I’m working with Shopify’s API and facing a challenge with updating stock levels for around 1000 products. Making individual API requests for each item seems really inefficient and will definitely cause rate limiting issues.
I know I could space out the requests using some kind of queue system to avoid hitting the rate limits, but that still means making 1000 separate calls which takes forever. The API doesn’t seem to have a native bulk update endpoint where you can send multiple product IDs in one request.
Has anyone found a better approach for this? Maybe there’s a GraphQL solution or some other bulk operation method I’m missing? Looking for ways to optimize this process beyond the basic one-call-per-item approach.
GraphQL mutations are your best bet. Had this exact problem 6 months ago syncing inventory from our warehouse system. REST API sucks for bulk operations, but GraphQL Admin API has bulk operations that handle this way more efficiently. Use bulkOperationRunMutation to queue inventory adjustments for multiple variants at once. It runs async and sends a webhook when done. Downside is you’ll need to poll for status or handle webhooks, but it’s way better than making thousands of individual calls. If it’s a one-time sync, Shopify’s inventory CSV import through admin works great too. For recurring updates though, stick with GraphQL bulk operations - they handle rate limiting internally and process much faster than throttling REST calls yourself.