What does "real-time" mean in practice?
No inventory sync is instant. In practice, real-time means changes propagate in seconds, triggered by the event itself, instead of on a schedule. The alternative is batch sync: a job that runs every hour or once a night and copies quantities across. Between runs, every channel shows a number that may already be wrong.
Why does sync speed matter?
Stock is shared. The same unit can be sold on your own store, on a marketplace and to a wholesale account. The longer the gap between a sale and the update everywhere else, the more likely two channels sell the same unit. That oversell turns into a cancelled order, a refund or a backorder, and often a marketplace performance hit.
What does an example look like?
A SKU has 20 units, listed on Shopify and Amazon. Inventory syncs once a night. During a promotion, Shopify sells 14 and Amazon sells 11 before the next sync. Each channel thought it had 20, so 25 units were sold against 20 on hand: 5 orders oversold. With updates propagating in seconds, the 20th sale sets both channels to zero and the 21st order never happens. The oversell calculator runs the same math on your numbers.
What should two-way sync cover?
Quantities flowing out to channels is only half of it. Orders, returns, receipts, 3PL shipments and accounting entries flow back the other way. Two-way sync also needs a rule for conflicts, when two systems change the same record, and a visible place for syncs that fail.
How does SuppliFlex handle inventory sync?
SuppliFlex syncs two ways in near real time: seconds, not nightly batches. The sync-freshness design target is under 60 seconds at the 95th percentile, and connectors are contract-tested. Conflicts and failed syncs land in the exception inbox with the cause and a one-click fix. Connectors for Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, QuickBooks Online, Xero, FedEx, UPS, USPS and ShipBob go live with the production beta on 13 November 2026 and are simulated in the sandbox today.