Real-time Shopify inventory management. Create styles once in AIMS360 and push colors, sizes, and images to every Shopify store. Orders import automatically. Wholesale and EDI stock stays protected.
One stock number, calculated in AIMS360, published to every Shopify storefront and register you run. Wholesale, EDI, and marketplace commitments come out of the same pool before your website ever sees a quantity. No manual stock updates and no middleware.
Shopify inventory management is the process of tracking how many units of each product variant you have available to sell and keeping that number accurate as orders come in and stock arrives. Shopify tracks quantities for the products in its own store. Once a brand also sells wholesale, through retail doors, on marketplaces, or through EDI purchase orders, the accurate number has to be calculated outside Shopify and pushed in, because Shopify cannot see the commitments made in those other channels.
That is the job AIMS360 does. It holds the master stock record for the whole business, subtracts what every channel has already committed, and publishes the remainder to each Shopify location in real time. Your storefront stops being a place where inventory is guessed at and becomes a display surface for a number that is already correct.
Apparel makes this harder than most categories. A single style can carry forty or more sellable variants once you multiply colors by sizes. Systems that treat a variant as a flat SKU force your team to rebuild that matrix by hand everywhere it appears. AIMS360 holds style, color, and size as structured data and hands Shopify the variants already built.
A Shopify integration only earns trust when it holds up on the worst day of the year, not the average one. AIMS360 has been building apparel software since 1984 and has run in the Shopify App Store since January 2016, and the integration is engineered for peak-season load where a single dropped update means an oversell, a cancelled order, or a chargeback.
That scale is why the sync is real time rather than batched and why availability recalculates on every allocation, receipt, return, and shipment. When one store can move more than a million orders in a day, the number in the storefront cannot lag behind the warehouse.
A retailer places a purchase order for 600 units for a September delivery. The same units are sitting in your warehouse today. If your storefront can see them, your best selling size sells out online and the retailer order ships short. Chargebacks follow, and the retailer remembers.
Nothing inside Shopify prevents this, because Shopify has no visibility into a purchase order that arrived over EDI. The same gap opens between your website and a rep order, a marketplace listing, or units already picked at a 3PL. Every channel is confident it can sell the unit because no channel can see the others.
AIMS360 closes it with virtual warehouses. Stock committed to wholesale and EDI is held in its own logical bucket, and only the direct to consumer portion is published to Shopify. Change the allocation rule and the number Shopify sees changes with it. If you would rather run a single sellable pool, you can do that too. The point is that it becomes a decision you make, not a side effect of how the app happens to work.
One number across every channel. Simple, and correct for brands whose wholesale commitments ship from separate production runs.
Wholesale and EDI stock ring fenced, direct to consumer sees the remainder. Correct for brands shipping both channels out of one warehouse.
AIMS360 is the master record for product and stock. Shopify is the storefront. Each field below has one owner and one direction, which is what keeps the two from fighting each other.
Every allocation, receipt, return, and shipment recalculates what the storefront can sell.
Warehouse, retail store, and 3PL each publish their own availability to the matching Shopify location. What counts as available is yours to define, covered below.
Build the size and color matrix once. Shopify receives the variants already structured.
The same code scans in your warehouse, at a 3PL, on a retailer carton, and at a Shopify POS register.
Product content lives in AIMS360 PIM and feeds every channel from there.
Website orders land in the same queue as wholesale and EDI orders on one screen.
Ship to and bill to details flow into AIMS360 CRM without re-keying.
The order closes in Shopify the moment it ships and the shopper gets the tracking notification, whether it left your warehouse or a 3PL.
Returns restock to the right warehouse and the availability change pushes back.
The number Shopify sees is not a fixed formula. AIMS360 inventory templates are customizable rulesets that decide exactly which stock counts as sellable for a given channel, so the storefront can draw on as much or as little of your position as you want. Intelligent Allocation can also reserve incoming production up to a chosen date, so a pre-book or a capsule launch can sell against units that have not landed yet.
Common variables brands build into a template:
Growth adds places where stock physically sits and places where it is sold. Those are two different problems and AIMS360 handles them separately.
A warehouse, two retail doors, and a 3PL facility each map to their own AIMS360 warehouse and their own Shopify location. Shopify routes each order to the location that can fill it. Transfers between locations update both systems, so a unit moved to a store stops being sellable from the warehouse.
A main storefront, an outlet store, a B2B storefront, and regional storefronts all connect to the same AIMS360 record. You decide per store whether it shares the main pool or draws from a warehouse of its own. All of them are managed from one screen.
This is where a plain sync app runs out of room. Most connect one store to one system and maintain their own idea of what is available. Add a second store and you have two apps disagreeing, with no arbiter. AIMS360 is the arbiter.
If you run Shopify POS, the register is just another channel drawing on the same pool. A sale at the counter reduces availability everywhere within seconds rather than at the next stock count, and a unit reserved for an online order is not sitting on the shop floor waiting to be sold twice.
Barcodes carry through the whole chain. The same code you print for a retailer carton scans at your own register, which means one product identity across wholesale, ecommerce, and retail instead of three systems that each invented their own.
Each retail door maps to an AIMS360 warehouse with its own on-hand count and its own published availability.
Mobile barcode scanning for counts, picking, and shipping, so corrections land in the master record rather than a spreadsheet.
Moving stock from warehouse to store adjusts both Shopify locations and leaves an audit trail in AIMS360.
Five steps. Your AIMS360 implementation manager configures these with you, and it is the same person who demonstrated the system.
Add AIMS 360 Fashion Business ERP from the Shopify App Store and authorize it on the store you want to connect. Repeat for each store if you run more than one.
Decide which AIMS360 warehouses feed which Shopify locations, including retail stores on Shopify POS, and whether wholesale and direct to consumer stock share a pool or stay separate. This is the decision that shapes everything downstream, so it comes early.
Push styles from AIMS360 with colors, sizes, SKUs, barcodes, descriptions, and images. Products already live in Shopify can be mapped to existing AIMS360 styles instead of being recreated, so you do not lose your listings, reviews, or URLs.
Set the rules so availability updates to Shopify in real time and Shopify orders import into AIMS360 automatically. After this nobody touches a quantity field in Shopify by hand again.
Pick, pack, and ship in AIMS360, or route the order to your 3PL. Fulfillment status and tracking numbers post back to Shopify so the shopper gets their notification automatically.
The AIMS360 integration works the same way on every Shopify plan. What changes is the scale of what you are connecting it to.
| Capability | Basic, Shopify, Advanced | Shopify Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time inventory sync | Included | Included |
| Multi-location stock control | Included | Included |
| Shopify POS sync | Included | Included |
| Automatic order import | Included | Included |
| Style, variant, and image push | Included | Included |
| Multiple connected stores | Supported | Common: outlet, B2B, and regional storefronts on one pool |
| Expansion and international storefronts | Not on these plans | Each storefront maps to AIMS360 warehouses |
| Higher order throughput | Standard | Built for peak drops and flash volume |
There are three ways to keep Shopify inventory accurate. They fail at different points, and the failure point is usually the first wholesale account or the first retailer purchase order.
| Inventory sync app | General ERP plus connector | AIMS360 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time stock sync to Shopify | Yes | Often batched | Yes |
| Style, color, size as structured data | Flat SKUs | Usually paid customization | Native |
| Wholesale and DTC on one stock ledger | No | Varies | Yes, with virtual warehouses |
| Multiple Shopify stores on one pool | Limited | Varies | Yes, from one screen |
| EDI purchase orders from retailers | No | Third party VAN or middleware | Built in, 350+ retailers |
| Raw materials and production | No | Paid module | Included |
| Middleware layer required | Sometimes | Usually | None |
| Per transaction or per document fees | Common | Common | No |
| Who you call when it breaks | App vendor | ERP, connector vendor, or partner | Your AIMS360 implementation manager |
Put plainly: if you sell one channel and you are under a few hundred orders a month, a sync app is fine and cheaper. The moment you add wholesale, EDI, a 3PL, retail doors, or a second storefront, the number of places inventory has to agree grows faster than the tooling around it. That is the point where brands move to AIMS360.
Accurate stock is the visible benefit. It works because AIMS360 is a full consumer brands ERP rather than a connector, so the events that change availability are all happening inside one system instead of being reported into it after the fact.
The same stock logic runs across every category AIMS360 supports: fashion and apparel, footwear, jewelry, bags and accessories, cosmetics, beauty and personal care, outdoor and sporting goods, wellness and supplements, home, furniture and lifestyle, household and home care, baby and children's, and pet products. If the brand carries physical product with variants, wholesale doors, and a Shopify storefront, the operating model is the same.
Rep orders, line sheets, and B2B platforms including JOOR, NuORDER, and Brandboom allocate stock the moment they land.
Purchase orders from 350+ retailers arrive through built-in EDI and reserve units before your storefront can sell them.
Amazon Seller Central, Vendor Central, and dropship programs run against the same stock ledger.
Cut tickets, work in progress, and incoming deliveries so future stock is visible before it lands, not after.
Bins, barcodes, and picking in AIMS360 WMS, or hand it to a 3PL such as Extensiv.
Invoicing, accounting, factoring, and landed cost, so you see margin by channel, order, and SKU.
Every review below is published publicly on the AIMS360 listing in the Shopify App Store.
Reports real-time sync of inventory, orders, and customer data between Shopify and AIMS360, and credits the integration with letting the team scale ecommerce operations at high omnichannel order volume.
Describes mapping styles, colors, and sizes into Shopify, keeping inventory in bin locations through warehouse management, and using mobile scanners for cycle counts, picking, and shipping.
A golf and lifestyle brand running Shopify alongside wholesale, using AIMS360 as the single stock record across styles, orders, and fulfillment.
More brand stories are on the AIMS360 reviews and stories page.
Shopify is one connection. These are the pieces most brands turn on alongside it.
It is the process of tracking how many units of each product variant you have available to sell and keeping that number accurate as orders come in and stock arrives. Shopify tracks quantities for the products in its own store. Once a brand also sells wholesale, through retail doors, on marketplaces, or through EDI purchase orders, the accurate number has to be calculated outside Shopify and pushed in, because Shopify cannot see the commitments made in those other channels.
Shopify tracks stock for the products in your store and across Shopify locations, and for a single channel direct to consumer brand that is usually enough. It does not manage raw materials, production, wholesale allocation, EDI purchase orders from retailers, landed cost, or stock held at a third party logistics provider. Brands selling more than one channel typically move the master inventory record into an ERP and let Shopify display the sellable portion.
AIMS360 holds the master inventory record. Every event that changes availability, such as a wholesale order being allocated, a purchase order being received, a return being restocked, or a shipment going out, recalculates the sellable quantity in AIMS360 and pushes the new number to the mapped Shopify location. Shopify orders flow the other way and reduce availability the moment they import.
Install the AIMS 360 Fashion Business ERP app from the Shopify App Store, authorize your store, map your AIMS360 warehouses to your Shopify locations, push or map your styles, then turn on automatic stock updates and order import. After that no one touches a quantity field in Shopify by hand. Your AIMS360 implementation manager configures the rules with you during onboarding.
Yes. Each Shopify location maps to an AIMS360 warehouse, so a warehouse, a retail store, and a third party logistics facility can each hold their own stock and each publish their own availability. Orders route to the location that can fill them, and moving stock between locations updates both systems.
Yes. AIMS360 connects to multiple Shopify stores at once and all of them are managed from one screen. You choose whether the stores share a single inventory pool or draw from separate warehouses. Brands use this for a main storefront plus an outlet store, a wholesale storefront, or regional and international storefronts.
Yes. AIMS360 connects to Shopify POS, so a sale at the register draws from the same inventory record as the online store, wholesale, and EDI. Each store location maps to an AIMS360 warehouse, which means a unit sold in store stops being sellable online within seconds rather than at the next stock count.
For apparel the deciding factor is whether the system treats style, color, and size as structured data rather than flat SKUs, because one style can carry forty or more sellable variants. The second factor is whether it can hold wholesale and EDI commitments against the same stock the storefront is selling. Simple sync apps do neither. AIMS360 was built for apparel and handles both, and connects to Shopify without middleware.
Yes. AIMS360 uses virtual warehouses so you can ring fence stock committed to wholesale and EDI orders and expose only the direct to consumer portion to Shopify. That stops a website order from consuming units already promised to a retailer purchase order. You can also share one pool if you prefer a single sellable number.
Yes. AIMS360 works with Shopify Plus and with the standard Shopify plans, including Basic, Shopify, and Advanced, as well as Shopify POS. Plus brands typically use the same integration to run several storefronts, expansion stores, and international storefronts against one AIMS360 inventory pool.
No. The integration is built and maintained by AIMS360 and talks to Shopify directly. There is no separate integration platform to license, no per transaction or per document fee from a middleware vendor, and no third party support queue when a mapping needs to be changed.
The AIMS 360 Fashion Business ERP app is free to install from the Shopify App Store. Shopify connectivity is part of your AIMS360 subscription rather than a separate per order or per sync charge. Subscription pricing is published on the AIMS360 pricing page.
The technical connection is quick. What sets the timeline is data preparation: cleaning up styles, deciding warehouse mapping, and matching existing Shopify products to AIMS360 styles. Most brands go live within a few weeks as part of a wider AIMS360 implementation, and the same implementation manager who demonstrated the system runs that process.
Yes. AIMS360 processes return authorizations, credit memos, exchanges, and restocking, and integrates with Loop Returns for Shopify merchants who want a branded returns portal. Restocked units return to the correct warehouse and the availability change pushes back to Shopify automatically.
AIMS360 becomes the master record and every channel reads from it. Your warehouse, any third party logistics facility, and any retail store each map to an AIMS360 warehouse. Shopify locations, Amazon Seller Central, and Amazon Vendor Central each receive the sellable quantity for the locations that serve them. When a unit sells on any channel, availability recalculates once in AIMS360 and updates outward. Nobody adjusts a quantity by hand in either storefront.
Check whether the system stores style, color, and size as separate structured fields or flattens them into one SKU string. Flattened SKUs mean your team rebuilds the size and color grid by hand everywhere it appears, and you cannot report on how a color performed across sizes. Also check that stock is visible at style, color, or size level, that the size run travels through purchase orders and picking, and that a new colorway can be added without recreating the product. AIMS360 holds all three as structured data and hands Shopify the variants already built.
Yes. AIMS360 has direct integrations for Magento and WooCommerce alongside Shopify and Shopify Plus. Brands running more than one storefront platform use the same master stock record for all of them, so a unit sold on one cannot be sold again on another.
Yes, that is the core of it. Shopify orders, rep and wholesale orders, B2B platform orders, marketplace orders, and EDI purchase orders from retailers all land in the same AIMS360 order queue. You allocate, pick, and ship from one screen instead of reconciling between systems, and margin reads by channel because the orders are already in one place.
Yes. The sellable number is defined by a customizable inventory template, not a fixed formula. A template decides which stock counts toward Shopify availability, and it can be built from many variables: stock by warehouse, bin locations, incoming production up to a chosen date, allocated versus unallocated orders, 3PL and virtual warehouses, and channel or account rules, down to the style, color, and size. That is how a brand can, for example, sell a pre-book against production that has not landed yet, or expose only the direct to consumer portion of stock while wholesale and EDI commitments stay protected.
Bring a style with a real color and size matrix and we will push it to a Shopify store on the call, then show what happens to the stock number when a wholesale order lands. Thirty minutes, no slide deck.
Shahrooz Kohan is Chief Executive Officer of AIMS360, an apparel and consumer brands ERP platform founded in 1984 that has served more than 10,000 brands and processes orders for 350+ retailers through built-in EDI.
Written and reviewed by Shahrooz Kohan, CEO, AIMS360.
Published January 19, 2016. Last updated July 21, 2026.
