Hello @StoneBridgeDigi,
Greetings! I am Gina from the flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot.
You are correct that the issue you are facing is likely due to the inventory tracking feature in Shopify, which marks all products as modified when any one of them is sold. To accurately retrieve only the products that have been updated, you can try the following approaches.
1. Use the 'updated_at_min' parameter
This parameter is intended to return only the products that have been modified since the specified timestamp. However, as you mentioned, this parameter may not work as expected due to the inventory tracking feature. Nevertheless, it's worth checking whether the 'updated_at_min' parameter is set correctly in your API query.
2. Use the 'published_at_min' parameter
This parameter filters products that have been published since the specified timestamp. This can be a good alternative to 'updated_at_min' if you are not interested in unpublished products or if your products are not frequently unpublished and republished.
3. Use webhooks
Instead of querying the Shopify API for updated products, you can subscribe to webhooks that notify you when a product is updated. This way, you don't have to query the API repeatedly, and you can receive updates in real-time. You can set up a webhook to notify you when a product is updated, and then download only the modified products.
4. Use pagination
If you don't have a high frequency of updates, you can use pagination to download only a certain number of products at a time. This way, you can avoid downloading all the products in one go, which can be resource-intensive.
5. Use a combination of filters
You can use a combination of filters to refine your query and retrieve only the products that have been updated. For example, you can combine 'updated_at_min' with a filter that checks for the product's inventory quantity or variant's inventory quantity. This way, you can avoid products that have been marked as updated due to inventory changes.
In general, the best approach depends on your specific use case and how frequently your products are updated. I recommend experimenting with different approaches and monitoring their performance to determine the best solution.
Hope this helps
Gina
