Great question, I'll do my best to try and explain how the connector works. Products in Retail Express are treated very differently to Shopify, so we have a connector in the middle that maps these products between the platforms. As an example, a variant is entirely different to a product in Shopify, therefore we need to track these ID's and map them to the correct Product ID's in Retail Express.
Knowing this helps explain how products can get out-of-sync, in most cases when products were variants in Shopify and then the Manufacturer SKU is changed in Retail Express the product is now treated differently and no longer maps as a variant but an individual product. This is also why we always recommend using Mass Upload for product updates, particularly variants so the system batch processes the items and they're not delayed in sending to the connector.
That's the overview, I felt it was worth explaining.
In your situation, you've marked the product as "Unpublish". Therefore, as mentioned above, publishing disconnects the Product ID from the Shopify ID in the connector. If you then set to "Publish" again, it creates a new product in Shopify and maps the new value. The previous one disappears on an "unpublish". This is why new products are being created.
Knowing this helps explain how products can get out-of-sync, in most cases when products were variants in Shopify and then the Manufacturer SKU is changed in Retail Express the product is now treated differently and no longer maps as a variant but an individual product. This is also why we always recommend using Mass Upload for product updates, particularly variants so the system batch processes the items and they're not delayed in sending to the connector.
That's the overview, I felt it was worth explaining.
In your situation, you've marked the product as "Unpublish". Therefore, as mentioned above, publishing disconnects the Product ID from the Shopify ID in the connector. If you then set to "Publish" again, it creates a new product in Shopify and maps the new value. The previous one disappears on an "unpublish". This is why new products are being created.
The ideal method is to use the "Disabled" option against the product, this will set the product to draft in Shopify while retaining the mapping. Then when ready, you can remove the disabled flag which will also set the product to live in Shopify. This may not suit because if the product is set to disable, then POS users can't search for the product.
As a rule of thumb, if wanting to "unpublish" a product, then a new one will be created when you publish again as it is removed from the connector. If you draft in Shopify, then the connector can no longer see the product and will create a new one again. The best method is to use the Disabled value. Otherwise, you can publish and unpublish, it just means you need to copy the image, tag and other values to the new product when it is created and remove the old product.
I hpoe this gives some more insights to how the connector works.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
As a rule of thumb, if wanting to "unpublish" a product, then a new one will be created when you publish again as it is removed from the connector. If you draft in Shopify, then the connector can no longer see the product and will create a new one again. The best method is to use the Disabled value. Otherwise, you can publish and unpublish, it just means you need to copy the image, tag and other values to the new product when it is created and remove the old product.
I hpoe this gives some more insights to how the connector works.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
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