# Sales channel

> A sales channel is somewhere your Shopify products are on sale, such as your website, a marketplace, or a till in a shop.

- Source: https://storestandards.com/glossary/sales-channel/
- Updated: 2026-08-14
- Author: Ruth Alderman, Words, Store Standards

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Your online store is one. So is [Shopify POS](https://storestandards.com/glossary/shopify-pos/), and so
is every marketplace you have plugged in.

## One count, many shopfronts

All of them read the same
[available inventory](https://storestandards.com/glossary/available-inventory/). Sell the last one at
the till and the website should stop offering it within seconds.

That is the promise, and it holds well for Shopify's own channels. It holds
less well the further out you go.

## Publish per product

A product is available on a channel only if it is published there. Adding a
channel does not publish your catalogue to it, which is a good default and a
common surprise.

Check the channel column on the product list after any bulk import.

## Where it goes wrong

A marketplace syncs on a delay. The last unit sells on Shopify at 10:02 and
the marketplace is still offering it at 10:20, so you take an order you cannot
fill. Holding a small buffer on slow channels is cheaper than the cancellation
rate that follows.

The other one is the same product listed twice on one channel, from a duplicate
that got its own [handle](https://storestandards.com/glossary/handle/). Two listings, two stock numbers,
and the [stock accuracy](https://storestandards.com/glossary/stock-accuracy/) of neither is real.

## Related terms

- [Shopify POS](https://storestandards.com/glossary/shopify-pos/): Shopify POS is Shopify's till app for selling in person, sharing one product catalogue and one stock count with the online store.
- [Available inventory](https://storestandards.com/glossary/available-inventory/): Available inventory is the stock a customer can still buy. It is what you hold on hand, minus what is already promised to other orders.
- [Handle](https://storestandards.com/glossary/handle/): A handle is the readable part of a Shopify URL, generated from the title and used to identify a product, collection or page.