PuppetVendors Bridge - Sync a Vendor's Shopify Store to Your Marketplace or Consignment Store (Merchant)
PuppetVendors Bridge connects your vendor's own Shopify store to your marketplace so their products, inventory, and fulfillments sync across automatically. This guide covers the merchant setup. Send your vendors to PuppetVendors Bridge: Connect Your Shopify Store (Vendor) for their side of the setup.
- No CSV upload required
- No manual creation of products one at a time
- Inventory stays in sync in real time
Before you start
- PuppetVendors Bridge may be not activated by default. If you do not see the navigation under the settings page, reach out to support to have it activated.
- Your vendor needs their own Shopify store on any plan.
- Your vendor installs the PuppetVendors Bridge app on their store. This is a free app for the vendor.
- Bridge is in beta. Features may change, and we recommend testing with one vendor before rolling it out widely. Report any issues to support@puppetvendors.com.
Article Content
- Activate PuppetVendors Bridge
- Invite Shopify stores as vendors
- Important notes and FAQs
- Troubleshooting
1. Activate PuppetVendors Bridge
- Go to Settings > PuppetVendors Bridge
- Select your primary inventory location and fields you want to keep in sync, and then click Save button. The primary inventory location is the location on your Shopify store where all inventory synced from your vendor's store will be pushed to.
- Enable Order Push so orders containing vendor items are pushed directly to that vendor's Shopify store.
- Enable Fulfillments Sync so fulfillment status on those pushed orders syncs back to your Shopify store.
2. Invite Shopify stores (as vendors)
Invite your vendors to sync their products into your Shopify store via PuppetVendors Bridge. Once invited, they receive an email with setup instructions and a connection key. You can also share the setup link directly: https://bridge.puppetvendors.com
- Go to Vendors -> Users
- Click Create New User and make sure Send Invitation to PuppetVendors Bridge is checked.
- Your vendor receives instructions to install PuppetVendors Bridge, enter their connection key, select their default inventory location, and publish products to the Bridge sales channel.
- Send your vendors to PuppetVendors Bridge: Connect Your Shopify Store (Vendor) so they can follow the full setup on their side.
3. FAQs
Questions | Answers | |
|---|---|---|
How often are products synced from the vendor's store to my store? | Products and attributes sync in real time from your vendor's store to your Shopify store. Sync speed also depends on your PuppetVendors plan. | |
What syncs the first time a vendor publishes a product? | On the first sync, all product attributes from the vendor's Shopify store are copied across, including title, description, images, and variants. | |
What syncs after that? | Once a product exists on your Shopify store, your field sync settings take over. For example, the first sync imports the full product record, while later syncs only update the fields you selected, such as inventory and images. | |
What happens if a vendor sets a product to draft, deletes it, or unpublishes it from the Bridge sales channel? | The product is deleted from your Shopify store. See the warning above. | |
How does a vendor stop an item selling on my store? | The vendor unpublishes the item from the PuppetVendors Bridge sales channel. If the item carries the pv_bridge tag, removing that tag also removes the item from your store. | |
Is the product price synced, and who controls the retail price? | The product price is synced on the initial sync but you can control whether they are synced on an on-going basis. You may opt-out so you can set a marked up price for the item. | |
What happens if the product already exists on my Shopify store? | A new item will be automatically created and you may remove the previously existing product. | |
I use multiple inventory locations. How does that work? | You must select a default inventory location where vendor items are synced to. And each of your vendors must also select a default inventory location on their Shopify store which will act as the source of the inventory to sync. | |
Do Bridge products link automatically to the right vendor for commissions and payouts? | Yes, the items automatically link to the right vendor for commissions and payouts calculations. Each vendor is assigned a unique connection id during the Bridge installation process so they automatically link. | |
How do I disconnect a vendor from Bridge? | There are three ways:Unsync individual items under Settings -> PuppetVendors Bridge.Delete the vendor account entirely under Vendors -> Vendors -> Delete.When a vendor uninstalls PuppetVendors Bridge from their store, all their synced items are automatically removed from your store. |
4. Troubleshooting
- My vendor didn't receive the invitation email.
- Check that Send Invitation to PuppetVendors Bridge? was ticked when the user was created, and ask the vendor to check spam. You can also share https://bridge.puppetvendors.com directly. You can also click on the Shopify icon on the Vendors -> Vendors page to copy the already generated connection key.
- The connection key isn't working.
- Each vendor is assigned a unique connection key that doesn't expire.
- My vendor published products but nothing appears on my store.
- Make sure that the vendor's selected default inventory for the item has inventory. If so, give upto 2mins for the item to appear.
Still stuck? Contact us at support@puppetvendors.com or via live chat.
Updated on: 31/08/2026
Thank you!