Most of what the app does happens without you. This page sets out precisely what runs on its own, what triggers it, and what each one needs in order to run at all. It is worth reading once, because "why has nothing happened yet?" is almost always answered by a schedule that has not come round yet.
The important thing to understand up front is that the app does not have one single sync. It has several independent jobs on different clocks, and they are not interchangeable. A price sync will not push your stock. A stock push will not fetch you a price.
| What | When it runs | Requires |
|---|---|---|
| Price sync (Amazon prices and Buy Box status into Shopify) | Your plan's interval. Free every 24 hours. Growth, Growth + Markets and Full every 6 hours. Full can buy a 3h, 2h or 1h tier as an add-on. | An Amazon account connected, and variants mapped to ASINs. Available on every plan including Free. |
| FBM inventory push (Shopify stock out to Amazon) | Not scheduled. It fires within seconds of a Shopify stock change, and on demand. | Growth and above. The SKU must be merchant-fulfilled (FBM). |
| MCF reconciliation (Amazon FBA order status and tracking pulled back) | Periodically. | Fulfilment by Amazon set up. Available on every plan. |
That is the complete list. Nothing else in the app runs on a timer, and nothing runs against Amazon on your behalf beyond these three jobs.
This is the job most merchants think of as "the sync". It fetches the lowest New offer price for each of your mapped ASINs, in your home marketplace and in every marketplace you have mapped, and writes the results into your Shopify store as metafields. It also records whether you are holding the Buy Box, which is what builds the Buy Box report over time.
Its cadence comes from your plan and nothing else. There is no cadence control in the app. Settings > Automation shows you what your schedule is, but it is read-only.
If you cannot wait for the next run, Sync now on the Dashboard runs it immediately. It reports back "Updated {n} price(s), {n} skipped, {n} errors". The button is disabled until an Amazon account is connected.
Note
Older versions of these docs claimed different intervals for different paid plans. That was wrong. Growth, Growth + Markets and Full all sync every 6 hours by default. Only the Full plan can purchase a faster tier.
Worth stating plainly, because it is the question people ask.
The app does not change your Amazon prices, on a schedule or otherwise, and it does not push product content to Amazon. Price sync reads. The only thing the app writes to Amazon automatically is merchant-fulfilled stock, covered below, and the fulfilment instructions for orders you have chosen to send to Amazon through MCF.
Your Shopify product content is a separate matter, and it is also not automatic. The AI tools on the Listings page only change a product when you click Save to Shopify yourself. There is no scheduled or background rewriting of your catalogue.
This one is different in kind, and it is a good thing. There is no scheduled inventory sync. Instead, Shopify notifies the app the instant your stock level changes, and the app pushes the new quantity to Amazon within seconds. An order comes in on your storefront, your Shopify stock drops, and Amazon knows almost immediately.
You can also push manually at any time with Sync all FBM inventory, or Sync FBM on a single product.
The quantity sent is your Shopify quantity exactly as it stands, floored at zero. There is no buffer or safety-stock setting to configure. See How FBM stock reaches Amazon.
Note that this applies only to merchant-fulfilled (FBM) SKUs. If Amazon holds the stock, the SKU is FBA, and FBA is read-only in this app. The app shows you Amazon's availability but never writes to it.
If you use Fulfilment by Amazon to have Amazon fulfil your Shopify orders, the app periodically checks back with Amazon on the orders it has sent, pulling in status changes, tracking numbers, cancellations and returns, and updating the order in Shopify. Amazon does not report everything the moment it happens, so a status can take a little while to settle.