Cin7 Shopify Integration NZ: Core vs Omni Guide
Cin7 is one of the more common inventory management platforms we come across in the New Zealand ecommerce market. So if you're running Shopify in NZ, especially once you get into larger catalogues, multiple locations, wholesale or more complicated fulfilment, there's a pretty good chance Cin7 is either already somewhere in your tech stack or being considered.
We've worked with both Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni on Shopify projects. The good news is both platforms have native Shopify integrations and for most standard ecommerce requirements, you don't need to build a completely custom integration.
The slightly more complicated part is deciding how the integration should actually be configured. What system owns your products? Where should new products be created? What data should sync? What shouldn't sync? And what happens once you introduce things like bundles, custom product data or more complicated Shopify functionality?
That's generally where having Shopify developers who understand the wider ecommerce architecture becomes more important than simply connecting the two systems.
What is Cin7?
Cin7 is best thought of as an inventory and order management platform, with warehouse management functionality built around it.
Cin7 themselves primarily position the platform as inventory management software rather than a traditional all-in-one ERP. Although the line is becoming pretty blurry, especially once you're using Cin7 for purchasing, manufacturing, warehouse management, order management and accounting integrations.
There are also two main Cin7 products which are actually quite different platforms:
Cin7 Core is the platform previously known as DEAR Systems.
Cin7 Omni is the original Cin7 product.
Cin7 acquired DEAR Systems in February 2021 and then renamed DEAR to Cin7 Core in January 2023. The existing Cin7 product became Cin7 Omni at the same time.
This distinction is important because when someone says they use "Cin7", you still need to establish which Cin7 they're actually talking about.
Cin7 Core vs Cin7 Omni: which one should you use?
There isn't a universal answer here, but from our experience working with both platforms, we generally prefer Cin7 Core.
We find Core easier to use day-to-day and the admin interface is a bit more intuitive. If we were helping a Shopify merchant choose between the two from scratch, Core would usually be our starting point.
That doesn't mean Omni is the wrong platform. If your business is already heavily invested in Omni or relies on specific Omni workflows then moving platforms just for the sake of it probably doesn't make sense. Omni also has functionality around areas like EDI, 3PL connectivity and more complicated omnichannel operations which may be relevant to some larger businesses.
The main point is that they shouldn't really be treated as two versions of the same piece of software. They came from two separate products and they still work differently.
How does the Cin7 Shopify integration work?
Both Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni have native pre-built Shopify connectors.
This means a standard Shopify and Cin7 integration doesn't normally require your Shopify agency to build middleware or maintain a completely custom API integration.
There are also quite a few configuration options inside both integrations. You can control things like how products are mapped, when orders are captured, how locations work and which system is responsible for different pieces of data.
What can Cin7 Core sync with Shopify?
At a high level, the native Cin7 Core Shopify integration can handle:
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Products and variants between Shopify and Cin7 Core
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Shopify orders into Cin7 Core
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Stock levels from Cin7 Core into Shopify
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Fulfilment information and order processing
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Customer and selected order information, including Shopify order tags and additional properties
Core allows products to be created in either system and then downloaded or listed into the other. One particularly important thing to understand is that while product information can move both ways, inventory quantities flow from Cin7 Core to Shopify rather than Shopify back into Core.
You can also configure things like when Shopify orders are imported, whether orders are consolidated, how pick/pack/ship works, location mappings and which platform should take priority for product information.
What can Cin7 Omni sync with Shopify?
At a high level, Cin7 Omni can handle:
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Products and Shopify variants
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Shopify sales orders and refunds
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Customer information
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Stock across mapped Shopify locations
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Product pricing and product updates
Omni can also upload products into Shopify or download new Shopify products into Cin7 and create the mappings between them.
There are quite a few configuration options here as well, including stock locations, pricing tiers, product updates and order processing.
One important current limitation is Shopify Markets. Cin7's documentation states that Omni doesn't currently support Shopify Markets functionality such as uploading different prices for different currencies or routing different Shopify Markets into different Omni branches. If you're operating a larger international Shopify setup, this is something worth investigating during discovery rather than finding out halfway through the project.
Shopify line item properties can also be passed into Cin7
Another useful part of the integration is the ability to pass additional Shopify order information.
For example, you might have a product configurator where a customer chooses an engraving, custom measurement or another piece of information which isn't simply represented by the SKU.
Cin7 Core can import additional Shopify properties into the sale comment field. Omni has similar functionality where Shopify product properties can be added into the notes associated with the order line.
This can be really useful when you've built custom Shopify functionality and the warehouse needs that information to actually fulfil the order.
You still need to think carefully about how that data is structured though. Just because a value can technically make it into Cin7 doesn't necessarily mean it's going to arrive in the format your warehouse team needs.
Where should new products be created?
This is probably one of the bigger architecture decisions when setting up Shopify and Cin7.
There are two reasonable approaches and which one we recommend depends on how the business operates.
Option 1: Create products in Shopify first
One workflow we've used is creating the ecommerce product in Shopify first and then pulling that product down into Cin7.
Both Core and Omni support downloading Shopify products into Cin7.
The advantage is that Shopify generally has the product structure you actually care about for the ecommerce experience.
This becomes particularly useful with products that have colour and size variants. Sometimes trying to create the exact variant structure you want inside an inventory platform and then pushing that into Shopify is more annoying than just creating it correctly in Shopify to begin with.
You can create the Shopify product exactly how it needs to appear online, then use the Cin7 integration to bring the underlying products and variants into Cin7.
But this isn't a one-size-fits-all recommendation.
Option 2: Create the base product in Cin7 first
If Cin7 is genuinely your source of truth for products then we generally prefer creating the base product there first and syncing it into Shopify.
For example, if products are already being created inside Cin7 as part of your purchasing, manufacturing or operational process then creating the same product separately in Shopify doesn't make much sense.
Cin7 Core can list existing Core products directly into Shopify and Omni has similar product upload functionality.
You can then treat Cin7 as the source of truth for the operational information while Shopify handles the ecommerce-specific information.
This is normally a cleaner long-term setup if you can get the product structure working properly.
The decision really comes down to your internal process.
If your operations team creates every new SKU inside Cin7 before the ecommerce team even sees it, Cin7-first probably makes sense.
If your ecommerce team creates products first and Cin7 is mainly being used for stock and fulfilment, Shopify-first can sometimes be much easier.
Don't try to make Cin7 your PIM
One of our bigger recommendations with a Cin7 and Shopify integration is to be fairly deliberate about what information you actually ask Cin7 to manage.
We generally want Cin7 handling operational product data such as:
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SKU
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Barcode
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Variants
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Stock
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Pricing where relevant
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Purchasing and inventory information
Then we'd usually let Shopify own most of the enriched ecommerce content.
Things like long-form product descriptions, lifestyle imagery, Shopify metafields, metaobjects, merchandising data and other content used to actually build out the storefront generally don't need to move backwards and forwards between Shopify and Cin7.
Shopify's product data model has also become much richer over the last few years with metafields and metaobjects.
Trying to replicate all of that inside your inventory management platform can create a lot of unnecessary complexity.
This is also a real limitation in the integrations rather than just our preference. Cin7 Omni confirmed that Shopify metafield syncing wasn't supported when the functionality was raised through its feature request system, with merchants continuing to request product metafield support into 2026.
If you have a really large operation where detailed product information genuinely does need to move between Shopify, retail stores, marketplaces and multiple other channels, then you're probably starting to get into PIM territory anyway.
At that point we would rather introduce a proper product information management system and define clear responsibilities between the PIM, Cin7 and Shopify instead of trying to make Cin7 do everything.
Be careful with Shopify bundles
Bundles are another area where we'd spend more time testing.
A standard SKU mapping is reasonably straightforward. Shopify product A maps to Cin7 product A and Cin7 manages the available stock.
Bundles aren't always that simple.
The Shopify storefront may display one product while inventory actually needs to be deducted from several component SKUs. Bundle apps can also change how products or order lines are represented inside Shopify.
Cin7's own documentation warns that Omni may not support every feature created by Shopify third-party applications when those apps change Shopify's normal structure or workflows.
That doesn't mean you can't run Shopify bundles with Cin7. You absolutely can.
It just means this is one of the areas where we'd normally build a proof of concept before deciding on the final architecture.
Create a bundle, place some test orders, check exactly what reaches Cin7, check how the component inventory is reduced and then test the fulfilment flow back into Shopify.
It's much easier to work this out with ten test products than after you've migrated a catalogue of 10,000 SKUs.
The source of truth matters more than the connector
The actual Cin7 Shopify connector is only one part of the integration.
The bigger question is deciding which platform owns each piece of information.
A typical architecture might look something like this:
Cin7: SKU, inventory, purchasing, warehouse information and operational pricing.
Shopify: ecommerce content, images, descriptions, metafields, metaobjects, SEO content and merchandising.
Then clearly define where products are initially created and what happens when something changes.
Once those rules are agreed the integration itself becomes much easier to configure.
Without those rules you end up with both platforms trying to update the same information, which is normally where things start going wrong.
Do you need a Shopify developer to integrate Cin7?
For a completely standard setup, not necessarily.
Both Cin7 products already have native Shopify integrations and Cin7 provides documentation for connecting them.
Where Shopify developers or ecommerce consultants become more useful is when the integration is part of a larger Shopify migration or you have more complicated requirements.
This could include multiple warehouses, Shopify Markets, bundles, custom product configurators, wholesale, unusual variant structures, multiple storefronts or an existing catalogue that needs to be migrated without breaking the current operational workflow.
For these projects we generally recommend mapping the data flows first and then testing anything unusual in a Shopify development store before committing to the final solution.
Cin7 is widely used in New Zealand and overall it works well with Shopify. The native integrations cover a lot. The main thing is not treating the integration as simply turning on a connector.
You need to decide what Cin7 should own, what Shopify should own and how products, orders and inventory should move between the two.
We've worked with both Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni across Shopify projects in New Zealand and Australia. If you're looking for Shopify developers in NZ or need help figuring out the architecture between Shopify and Cin7, this is the type of integration work we can help with.