When you create a large variable product in WooCommerce through our WordPress plugin, it can happen that not all variations are received correctly. A product with hundreds of variations often results in a JSON file that’s several megabytes in size. While everything may work flawlessly in your local environment, the live server might only process part of the data through the REST API. This can lead to situations where, for example, only seven variations appear even though hundreds were sent.

Why this problem occurs

The issue usually doesn’t come from your code but from how the web server and PHP handle large requests.
When a REST request contains too much data, the server may partially truncate or reject the JSON payload. WordPress then receives only part of the information and decodes it as if it were complete. As a result, the process appears successful, but many variations are missing.

This happens due to input limitations. Both PHP and the web server have configuration limits that determine how much data can be processed per request. These limits are there to protect the server, but they can be too restrictive when working with large WooCommerce products.

Check your server limits

To determine whether these limits are too low, you can review the current configuration on your environment.
Typical settings can be found in the php.ini file or via the WordPress system information screen.

Pay special attention to:

• post_max_size – defines the maximum amount of data allowed in a POST request
• upload_max_filesize – controls the maximum file size for uploads
• memory_limit – determines how much memory PHP is allowed to use
• max_input_vars and max_input_nesting_level – affect how many and how deeply nested variables can be processed

If these limits are set too low, your JSON may only be partially read. For large variable products, the request size can easily exceed 5 MB, which may trigger these restrictions.

By reviewing and adjusting these limits where appropriate, you can ensure that all product variations are received correctly through the WooCommerce REST API.

Once you start working with multiple stock locations in StoreLinkr, for example a store and a warehouse, we will create both of these in the Shopify integration.
We will only create the stock locations if all address details are known in the StoreLinkr portal. First check this in Catalog -> Stock locations. Make sure all details have been filled in.

To ensure that the locations are known in Shopify, you can synchronize them. Do this from StoreLinkr, click on “Synchronize now -> Export” in the top right corner of the Stock Locations screen.

Check location settings

Then go to your Shopify admin environment. Click on the gear icon with Settings in the bottom left corner. A pop-up will open.
Next, click on Locations. You should see your stock locations that are also known in StoreLinkr:

Check the new stock locations by clicking on both of them. You need to activate the visibility of these locations in your online store. They can then be used for inventory and during checkout.

As an example, we have activated both options (shipping and pickup) for this location:

Save the settings at the top of the page to continue.

Displaying stock locations on the product page

By default, it is not possible to display the new locations directly on your store page. To do this, you can create a Liquid (technical) or ask a Shopify developer to do it for you.

Our connection creates product attributes using metafields. These metafields are not displayed in your online store by default, but you can configure this setting.

To do so, go to Settings (bottom left) and click on Custom data:

Then click on “Product definitions” to edit them.

Link StoreLinkr definitions to your properties

To use the created meta fields in your Shopify store, you must first add them as a definition. To do this, click on the “View unstructured meta fields” button:

A list of unlinked meta fields will now be displayed. Select the fields you want to use in your online store and click on “Add definition” behind the definition:

Then create the definition by entering a name and description. Select the single line text type (or another type that suits your needs):

Check the options at the bottom of the page and activate what is needed in your online store:

Save the definition and the product property will now also be displayed with the products in the Shopify admin.

Please note: this article is intended for (theme) developers who work on a WordPress site.

In our StoreLinkr plugin, we use various meta fields to make all product information available in the WooCommerce shop.

Product variants – Variable product

There are options within a variable product. Each option is a separate product, also within StoreLinkr. At the variant option level, you can retrieve the following metafields:

Single products

There are also separate products, which we create as Single products. At the product level, you can retrieve the following metafields:

Example code for using a metafield

If you want to use a meta field as a developer, you can use the snippet below in your code:

<?php

$product = wc_get_product(3); // the id
$stock_locations = $product->get_meta(‘stock_locations’);

// Display a list of stock locations for this product
var_dump($stock_locations);

To automatically load products into StoreLinkr, we need a token from CycleSoftware. With the API token, we can retrieve the products from the correct branch directly from CycleSoftware and import them into the SitePack Connect environment.

Where can I find the SitePack key in CycleSoftware?

To find the correct key, follow the steps below in CycleSoftware:

• Log in to the correct account in CycleSoftware
• Click on Manage -> Settings
• Under the heading ‘Links’, search for ‘Stock and sales platforms’.
• Then click on SitePack.
• Generate and copy the API key for the desired branch.

Add API key in StoreLinkr

Enter the CycleSoftware API key when creating a workflow on StoreLinkr when you create a new task for import products, or exporting orders to CycleSoftware.

We will ensure that the categories and products are automatically added to the StoreLinkr environment within a few minutes. It may take a few minutes before all data is visible in the portal.

Currently, there is no StoreLinkr app available in the Shopify app store. Fortunately, it is possible to create a free connection to the StoreLinkr platform. In this article, we explain how you can set this up.

If you are unable to complete these steps, we will be happy to help you. Please contact us and we will be happy to assist you.

Creating an app in Shopify

To start using the StoreLinkr link, you need to create an app in your Shopify online store. Log in to Shopify and click on “Settings” at the bottom left.

Then click on “Apps and sales channels” in the menu:

Next, click on “Develop apps”:

And then on “Create an app”:

Enter the app name, for example StoreLinkr, and select the user who will manage the app. Then press the Create app button:

You should now have successfully created the app! Now it’s time to configure the API Scopes. To do this, click on Configure Admin API Scopes.

Activate the following scopes to ensure the link works as well as possible:

• write_customers
• read_customers
• write_orders
• read_orders
• write_publications
• read_publications
• write_order_edits
• read_order_edits
• write_draft_orders
• read_draft_orders
• write_assigned_fulfillment_orders
• read_assigned_fulfillment_orders
• write_fulfillments
• read_fulfillments
• write_inventory
• read_inventory
• write_locations
• read_locations
• write_product_listings
• read_product_listings
• write_products
• read_products
• write_returns
• read_returns

After activating the above scopes, press the black Save button to save the settings:

Important: select and note which API version your application uses. This must match exactly with the setting in StoreLinkr. You can find the API version at the bottom of this page under the heading Webhook subscriptions:

Make sure that the (latest) version is always selected here.

Install & activate Shopify app

Once the above steps have been completed, it is time to activate the app. First click on the API Credentials tab and then on the Install app button:

Confirm the installation by clicking Install again.

Copy tokens

After activation, you can view the token once on the API credentials tab. To do this, click on the “Reveal token once” link and copy this token to a notepad or email. Please note: this token can only be viewed once!

Now scroll down until you see the API key and API secret key. Copy this information to your notepad so that we can then set it up in StoreLinkr. It looks like this:

Shop name

As a final step, we need the shop name to establish the connection. If you are logged into Shopify, you can find this in the address bar at the top of your browser. In this example, it is “my-shop”:

https://admin.shopify.com/store/mijn-winkel/settings/apps/development

Copy the shop name and add it to the StoreLinkr configuration.