight
    • Harmonized system code
    • Country of origin
  3. Click Save.

Duplicate Existing Products

  1. Open the product → click ⋯ → Duplicate.
  2. Update the SKU and barcode immediately (must be unique).
  3. Adjust title, description, and options as needed.

Duplicating speeds up setup for similar items (new color, bundle, or region). See the duplication behavior update in below.

Import Products in Bulk (CSV)

  1. Go to Products → Import and upload Shopify’s CSV template.
  2. Each row represents a product or variant (include SKU, barcode, price, weight, etc.).
  3. Use CSV imports to create or update products at scale (e.g., add barcodes).
Tip: Keep a consistent SKU schema and ensure every physical item has a unique barcode.

 

How Products Sync to ShipHero

ShipHero pulls products from Shopify; it does not create or push them back to Shopify.
This means Shopify is always the source of truth for product creation, naming, and core identifiers such as SKUs and barcodes.

Initial Import & Inventory Options

When new products are pulled from Shopify into ShipHero, the system applies your store’s import settings to determine how inventory is initialized and where the SKU will appear. These options include-

  • Automatic import: Enable “download products created in Shopify” in the ShipHero store integration.
  • Product Status: When the integration setting “Only import products from Shopify that are Published” is enabled in ShipHero, Draft products will not be imported. Only products marked as Active (Published) in Shopify will appear in ShipHero. Typically this setting is turned off.
  • Inventory on first import:
    • Match Shopify’s inventory- ShipHero mirrors the current Shopify quantity.
    • Start at 0- ShipHero initializes at zero (may overwrite Shopify if bi-directional sync is on).
  • Warehouses: Choose whether imported SKUs appear in all or specific warehouses.
Variant mapping: Each Shopify variant becomes its own SKU in ShipHero. Ensure every variant has a unique SKU and barcode.

 

Duplicating Products (2025 ShipHero Update)

ShipHero improved how duplicated products are handled to reduce accidental SKU/linking issues:

  • If a duplicate keeps the same SKU, it shares the same inventory as the original.
  • If you change the SKU on the duplicate, ShipHero treats it as a separate product and leaves the original untouched. A new product record is created for the new SKU during sync.

Reference: Shopify – Improved support for product duplication flow (ShipHero)

Best practice: After duplicating, change the SKU before publishing or taking orders so the copy syncs as its own product in ShipHero.

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