How to Sell Estate Sale Inventory on Your Own Shopify Store

Step by step

Pick what goes online

Price and photograph the pieces in EstateFlow. The main photo becomes the product image, and your price becomes the product price.

Export from EstateFlow

Open the estate, click Export inventory, and choose Shopify. Export the whole estate or a single room.

Import into Shopify

In Shopify admin, go to Products, click Import, and upload the CSV. Each item arrives as its own product.

Finish the listings

Add anything your store uses that the file leaves blank, like vendor, product type, tags, collections, and shipping weight.

Publish to your store

Products import unpublished. When they look right, make them available on your Online Store and they go live on your site.

Why sell on your own store

A two-day sale only reaches the people who walk through the door. A Shopify store lets you keep selling the best pieces before the sale, after it, and to buyers who never drive over. It's your brand and your customer list, and you skip marketplace selling fees on top of Shopify's own.

The slow part has always been getting the inventory in. You already photographed, described, and priced everything in EstateFlow, so the export turns that into Shopify's product import format instead of a night of typing.

What's in the file

One item becomes one Shopify product with a single variant. Each product gets:

Title and description from EstateFlow
Your price and your EstateFlow SKU
The item's main photo as the product image
A URL handle built from the title and SKU, so two "Dinner Plate" items never collide
Inventory tracked by Shopify, quantity 1, shipping required, and taxable

Safe by default

Estate inventory is one of a kind, so the file is set up to protect you:

Unpublished on import. Nothing shows on your store until you publish it, so you can review every product first.
No overselling. Each product has a quantity of 1 and Shopify stops selling at zero, so two online buyers can't both check out the same piece.

What you finish in Shopify

Vendor, product type, and tags are left blank, and weight isn't included. If your store uses calculated shipping rates, add a weight to each product before you publish. This is also the time to add products to collections and add extra photos.

Selling in two places at once

If a piece is on your website and on the floor of a live sale, it can sell in either place. Shopify handles the online side: once it sells, the product shows sold out. For pieces that sell at the house, set the product's quantity to 0 or unpublish it in Shopify so it can't sell again online.

Many operators keep it simple: put the best pieces online before the sale, and pull anything still listed when the doors open.

Good to know

This is a file you export and import. No Shopify account connection is needed.
Only the main photo is included. Add more angles in Shopify for your best pieces.
Price items before you export. The product price comes straight from your EstateFlow price.
Shopify orders don't flow back into EstateFlow yet, so mark online sales as sold in EstateFlow.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need my own Shopify store?

Yes. This is for operators who sell on their own website through Shopify. You import the file into your store's admin.

Will products go live as soon as I import them?

No. They import unpublished. Review them, then make them available on your Online Store when you're ready.

Can the same piece sell twice?

Not online. Each product has a quantity of 1 and Shopify stops selling at zero. If a piece sells at the house, set its quantity to 0 or unpublish it in Shopify.

Are all my photos included?

The main photo is included as the product image. Add extra angles in Shopify if you want them.

Which plans include it?

Starter and Pro, and it's available during the free trial.