How to Sync Lightspeed Inventory to Shopify

Most jewelry inventory is a quantity of one. One ring, one pendant, one estate piece that will never come back. That makes syncing Lightspeed and Shopify harder for a jeweler than for a store selling fifty of the same shirt. When something sells at the counter, the website needs to know soon, or a customer online buys a ring that is already in someone else's hand.

If you run Lightspeed at the register and Shopify for your website, this guide covers what a sync actually does, where the manual approach breaks, and how to set one up so both systems agree.

Why an oversell costs a jeweler more

In most retail an oversell is an inconvenience. You apologize and ship next week. In fine jewelry there is no next week. You are calling a customer who was excited about a specific ring to tell them it sold an hour ago. That is a refund, an awkward call and a lost sale at once.

The opposite problem costs money too. If the website shows a piece as sold out because the counts drifted, you miss a sale you could have made. Both come from the same cause: two systems that disagree about what is in the case.

The CSV routine, and why it falls behind

Most stores start by exporting a spreadsheet from Lightspeed, cleaning it up and importing it into Shopify. It works for a while.

• The file is out of date the moment you export it.
• It usually happens once a day at best, so the website is hours behind the floor.
• SKU columns rarely line up cleanly between the two systems, so matching breaks.
• New arrivals still need photos, titles and prices added by hand.
• It is nobody's favorite job, so it gets skipped on busy days, which are the days it matters most.

What a scheduled sync does

A sync is a standing connection that runs on its own. Lightspeed is the source and Shopify is the target. Each run compares the two and brings the target in line: new pieces are created, changed pieces are updated, removed pieces come down. Price and stock carry over on every run.

Two questions decide whether it works for a jewelry store.

How often does it run? With Aurix you choose: manually, or on a schedule from every 15 minutes up to once a week. For a store with one-of-a-kind stock, a short interval is worth it. The shorter the gap, the smaller the window in which a piece that sold at the counter is still buyable online.

Which system is in charge? Lightspeed. The website mirrors the register, so there is one set of counts everyone trusts.

Matching is the hard part

Moving numbers is easy. Knowing which product in Lightspeed is which product in Shopify is the hard part. If a piece carries one SKU in Lightspeed and a slightly different one in Shopify, the update has nowhere to land, or worse, it lands on the wrong listing.

A good sync matches on a stable identifier and does not guess. Aurix matches products by SKU. Before you connect anything, make sure each piece carries the same SKU in both places.

Review the first run

The first sync is the one that can surprise you, because it may create or remove a lot of products at once. In Aurix the default is to hold the first run for your approval. You see the change set, grouped into new, updated, removed and unchanged, and approve or reject it as a whole. Later runs apply on their own. You can also set every run to wait for approval, or none.

New products land in Shopify as drafts, so nothing goes on sale until you are ready.

What it does not do

A clear picture of the limits saves trouble later.

• Aurix reads from Lightspeed. It does not write back to it. A sale on your website does not change the count in Lightspeed, so ring web orders through the register or adjust Lightspeed the way you do now.
• Stock comes from the first shop in your Lightspeed account. If you run several locations, check which one that is.
• It works with Lightspeed Retail (R-Series).
• For products with several variants, price and stock are not changed on update. Most single pieces are not affected.
• It is a scheduled sync, not an instant one. Set the interval to match how fast your floor moves.

A sensible setup, in order

1. Decide your source of truth. For almost every jeweler with a register, that is Lightspeed.
2. Clean up SKUs so each piece carries the same one in both systems.
3. Make sure every piece you want online has at least one usable photo and a real price.
4. Connect Lightspeed and Shopify and create the sync.
5. Review and approve the first run.
6. Pick a schedule. Every 15 minutes is a good start for single-quantity stock.
7. Spot-check a few pieces against the case for the first week.

Where Aurix fits

The Aurix app connects to Shopify, and to Lightspeed if it runs your counter.

It also covers the part that slows new arrivals down. It makes finished photographs from the photo you have, writes the title and description from the inventory code, assigns the category and publishes to Shopify once you approve, which is the default. If you only run Shopify, everything except the Lightspeed connection still applies.

See how Aurix keeps your store in step. See plans: Starter is $99 a month, Growth $199 and Scale $399. To see Aurix first, book a 20-minute walkthrough. We run it on sample pieces.