As a support agent for Syncer I help customers with all kinds of questions and issues every day. In this blog I'm sharing an interesting case from the past sprint, in which a customer ran into a specific problem and how I solved it.
A customer called us in a panic and was very emotional because all of her manual changes in Shopify had been overwritten by the synchronisation from Lightspeed. She had spent a lot of time adjusting categories, content and the structure of her store, but those changes kept being undone by Syncer's automatic sync.
The synchronisation between Lightspeed and Shopify was still on, so Lightspeed kept pushing the original content and structure to Shopify. That meant every change the customer made in Shopify was overwritten as soon as the sync ran again. The customer wasn't aware of this and felt powerless because all her work seemed to be lost.
Explanation and advice: we first reassured the customer and explained that the sync ran daily but could also be paused. We also explained that this could actually have a positive effect on SEO, because a lot already changes during a migration. The consistency of content between both platforms would work out better if the content was first edited in Lightspeed and then pushed to Shopify.
Strategic approach: we advised the customer to make content and category changes first in Lightspeed. That way the changes would sync to Shopify correctly without being lost. The content gets indexed by search engines that way, and the SEO impact will be minimal because there are no major content changes at go-live.
Stopping the category-menu sync: once all the desired changes had been made correctly in Lightspeed, we disabled the category-menu sync. That gave the customer full control over the category structure in Shopify, without it being overwritten by Lightspeed again.
Testing and confirming: together with the customer we checked that everything was set up correctly and that the changes now stuck.
With this approach the customer could keep her desired structure and content in Shopify, while Lightspeed still synced the category content correctly. She was relieved and happy that everything was now in place. Although her earlier work had been lost, she was glad the problem was solved and that she'd received SEO advice. Now everything is set up correctly and she's ready to go live with her store soon!
Be aware of active synchronisations when switching from Lightspeed to Shopify, so you don't get unwanted overwrites.
Make content and category changes first in Lightspeed while the sync is still active, so they're picked up correctly and not overwritten by Syncer.
Disable syncs where needed to gain more control over the store layout in Shopify.
By identifying this problem quickly and guiding the customer step by step, we could turn a stressful situation into a successful outcome. It highlights the importance of good sync management during store migrations!
