You want to sync inventory for several warehouses or shops all from Google Sheets — but the moment you sit down to set it up, you stall on ‟where do I even begin?” Multi-location is powerful, yet skipping the early prep is exactly what leads to stock written to the wrong location, or quantities that never land at all.
So this time we lay out the setup you want in place before your first real sync, as a step-by-step checklist. From naming locations to stocking products, designing your sheet columns, running a connection test, and choosing fulfillment priority — work through it one item at a time and you will reach go-live without guessing.
Name and Enable Your Locations
First, the groundwork: a Shopify location is a place that stocks, fulfills, and sells inventory. Whether it is a warehouse, a physical store, or a dropship point, any place that holds stock is registered as a location. The whole foundation of multi-location sync sits here, so getting the names and states right at the start matters a great deal.
Naming pays off in unexpected places later. You will inevitably reach a point where you match sheet column headers to location names, so choose names that are easy for both people and tools to read. Instead of vague labels like ‟Warehouse” or ‟Store 2,” aim for unique, distinguishable names like ‟Tokyo Warehouse” or ‟Osaka Store.” After naming, confirm that the locations you will sync are enabled — you cannot assign inventory to a deactivated location.
Stock Products at Each Location
This is an easily missed but crucial step. In Shopify, you must stock a product at a location before you can assign a quantity there. Even if you prepare numbers on the sheet side, if that location is not attached to the product on the Shopify side, a sync has nowhere to land the figure.
Inventory is recorded per location as states (available, committed, on hand, and so on), and even for the same SKU the count at warehouse A moves separately from store B. Before a real sync, always confirm that the products you want to sync are stocked at each target location. Right after you add a new location, existing products are often not yet attached to it, so take extra care there.
Check for Gaps in Coverage
With a large catalog, confirming product by product which one is stocked at which location is hard work. Switch locations in Shopify’s inventory view and look for products that are not stocked there. If you are starting small, pick a few test SKUs first, stock them at every location, and try a sync — checking for gaps becomes much easier.
Design Per-Location Columns in the Sheet
Now to the design of the Google Sheet that will be your inventory master. With multiple locations, the basic pattern is one on-hand quantity column per location for each SKU. A wide layout — one row per SKU, with per-location quantity columns — reads well for people and maps cleanly to the tool.
- 01Put the SKU (or a key that uniquely identifies the variant) in the first column
- 02Provide one on-hand quantity column per location
- 03Use the Shopify location names verbatim as the column headers, with consistent spelling
- 04Put only numbers in quantity columns — no units, symbols, or spaces mixed in
- 05Fix the header to a single row so it never blends into the data rows
Sync Master supports multiple locations and writes the on-hand quantity from each location column in the sheet into the matching Shopify location. The column-to-location correspondence is decided by mapping, so the clearer and more unique your headers, the faster and more accurate the setup. Treat Google Sheets as the single source of truth here and channel all input through the sheet, and your operation stays stable.
Run a Connection Test and Verify the Mapping
With the columns designed, rather than syncing everything at once, first confirm the correspondence with a connection test. Sync Master has a connection test that validates the column-to-location mapping before a real sync, so you can check ‟this column in this sheet writes into this Shopify location” before any inventory is actually changed.
- Whether the SKU column matches your Shopify products and variants correctly
- Whether each quantity column maps to the intended location
- Whether the target products are stocked at the destination location
- Whether header inconsistencies (spaces, casing) have knocked the mapping off
It is best to test with a small set of SKUs first. Once you confirm that the expected quantities land at the expected locations, you can widen the scope with confidence. Verifying that first pass carefully is the surest way to prevent a large mix-up later.
Choose Fulfillment Priority and Set Up Automation
Finally, decide the priority of which location an order ships from. Shopify routes order allocation and fulfillment across multiple locations, but setting which one to favor in line with your operating policy gives you an edge on shipping distance and cost. Organize the order of locations that hold stock — placing your main hub or the location nearest customers higher, for instance — and think through an order that fits your store.
Cover the steps so far in order — naming and enabling locations, stocking products at each location, designing columns, the connection test, and fulfillment priority — and your first real sync gets far safer. The more time you invest in preparation, the fewer mix-ups and stockouts you face later. Run one pass with a few test SKUs first, confirm there are no issues, and then widen to the whole catalog.