If your Shopify listings aren’t updating as expected in Vela, don’t worry — most sync delays or errors are caused by Shopify’s rate limits or inventory settings. Here’s how to understand what’s happening and how to fix it.
How to...
- Understand sync delays
- Identify when you've hit a Shopify rate limit and continue updating effectively
- Recognize inventory location conflicts
- Double-check profile settings
1. Understanding Sync Delays
Each marketplace — Etsy, Shopify, eBay, and others — sets its own rules for how quickly third-party apps like Vela can send updates.
When you publish many changes at once, Shopify may temporarily queue those updates before applying them in the background. This is normal and expected when working at scale.
Tip: For large updates, allow up to 24 hours for all changes to appear in your shop. Updates continue processing automatically — no action needed.
2. Shopify Rate Limits
Shopify uses rate limits to keep their platform stable and prevent performance issues when bulk updates happen.
Here’s what to know:
- Daily variant limit:
- Stores with over 50,000 existing variants can create up to 1,000 new variants per day.
- Shopify Plus merchants are not affected by this daily limit.
- Per-product variant limit:
- Shopify now supports up to 2,048 variants per product, increased from the previous limit of 100.
When a rate limit is hit:
- All updates that were sent before the limit are still processed by Shopify.
- Updates that exceed the limit are paused and will not publish until the limit resets.
To resolve:
- Wait 24 hours to allow Shopify’s limit to reset.
- Try syncing a smaller batch of the remaining listings that haven’t yet updated.
This ensures all pending changes publish successfully without hitting the limit again.
3. Inventory Location Conflicts
Sometimes, Shopify may return an error if your inventory for the same product is split across multiple locations. This creates a location conflict that can block updates from syncing.
To fix this:
- In Shopify, open the Inventory section for the affected product.
- Make sure all variants are assigned to the same location, or
- Disable “Track inventory” if you don’t need Shopify to track stock for that product.
Once your inventory settings are consistent, try syncing again in Vela.
4. Double-Check Profile Settings
If issues persist, open your product’s Profile in Vela and confirm your “Retain” settings match your intended update behavior. Misaligned settings can sometimes prevent updates from applying correctly.