> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.violet.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.violet.io/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel.md).

# Sales Channel Publishing

When a Violet channel is set up as a Shopify sales channel, the channel appears in the merchant's Shopify admin alongside their other sales channels. The merchant decides, product by product, which products are available to that channel, and Violet syncs only those.

This replaces the previous behavior, where connecting a Shopify store shared the merchant's entire catalog with the channel.

{% hint style="info" %}
This is the shared concept page for the feature. The rest of this section builds on it:

* [Setting Up Your Sales Channel App](/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel/setup.md): build the Shopify app that acts as your sales channel
* [Publication-Scoped Catalog Sync](/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel/catalog-sync.md): what changes for your Violet API integration
* [Enablement & Rollout](/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel/enablement.md): turn the feature on and roll it out to merchants
* [Troubleshooting & FAQ](/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel/troubleshooting.md): common issues and answers
  {% endhint %}

## How Shopify models this

Two Shopify concepts do the work. You'll see both names throughout our documentation and in the Shopify API.

**Channel.** A destination where a merchant's products can be sold: their online store, point of sale, a marketplace, or an app like yours. When a merchant connects to a Violet channel configured for this feature, Violet creates a channel on their store during setup. The channel is named after the Violet app, so merchants see the partner's brand rather than "Violet."

**Publication.** Every channel has an associated publication: the set of products the merchant has made available to that channel. The publication is the actual list Violet reads from. A product that is not in the publication does not exist as far as the channel is concerned.

In the Shopify admin, merchants never see the word "publication." They see a checkbox for the channel on each product, and the act of ticking it is what adds the product to the publication.

## Who controls what

|                                          | Violet                        | Merchant   |
| ---------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- | ---------- |
| Creating the channel on the store        | ✅ automatically, during setup |            |
| Deciding which products the channel gets |                               | ✅ entirely |
| Syncing the published products           | ✅ continuously                |            |
| Removing a product from the channel      |                               | ✅          |

**Violet never publishes or unpublishes products on the merchant's behalf.** Product selection is the merchant's decision, made in their own admin, and it can change at any time without notice to the channel. This is the point of the feature: merchants get explicit, granular control over what they share, using the same interface they already use for every other sales channel.

## The three states of a product

**Not published.** The merchant has never made the product available to the channel. Violet does not sync it, and no record of it exists in the channel's catalog. New channels begin with every product in this state.

**Published.** The merchant has made the product available. Violet syncs it and it appears in the channel's catalog as an [Offer](/prism/catalog/offers.md), with each Shopify variant as a [SKU](/prism/catalog/skus.md).

**Unpublished after having been published.** The merchant has removed the product's availability. Violet marks the corresponding Offer `publishing_status: NOT_PUBLISHED`, and the product stops being sellable through the channel. Nothing is deleted: the Offer keeps its id, its data, and its SKUs, and its `status`, `available`, and `visible` are unchanged, because the product still exists and can keep selling in the merchant's own store. Re-publishing sets `publishing_status: PUBLISHED` again, on the same Offer.

## What this feature does *not* change

Sales channel publishing controls **catalog membership only**. Everything else about a Shopify connection behaves exactly as it did before:

* Order submission, order status, fulfillment, and refunds
* Inventory quantities and multi-location inventory
* Pricing, including contextual and multi-currency pricing
* Product data: titles, descriptions, media, variants, options, metafields
* Existing catalog rules such as collection filters and excluded tags or vendors, which continue to apply *on top of* publication filtering

Orders that were already placed are never affected by a merchant unpublishing a product.


---

# Agent Instructions
This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com.

## Querying This Documentation
If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter, and the optional `goal` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.violet.io/ecom-platforms/shopify/sales-channel.md?ask=<question>&goal=<endgoal>
```

`ask` is the immediate question: it should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
`goal` is optional and describes the broader end goal you are ultimately trying to accomplish on behalf of the user. GitBook uses it to tailor the answer towards what is most useful for that goal.

The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.