Shopify Setup
This guide walks you through connecting your Shopify store to Sideboard for the first time. The process takes about 5 minutes: you authorize the connection, choose which game inventories to sync, and run an initial product push.
Before you start
You’ll need:
- An active Shopify store (any plan)
- Admin access to that store
- Your Shopify store domain (e.g.,
my-store.myshopify.com)
Sideboard is a custom app registered in Shopify’s partner ecosystem. When you connect, you’ll see a standard Shopify OAuth consent screen listing the permissions the integration requests. These are needed for product and inventory management.
Step 1: Open the Integrations settings page
In Sideboard, go to Settings → Integrations. You’ll see a card for Shopify showing “Not connected.”
Click Connect Shopify.
Step 2: Enter your store domain
In the connection dialog, type your Shopify store domain. You can enter just the store name (e.g., my-store) or the full domain (e.g., my-store.myshopify.com) — either works.
Click Connect with Shopify.
Step 3: Approve the connection on Shopify
Your browser redirects to Shopify’s authorization page. This page shows:
- The name of the Sideboard app requesting access
- The permissions it needs (read/write products, inventory, customers, store credit)
Review the permissions and click Install app (or Install) to approve.
Shopify redirects you back to Sideboard automatically. You do not need to copy any tokens or keys — the handshake happens in the background.
What happens during the OAuth callback
Behind the scenes, when Shopify redirects back to Sideboard:
- Sideboard exchanges the authorization code for a permanent access token.
- Sideboard detects your store’s primary fulfillment location. This is the location where inventory levels are tracked on the Shopify side. If you have multiple locations, Sideboard uses the primary one.
- Sideboard registers webhooks with your Shopify store to receive real-time inventory change notifications.
You’ll land back on the Shopify settings page in Sideboard with a “Connected” status badge.
Step 4: Select which game inventories to sync
After connecting, you’ll see a list of your Sideboard inventories grouped by game. Check each inventory you want to sync with Shopify.
Important: Sideboard only pushes products for games you’ve selected here. If you have an MTG inventory but don’t check it, no MTG products will appear in your Shopify store.
Click Save to confirm your selection.
If you’re just getting started with a game and haven’t imported any catalog data yet, you can still connect — just add the inventory later after the catalog is set up.
Step 5: Run the initial product push
With inventories selected, click Push All Products to start the initial full sync.
This pushes every card in your selected game catalogs to Shopify. Depending on how many games you’ve selected, this can involve thousands or hundreds of thousands of products, so the sync runs in the background. You can watch progress on the Shopify settings page — it updates every few seconds.
What “push all products” creates in Shopify:
Each card becomes a Shopify product with:
- The card name as the product title
- Game-specific details (type line, energy cost, colors, etc.) in the product description
- The game name as the product type
- Set name, rarity, and game code as tags
- One variant per valid condition × finish combination (NM/Normal, NM/Foil, LP/Normal, etc.)
- $0 price and 0 quantity for variants you don’t have in stock yet
- Your actual price and quantity for variants you have in stock
You don’t need to do anything on the Shopify side to set these up — Sideboard creates everything.
Step 6: Verify the connection
Once the sync completes, you can open your Shopify admin and browse Products to see the cards. Look for a recently added product from a game you enabled — it should have the condition/finish variants listed.
Back in Sideboard, the Shopify settings page shows:
- Products synced: total number of products pushed
- Last sync: timestamp of the most recent full sync
- Location: the fulfillment location Sideboard is tracking
What’s safe to edit on each side
Safe to edit in Sideboard, synced to Shopify:
- Quantity (when you add or remove stock, make sales, run buylists)
- Price (manual prices or those set by pricing rules)
- Customer records and store credit balances
Managed by Sideboard (do not rely on manual edits here):
- Product description / body HTML — Sideboard re-generates this from card metadata on every sync. Custom text you add will be overwritten. Use Shopify metafields if you need to attach permanent custom copy to a card.
Safe to edit in Shopify, not overwritten:
- Product images (Sideboard does not manage images at this time)
- Product status (active/draft/archived — Sideboard does not change this)
- Tags you add manually (Sideboard’s tags won’t remove yours)
Do not edit in Shopify if you want sync to work:
- Variant SKUs — Sideboard uses SKUs to match variants when reconciling. Changing them breaks the mapping.
- Inventory quantities directly in Shopify admin — changes made through the Shopify admin (not through a Shopify sale) will be overwritten by Sideboard’s next reconciliation. Always manage stock in Sideboard.
What happens if a Shopify product gets deleted
If someone deletes a product in your Shopify admin, the mapping between that product and Sideboard is broken. The product will be re-created from scratch on the next full sync or next time Sideboard tries to update it — but your Shopify product URL, SEO data, and any reviews/metafields attached to that product will be gone.
To avoid this: instead of deleting, set products to Draft or Archived status in Shopify if you want to hide them from customers. This keeps the mapping intact.
If a mapping does break, run Push All Products from the Sideboard Shopify settings page. Sideboard will re-create the missing product and re-link the mapping.
Disconnecting
To remove the integration, go to Settings → Integrations → Shopify and click Disconnect. You’ll be asked to confirm.
Disconnecting does not delete any products from your Shopify store — your catalog stays in place. It stops all future syncing: new stock, price changes, and sales on Shopify will no longer flow between the two systems.
If you reconnect later, you’ll need to run a full push again to restore real-time sync.
What’s next
- Understand day-to-day sync behavior: Shopify Day-to-Day
- Manage your inventory in Sideboard: Managing Inventory
- How presale works with Shopify: Presale
- CardTrader integration: CardTrader Overview
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