Connect Your First Store
A walkthrough of connecting your first sales channel to Commerce Kitty. You will create a channel, install a plugin, authorize it, and verify products start importing. Most sellers finish this in under ten minutes.
Before you start
You need login access to the platform you want to connect (Shopify admin, Etsy seller dashboard, Amazon Seller Central, etc). Some plugins use OAuth and only need you to click an authorization button. Others need you to copy and paste an access token. The plugin-specific page tells you which.
Step 1. Create a channel
From the dashboard, open Configuration in the navbar and click Channels. If you have not created a channel yet, the list will be empty. Click New Channel.
Fill in a name like "Main Store", pick your base currency, choose your default locale, and enter your domain as the hostname. None of these settings are permanent. Save the channel.
You can change every channel field later. The only one that should not change is the code, which is used internally to reference the channel.
Step 2. Add a plugin
Open Configuration → Plugins and click New Plugin. Pick the plugin type that matches the platform you want to connect. The available options include Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, ShipStation, Printful, and more.
Each plugin has a dedicated setup page in this help center with the exact steps for getting credentials or completing the OAuth flow. Open the matching page in a new tab and follow it.
Step 3. Attach the plugin to your channel
After authorization, the plugin needs to be linked to a channel before it can do anything. Open the plugin you just created and find the Channels field. Pick the channel you made in Step 1.
Save the plugin. Commerce Kitty now knows which channel this plugin operates within.
If you turn on Import Orders for this plugin, it can only be assigned to one channel. Other plugins can be on multiple channels at once.
Step 4. Enable the sync options you want
Each plugin exposes a set of sync toggles like Import Products, Import Orders, Export Tracking, and others. Turn on the ones that match what you want this plugin to do. For most sellers connecting their first store, the sensible defaults are:
- Import Products: on, so your existing catalog comes into Commerce Kitty
- Import Orders: on, so new orders flow into the orders list
- Export Tracking: on, so when you ship an order Commerce Kitty pushes the tracking number back to the marketplace
The full list of toggles and what each one does is on the Plugins overview page.
Step 5. Wait for the import
Once you save the plugin with sync enabled, Commerce Kitty starts pulling your data. Depending on how many products you have, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.
Open Catalog → Products in a new tab and refresh after a minute. You should start seeing your products show up. The same is true for Sales → Orders if you turned on order import.
Step 6. Verify it worked
Three signs that the connection is healthy:
- Products from the marketplace appear in your Commerce Kitty catalog
- Recent orders from the marketplace appear in your orders list
- The plugin shows no errors on its detail page or in the notifications bell
If something is wrong, open the sync not working troubleshooting page for the most common fixes.
What to do next
Once your first store is connected and importing cleanly, the next move is to connect a second one. The real value of Commerce Kitty shows up when you have two or more channels syncing inventory together.
Add a second plugin, attach it to the same channel (or a new one if you keep inventory separate), and let Commerce Kitty link the products by SKU. From that point forward, a sale on one platform automatically updates stock on the others within seconds.