Managing Sales Channels, Publishing, Online vs Not OnLine is One of the Worst Parts of Shopify

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A long-time Shopify merchant (10+ years, millions of items sold) is frustrated with the platform’s sales channel and product publishing system.

Core Issue:

  • Products with available inventory are not automatically visible in the online store because the “Online Store” checkbox in the Publishing section remains unchecked
  • This requires constant manual management across a very large inventory

Attempted Solutions:

  • Shopify’s bulk editor (inadequate for large inventories)
  • Shopify Flow
  • Third-party apps
  • None have reliably solved the problem

Desired Functionality:

  • Automatic visibility: any product with inventory > 0 should be published to the online store by default
  • Filter option to display only products with available inventory

Merchant’s Perspective:

  • Believes Shopify intentionally creates problems requiring app solutions
  • Views this as one of the platform’s worst features
  • Feels the platform has deteriorated over the past decade despite new features

The discussion remains open with one community member offering assistance.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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If I have an item in stock, I want it available in my store.

I am so tired of wrestling with making sure my items are published or not published.

I have a very large inventory and it can’t be managed in what shopify calls the “bulk” editor.

I have tried flow, I have tried apps and I always seem to have items with inventory, that are active that are not available on my online store. Meaning in the Publishing section of the product the “Online Store” box is not checked.

Shopify has a love of making things way more complicated than they need to be.

If people have some need to have inventory not show in their store, they should be the ones that need to use an app.

I feel like shopify is doing everything in their power to hurt my store, not help it.

I’m not new to shopify. I have sold millions of items on shopify.

I have had my account for over 10 years. I know every single in and out of this platform.

Of all their STUPID features, this could be the dumbest.

If I have an item that has more than 0, I want customers to see it. Is this really that complicated?

Also why can’t I set the products to only show me items that have inventory? Why is there no setting for this?

This platform was great 10 years ago. The new benefits do not come close to how they have made this platform worse.

This is the entire point. Shopify creates problems that you need to solve with APPs.

1 Like
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Hey @QDD .

Thanks for brought this Question to Shopify Community.

I would like to know how we can help with the issue that you facing.

Thanks