Synchronizing Orders and Fetching Related Transactions via REST API

[KacperPe]

Hi everyone,

I am working on integrating my system with Shopify and have encountered a challenge that I hope someone here can help me solve.

I would like to synchronize orders from my Shopify store with an external system. I have already set up the basic order synchronization using the Shopify REST API, but I also want to fetch transactions related to the orders to have a complete picture of each transaction (e.g., payment information, refunds, etc.).

I have encountered a problem with too many requests, leading to API rate limit issues. I have heard that the Bulk API supported by GraphQL might be helpful in this case. Is it better to use the Bulk API via GraphQL, or should I consider implementing a delay between each request to avoid hitting the rate limits?

Could someone share some guidance on how best to approach this issue?
Thank you in advance!

[BSSCommerce-B2B · Accepted solution]

Hi @KacperPe,

It depends. You have 2 req/s with the Basic plan or 4 with the Advanced, and each request returns 255 records with REST API

If your data is quite small or you don't care about sync time, you can use REST API for ease.

Opposite, if your store has too many orders and transactions in the first sync, you should use bulk API (FYI, you should use bulk API in the first sync or full sync because data grows by time). You should store sync time to use in the next partial sync to filter data by time (e.g. created_at_min,...)

Hope that can help you somehow.