Ecommerce Operations

E-Commerce Operations

Overview

Modern e-commerce runs on API-connected platforms — Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, WooCommerce, BigCommerce — each handling products, orders, inventory, and fulfillment. AI agents that can manage these platforms enable automated inventory rebalancing, pricing optimization, order tracking, and multi-channel sync. This skill covers the APIs, data models, and automation patterns for e-commerce operations.

When to Use This Skill

• Building MCP servers for Shopify store management
• Automating inventory sync across multiple sales channels
• Creating AI-powered order management and fulfillment workflows
• Implementing dynamic pricing strategies
• Building multi-channel product catalog management

Core Concepts

E-Commerce Platform Landscape

Core Data Model

┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│ Products │────►│ Variants │────►│  Inventory   │
│          │     │ (SKUs)   │     │  Levels      │
└──────────┘     └──────────┘     └──────────────┘
                      │
                      ▼
┌──────────┐     ┌──────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│ Customer │────►│  Orders  │────►│ Fulfillments │
│          │     │          │     │              │
└──────────┘     └──────────┘     └──────────────┘
                      │
                      ▼
                 ┌──────────┐
                 │ Payments │
                 │ Refunds  │
                 └──────────┘

Implementation Guide

Shopify Admin API (GraphQL)

import Shopify from "@shopify/shopify-api";

// Search products
const response = await client.query({
  data: `{
    products(first: 10, query: "status:active AND product_type:clothing") {
      edges {
        node {
          id
          title
          status
          totalInventory
          variants(first: 5) {
            edges {
              node {
                sku
                price
                inventoryQuantity
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }`,
});

// Update inventory levels
const inventoryAdjust = await client.query({
  data: {
    query: `mutation inventoryAdjustQuantities($input: InventoryAdjustQuantitiesInput!) {
      inventoryAdjustQuantities(input: $input) {
        inventoryAdjustmentGroup { reason }
        userErrors { field message }
      }
    }`,
    variables: {
      input: {
        reason: "correction",
        name: "available",
        changes: [{
          delta: -5,
          inventoryItemId: "gid://shopify/InventoryItem/123",
          locationId: "gid://shopify/Location/456",
        }],
      },
    },
  },
});

Order Management MCP Tools

server.tool(
  "get_recent_orders",
  "Fetch recent orders with status, items, and totals",
  {
    status: z.enum(["open", "closed", "cancelled", "any"]).default("open"),
    days: z.number().default(7),
    limit: z.number().default(20),
  },
  async ({ status, days, limit }) => {
    const since = new Date(Date.now() - days * 86400000).toISOString();
    const orders = await shopify.order.list({
      status,
      created_at_min: since,
      limit,
    });

    const summary = orders.map(o => ({
      id: o.order_number,
      customer: o.customer?.first_name + " " + o.customer?.last_name,
      total: o.total_price,
      items: o.line_items.length,
      status: o.fulfillment_status || "unfulfilled",
      created: o.created_at,
    }));

    return {
      content: [{ type: "text", text: JSON.stringify(summary, null, 2) }],
    };
  }
);

server.tool(
  "check_inventory_levels",
  "Check inventory levels for products, flagging low stock",
  {
    threshold: z.number().default(10).describe("Low stock threshold"),
  },
  async ({ threshold }) => {
    const products = await shopify.product.list({ limit: 250 });
    const lowStock = [];

    for (const product of products) {
      for (const variant of product.variants) {
        if (variant.inventory_quantity <= threshold) {
          lowStock.push({
            product: product.title,
            variant: variant.title,
            sku: variant.sku,
            quantity: variant.inventory_quantity,
            status: variant.inventory_quantity === 0 ? "OUT OF STOCK" : "LOW",
          });
        }
      }
    }

    return {
      content: [{
        type: "text",
        text: `${lowStock.length} items at or below threshold (${threshold}):\n\n` +
          lowStock.map(i => `[${i.status}] ${i.product} - ${i.variant} (SKU: ${i.sku}): ${i.quantity} left`).join("\n"),
      }],
    };
  }
);

Multi-Channel Inventory Sync

class InventorySyncManager:
    """Keep inventory levels synchronized across sales channels."""

    def sync_all_channels(self, sku):
        # Get true inventory from warehouse management system
        warehouse_qty = self.wms.get_quantity(sku)

        # Calculate available per channel (reserve safety stock)
        safety_stock = max(5, int(warehouse_qty * 0.1))
        available = warehouse_qty - safety_stock

        # Allocate across channels based on velocity
        allocations = self.calculate_allocations(sku, available)

        # Update each channel
        for channel, qty in allocations.items():
            self.channels[channel].update_inventory(sku, qty)

        return {"sku": sku, "total": warehouse_qty, "allocations": allocations}

    def calculate_allocations(self, sku, available):
        """Allocate inventory proportionally to sales velocity."""
        velocities = {ch: self.get_velocity(sku, ch) for ch in self.channels}
        total_velocity = sum(velocities.values()) or 1

        return {
            channel: int(available * (vel / total_velocity))
            for channel, vel in velocities.items()
        }

Best Practices

1. Webhook-driven sync — subscribe to order/inventory webhooks instead of polling
2. Idempotent operations — use order IDs and SKUs as idempotency keys
3. Safety stock buffers — never allocate 100% of inventory to any single channel
4. Rate limit awareness — Shopify allows 2 requests/sec; Amazon SP-API varies by endpoint
5. Bulk operations for catalogs — use bulk mutations for product updates over 50 items
6. Test with sandbox stores — both Shopify and Amazon offer development/sandbox environments

Resources

• Shopify Admin API Reference
• Amazon SP-API Documentation
• Shopify App Development

Changelog