DawsonyWeb – Catalog Bridge
Setup and everyday use.

Install the plugin

Download the Free ZIP. In WordPress, open Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, select the ZIP, install it and activate DawsonyWeb Catalog Bridge. Install and activate WooCommerce first.

Requirements: WordPress 6.6 or later, PHP 8.0 or later with OpenSSL, WooCommerce 9.2 or later, and a working WordPress scheduled-event runner. The supplier and retailer must use the same currency and compatible tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive pricing.

Install directly from this page. WooCommerce destinations have passed real local integration tests over HTTPS. Shopify has passed 35 checks against a real development store, including browser OAuth, token renewal, image processing and 100-variant imports. Test your own product shapes and settings on staging before live use. Hosted retailer invitations are now available to approved pilot stores. Public Shopify app distribution is awaiting review.

Follow the reviewed sync flow

Open WooCommerce → Catalog Bridge. The overview brings together connected stores, queued work, products needing attention and recent activity. Free supports one retailer connection.

WooCommerce is the supplier source. The bridge sends approved product information and numerical retail prices to Shopify or WooCommerce retailers. Pro can optionally mirror supplier stock quantities. Customer orders, fulfilment, reverse updates and automatic publication are outside this release.

Connect a Shopify or WooCommerce retailer

For hosted Shopify connections, the retailer installs Catalog Bridge through Shopify and opens it to create a private rc_ connection code. In Connected stores, choose Shopify, enter a retailer name, select DawsonyWeb retailer invitation and paste that code into Retailer connection.

For approved pilot stores, pair your supplier at dawsony.com/account/catalog-bridge and save its pairing key in WordPress. After saving the retailer connection code, create and privately share its invitation link. The retailer pastes it into the installed Shopify app, reviews the supplier name and URL, then approves. Choose Check invitation and Test connection before the first sync. Products and prices go directly from WordPress to Shopify; DawsonyWeb handles authorization and renewal only.

For your own Shopify app, use read_products and write_products access. Choose OAuth authorization, an existing Admin API access token, or client credentials for an app and store in the same Shopify organisation. Client credentials are not for unrelated retailers. Shopify app registration, installation and permitted distribution must be arranged separately.

For OAuth, register the exact callback shown in Help & setup (version 1.1.1 uses admin-post.php?dwcb_oauth=1) and use a publicly reachable HTTPS WordPress address. Save the app client ID and secret, then choose Authorize Shopify. Test the connection to check access and currency before preparing work.

For WooCommerce, choose WooCommerce and enter the retailer’s final HTTPS store URL, including any WordPress subdirectory but excluding wp-admin and wp-json. In the retailer, create a Read/Write key at WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → REST API for a user who can manage products and WooCommerce settings. Save the consumer key and secret here, then test the connection. No retailer companion plugin is needed.

Secrets are encrypted with WordPress authentication salts and are not returned in the edit form. Blank credential fields preserve saved values. Changing salts or migrating a database to different salts may require reconnecting the store.

Keep wholesale and retail prices separate

Choose RRP as the connection’s price source. Edit each supplier product, enable Catalog Bridge and enter its separate recommended retail price. For a variable product, set the retail price on each exported variation. The ordinary WooCommerce price remains the wholesale checkout price.

Alternatively, choose WooCommerce regular price. This sends the regular price rather than the sale price. No currency conversion or tax calculation happens in the bridge. WooCommerce destinations receive regular prices; existing sale prices and sale schedules remain retailer-managed. The connection checks matching currency, decimal places and tax-inclusive/exclusive input prices.

Prepare products and existing retailer mappings

Use published simple or variable products, opt them into Catalog Bridge, and assign a unique non-empty SKU and valid retail price to every exported product or variation. Up to 100 variations and three variation options per product are supported. Every option must have an explicit value; wildcard “Any…” values and duplicate option combinations are rejected.

To reuse a retailer product, open Products & mapping → Link an existing retailer product. Enter the supplier parent product ID and either the WooCommerce retailer’s numeric product ID or the Shopify product GID, such as gid://shopify/Product/123456789. The bridge checks the remote product and matches each supplier SKU exactly. It never matches products by title alone.

Resolve duplicate SKUs, changed options or removed mapped variants before retrying. Do not relink an existing mapping to a different product without first reviewing its ownership and data.

Prepare a first full sync

Choose Prepare full sync on the connection. A background scan prepares eligible products for review. It does not immediately change the retailer catalogue. Start with a small sample containing a simple product and a variable product.

Open Activity & approvals and inspect Review snapshot. Compare supplier details, proposed retail prices and current retailer values. Approve individual snapshots or the selected retailer’s snapshots currently displayed on the page. Approval is tied to the exact proposal shown; a changed proposal needs another review.

The worker rechecks supplier data and retailer prices before writing. New products are created as drafts with supplier content and images. The retailer must be able to fetch the supplier image URLs publicly. The retailer checks and publishes each draft in its store. New WooCommerce variable products use a stable bridge-generated parent SKU; variation SKUs match the supplier.

Existing publication settings and image galleries are retained. Titles and descriptions on existing products only change when content updates are enabled for the connection.

Review later price changes

Free detects supplier changes and queues work for review. Open Activity & approvals, inspect the latest snapshot and approve it when ready. You can also preview one product or prepare another full scan.

If a retailer changes a managed price, the bridge can flag a conflict. Review the latest values and either approve the intended update or dismiss the job to retain the retailer price. Dismiss is not a permanent product exclusion: a later supplier change can create a new review.

Pause the connection or disable Catalog Bridge on the supplier product when you want to stop future work. This plugin does not delete or automatically unpublish retailer products.

Check the queue and recover from errors

Needs review means a snapshot is waiting for approval. Queued work depends on the scheduled worker; check WordPress cron or WooCommerce Scheduled Actions if it does not move. A full scan and its individual product jobs are separate stages. A server cron is recommended for low-traffic supplier sites.

For a failed job, read the recorded error, fix credentials, access, SKUs, prices or variation options, then retry. Temporary rate limits and availability failures can retry automatically. Repeated scans do not make a waiting worker run faster.

A successful connection test does not prove every product is exportable. Validate drafts, prices, content ownership, conflicts and tax settings on a staging retailer before moving to live data. The development-store suite covers the documented workflow; each merchant still needs an appropriately installed app and eligible distribution.

Understand the data sent to retailers

Connection, preview and sync actions contact the configured Shopify Admin GraphQL API or WooCommerce REST API v3. Authentication data, product identifiers, approved titles and descriptions, SKUs, variation options, retail prices and new-product image URLs are sent as needed. No customer or order data is synchronised.

Credentials, product mappings, queue snapshots and activity records are stored in the supplier WordPress database. Limit administrator access, maintain normal backups and remove private data and app credentials from support screenshots.

The Shopify account, app installation and any Shopify charges are separate from this free WordPress download. Refer to Shopify’s service terms and privacy policy when configuring the retailer connection.

Activate Pro, updates and support

Pro adds multiple retailer connections, automatic mapped-product updates, category selection, markup rules, price endings, optional stock quantities and white-label WordPress console branding. Retailer stores do not consume licence sites; plans count supplier WordPress installations.

Purchase an annual plan on this page, review the terms and pay through Stripe. After confirmation, download the private Pro ZIP and licence from your Dawsony account. Install Free 1.3.5 first, then Pro 1.3.5. Open Pro & branding and activate the licence for this supplier site.

White labelling is available in Pro & branding: set the supplier console name, accent colour and HTTPS Media Library logo. This changes the WordPress console; Shopify permissions, Dawsony account/licence pages and legal identities are retained.

Optional stock: in Connected stores enable Supplier stock and enter a whole-number buffer per SKU. Every supplier SKU must manage its own stock; unlimited stock and shared parent pools are rejected. For Shopify enter an active online-fulfilment location ID and obtain write_inventory/read_locations permissions. Retailers approve optional inventory access inside the embedded Shopify app. Preview and approve stock for each mapped product before automatic stock updates start. Buffer/location changes require a new review.

The supplier is the agreed stock source of truth. Mirroring replaces retailer quantities with max(0, supplier stock minus buffer); supplier out-of-stock sends zero. Retailer backorder settings and other Shopify locations are retained. Retailer orders are not sent to the supplier and quantities are not reserved across stores. Agree order reporting separately to avoid overselling. WooCommerce has no atomic stock comparison; use one agreed writer for managed inventory. Disable Supplier stock to resume price-only updates.

Installed Pro features continue working after licence expiry or licensing outages; private downloads, updates and support require active entitlement. Cancel future renewal through Manage Billing. Hosted Shopify onboarding remains a controlled pilot pending Shopify App Store approval.

Updates and support

Free 1.3.5 is distributed directly from this page. For an update, back up and test first, download the latest ZIP here, then use Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin to replace the installed version. Do not assume WordPress.org or Shopify App Store updates are available.

For help, include WordPress, WooCommerce, PHP and Catalog Bridge versions, the authentication method and the recorded error with private data removed. Never share an app secret, access token or WooCommerce consumer key/secret. A small reproducible test product is more useful than a production catalogue export.