Shopify Collective docs and limitations

Partner Discussions
1

Hey!
We’re investigating the abilities to work with Shopify Collective and faced the next issues/limitations:

  1. Developers cannot request, approve, or manage supplier connections through API. There’s no ability to know about Supplier and Retailer connections. The connection process happens entirely through the apps.
  2. For now we cannot browse supplier catalogs or initiate product imports via API.
  3. No API for Price List access, configuration.
  4. No webhooks exist for supplier connection changes, price list updates, inventory sync updates

All of above are needed to interact between entities in a relation Supplier-Retailer.
Is something of above in development or probably in a closed access? Is there any change to receive an access to early better (if applicable)?
Thank you in advance!

1 Like
2

Hey @Tetiana_Bryzghalova

Thanks for highlighting some of the limitations you’re running in to with the Collective API’s. I took a closer look at the docs and I do see some ways to get what you’re requesting with the currently available API’s:

• Catalog browsing workaround: While we don’t offer direct API access for browsing catalogs, you can set up automatic imports to publish products as drafts, then use our Product API to manage them afterward.

• API for price lists: Once added, the sellableOnlineQuantity is updated to reflect the current availability.

• Webhooks: You can track Collective products using products/create for new imports, products/update for inventory and supplier content changes, and products/delete for unsellable products. All Collective-managed products are tagged with “Shopify Collective” and the {$supplier_name} tags. for easy identification.

We’re continuously working on improving the Collective experience, so I’d recommend keeping an eye on our developers changelog for future updates.

Hope that helps!

4

@KyleG-Shopify Thanks for the response!
For now, we aren’t aware which products in ‘Shop1’ are published for Shopify Collective to suggest them to ‘Shop2’ to import and to use as upsells/triggers.
Is there something we can do?

5

Hey @Tetiana_Bryzghalova ,

For a workaround outside of the app, enabling automatic imports should add the products to shop2 automatically, and then you can retrieve them by filtering with the supplier tag.

6

Hey @KyleG-Shopify!
got it!
the ideal scenario for our app is to have the list of suppliers and to select which one is more suitable to recommend inside our app
Is there direct API access for browsing catalogs in progress? If yes, is there ETA? Also, is there a chance to be added to early access group or to be notified as soon as it became available?

8

Hey @Tetiana_Bryzghalova,

I can see how that would be useful. I’ve shared your feedback with our team. For early access to new API’s, it would likely be as a developer preview, or possibly released in an unstable or release preview version, and announced in the developers changelog.

Personal note/pro-tip, I have a private slack channel that I’ve set up to subscribe to the developers changelog RSS feed! It helps to keep me on top of all the public announcements without having to remember to visit the changelog site. If you use slack or something similar in your company, I highly recommend doing the same!