Automatic syncing keeps your Shopify products up to date with your supplier's catalog. When enabled, SupplyMaster periodically fetches the latest product data — including pricing, inventory, images, and new items — and applies changes to your store based on the settings you configure. This article covers sync frequency, update settings, auto-creation rules, and how to handle unavailable products.

Auto Import vs. Full Auto Sync Settings

The Manage Suppliers page showing the Auto Import toggle on each supplier row

There are two levels of automation:

Auto Import toggle — A quick on/off switch on each supplier card. When enabled, SupplyMaster runs a daily import using your saved filters. This is the simplest way to keep products flowing in.
Full Auto Sync Settings — Found in Edit Supplier > Automatic Sync. These settings give you fine-grained control over sync frequency, which fields get updated, whether new products and variants are auto-created, and what happens to products that disappear from the supplier catalog.

The Automatic Sync tab showing all sync configuration settings

The Auto Import toggle uses the default daily schedule. For more control, configure the full Auto Sync Settings described below.

Sync Frequency

Choose how often SupplyMaster automatically syncs product data from the supplier.

Option	Schedule	Availability
Never	No automatic sync — manual imports only	All suppliers
Daily	Once per day at 02:00 UTC	All suppliers
Every 6 Hours	Four times daily at 02:00, 08:00, 14:00, and 20:00 UTC	S&S Activewear only

Most suppliers support Never and Daily. S&S Activewear also offers an Every 6 Hours option for merchants who need more frequent inventory and pricing updates.

Update Settings

After products are first imported, Update Settings controls which fields get refreshed during future syncs. Choose the option that matches how you manage your product data:

Option	What Gets Updated	Best For
All Fields with Images	Everything — titles, descriptions, pricing, inventory, weight, images	Missing images or when you want a complete refresh every sync
All Fields Except Images	Titles, descriptions, pricing, inventory, weight — but not images	Blank reselling (most efficient — saves time and bandwidth)
Only Variant Fields	Color, size, pricing, inventory, and weight only	Manually editing product titles, descriptions, or images and wanting to keep those edits
Only Inventory	Inventory quantities only	Managing all other product data manually and only needing stock-level updates

The 12-Hour Delay

Update Settings only take effect after a product or variant has existed for at least 12 hours. During that initial window, all fields are updated regardless of your setting. This allows the system to retry and fully complete the product creation process — ensuring all data (titles, descriptions, images, pricing, and inventory) is brought up to date even if errors occurred during the initial import.

After the 12-hour window, future syncs follow your Update Settings. For example, if you've set it to Only Variant Fields, only pricing and inventory will continue to update automatically while product-level fields like titles and descriptions remain unchanged.

Auto Create Products & Variants

The Auto Create Products and Variants setting with options for Always Create, No New Variants, No New Products, and No New Products or Variants

This setting controls what happens when the supplier adds new products or new sizes and colors to existing products. Choose based on how you curate your catalog:

Option	Behavior	Best For
Always Create Products & Variants	Every new product and variant matching your filters is automatically created in Shopify	Resellers who want full automation
No New Variants on Existing Products	New products are created, but new variants (sizes/colors) are not added to products that already exist	Decorators who customize variant selections and don't want new sizes appearing unexpectedly
No New Products (Variants may be added)	No new products are created, but new variants can be added to existing products	Stores that manually choose which products to carry but want size/color updates
No New Products or Variants	Nothing new is created — only existing products and variants are updated	Curated stores that want full manual control over their catalog

Action on Unavailable Products

When a product disappears from the supplier catalog or no longer matches your filters, SupplyMaster can take one of two actions:

Archive Products — Automatically archives the product in Shopify. Archived products are hidden from your storefront but remain in your Shopify admin. You can restore them at any time.
No Action — The product stays active in your store but stops receiving updates. Inventory will not be adjusted, and the product may show stale data.

The default is No Action. If you want to keep your storefront clean and avoid listing discontinued products, switch to Archive Products.

Always Update Variant Images

This setting overrides the Update Settings for images specifically. It only appears when your Update Settings is not already set to All Fields with Images.

Use Update Settings — Images update (or don't) based on your chosen Update Settings.
Always Update Images — Images are refreshed on every sync regardless of the Update Settings. Useful when a supplier frequently updates product photos and you want to keep your store current.