Built a Shopify app to stop small sellers from overselling across channels — looking for early feedback
Hey IH 👋
I'm based in South Africa, and I just shipped my first real SaaS: Inventory Sync, a small Shopify app for sellers who also sell in-store, on Etsy, or at markets.
The problem I kept hearing about: someone sells an item in person or on another channel, forgets to update Shopify, and it gets sold again online — refund, apology, unhappy customer. Small multi-channel sellers deal with this constantly and most existing tools are built for bigger operations.
What it does right now: pulls your Shopify inventory into one dashboard so you can see stock across channels in one place, with more channel integrations (Etsy, manual in-store counts) planned next.
Where it's at: fully working OAuth install, live inventory sync from Shopify, and billing through Shopify's own Billing API (so it's a proper recurring subscription, not a sketchy external checkout). $29/month with a 14-day free trial. Not yet on the Shopify App Store — currently onboarding merchants directly while I finish the App Store requirements (embedded admin UI, compliance webhooks).
What I'd love feedback on:
If you run a Shopify store that also sells elsewhere, does this solve a real pain for you?
Is $29/month reasonable for this, or off?
Anything that would make you not trust installing a small indie-built app on your store?
Happy to give free access to the first few people who want to kick the tires — genuinely want the harsh feedback before I put more time into it.
👉 Check it out here: https://inventory-sync-starter.onrender.com
The "insurance, not nice-to-have" framing above is spot on, and it points at a concrete feature: the oversell almost always happens in the sync window - those minutes between an offline sale and Shopify catching up. Even great sync can't fully close that gap. A cheap stopgap that makes the insurance real: a per-product safety buffer (hold back 1-2 units) sellers can toggle on their high-risk SKUs. It prevents most double-sales while you build the deeper real-time integrations, and it gives you a very demoable "here's the bad day we just prevented" moment for onboarding. Congrats on shipping - sharp first wedge.
Congrats on shipping! The problem framing is clear and specific, which matters more than anything at this stage — it's obviously a real pain, not a vague "productivity" pitch. I just went through launch week myself with SlideRoll (a photo cleanup app), so I get the current stage. One question: are people converting from just seeing the sync dashboard, or does it take an actual overselling incident happening to them first before they feel the urgency? That distinction between "nice to have" and "insurance against a bad day" seems like it'd shape your onboarding a lot.
i'll be happy if you try the 14 day trial and give me a response
Honestly, don't know yet and I think that's the right answer to give you.
I just switched to Shopify's native Billing API and haven't had enough paying conversions to say definitively. But it's exactly the question I'm building my onboarding around right now.
My working hypothesis: this is an "insurance" product, not a "nice to have" one. Nobody gets excited about an inventory dashboard in the abstract — the people who'll convert fast and stick around are the ones who've already had an overselling incident and felt that pain. So I'm testing this directly: every merchant I talk to, I ask upfront whether they've had a customer buy something that had already sold elsewhere. If yes, I lean into "never let this happen again." If no, I show them a live example of how it could happen with their own store, instead of pitching features.
That's actually part of why I built in a 14-day free trial with no card required — for the "haven't been burned yet" group, low-risk trial access lets them sit with the dashboard long enough to either spot a near-miss themselves or just get comfortable with it before paying. I'll have real conversion numbers split across both groups within a couple weeks — happy to report back once I do.
I like that you're starting with overselling instead of inventory management.
For small merchants, inventory isn't the problem. Uncertainty is. Once sellers stop wondering whether the last unit has already been sold somewhere else, a lot of downstream operational friction disappears.
thanks, it would mean alot if you check it out and give me your feedback. It has a 14 days trial no card needed
Happy to.
I'd rather give you thoughtful feedback than quick impressions in a thread. If you're open to that, what's the best email to reach you on?
[email protected] heres the link https://inventory-sync-starter.onrender.com
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.