Working with Shopify in 2026

I shouldn't be surprised really. I dislike working with hefty platforms that target consumers directly. This is because they often do so at the expense of more advanced requirements that someone may need further down the line. In this case the requirements were to integrate a 3rd party API into a single Shopify online store. The core premise was to keep the store's 7,000 products in sync with both systems. And it has been a lot more complicated than I ever thought it could be. This is aside from the fact that this is an old API I'm integrating with - I'm talking a SOAP here people, yeah in 2026. In my entire 15 year career, it's the first time I've had to integrate with one. I'm planning to do a writeup about that at some point, so if you're interested, look out for that one, or subscribe to my RSS feed to recieve an update when it's out. But I digress. Let me start with what Shopify gets right. The Good 1. Good initial developer experience Shopify have a clear path for creating…