What Restocio reads from your Shopify store, what it can change, and why it asks for each permission
Restocio asks Shopify for six permissions: four to read your products, stock, locations and orders, and two to change things, which do nothing until you turn on one switch for your store. This page goes through each permission, what it feeds, what is never read, and what happens to your data if you uninstall.
Marcus VolstedCo-founder, Restocio
Published 27 October 202611 min read
Which permissions does Restocio ask for?
Restocio asks for read_products, read_inventory, read_locations and read_orders to read your store, and write_inventory and write_products to change it. That is the exact scope list the app is configured with, and it is requested once, when you install, rather than handed out feature by feature.
A scope is Shopify's word for a permission. Shopify defines each one by the objects it opens up, and the reads and writes come in pairs, so the plain meaning is easy to check against Shopify's own access scopes page, read 22 October 2026. The table below uses Shopify's wording for what each scope covers, then says what Restocio does with it and which screen the result lands on.
| Scope | What Shopify says it covers | What Restocio uses it for | What it feeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| read_products | Products, product variants, collections, selling plans and resource feedback | Knowing what you sell: names, SKUs, variants, images, selling price, supplier (Vendor) | SKU Manager, and every product card on Replenishment |
| read_inventory | Inventory items and inventory levels | How many units you hold, plus the cost per item and weight Shopify stores on the inventory item | Days of stock on Replenishment, the Costs & weight view, stock valuation |
| read_locations | Locations | The names of your stock locations, so it can tell where counted goods should be added | Incoming, so counted units are added at the right location |
| read_orders | Orders, fulfillments, order transactions, abandoned checkouts and delivery carrier services, for orders created in the last 60 days | What each product sold and when, which sets how fast it sells | Replenishment quantities, Demand, Insights |
| write_inventory | Read and write inventory items and levels | Writing cost per item, weight and stock quantities, when you let it | Costs & weight, Incoming, stock adjustments |
| write_products | Read and write the same product objects | Writing selling price, product name, supplier (Vendor) and generated SKUs, when you let it | SKU Manager, Costs & weight |
One more scope exists in the code, read_all_orders, and it is not in that list. It is covered under the limitation below.
What does Restocio read about your customers?
Restocio reads your orders to count what sold, and it does not request customer names, email addresses, phone numbers or street addresses. The order lookups ask Shopify for the order number, dates, status, tracking details, the shipping line, the line items (SKU, title, quantity, price, cost and weight) and the destination as a country, a province and a company name. The code's own note on this says the forecasting engine never needed a customer's name, so none of those fields is requested.
Your privacy policy says the same thing from the other side, in the section on Shopify merchant and customer data: order line items, quantities, dates and destination country drive the reorder calculations.
Claims are the one place a person can end up in the data. A claim you raise against an order can carry a customer name and address. When Shopify sends a customer redaction request, Restocio blanks the name on the cached orders and the name and address on any claim for those orders. A claim is your own business record of a shipping dispute, so the record stays and the personal details come off it.
Where can I see what I approved?
Open Settings, then the General tab. The first panel is called “What we can do with your Shopify store”, and it lists each thing the app can read or write with a status beside it: Working, Needs your permission, Off or Not built yet. Open “Show the exact permissions” under it to see the scopes themselves. The line above that list says “This is what you approved when the app was installed.”
If a feature says “Needs your permission”, the panel explains the fix: the feature is finished, and reconnecting the store and approving the new permission turns it on. Shopify only changes a store's permissions when the store approves them, so Restocio cannot add one quietly.
What can Restocio change in your store?
Restocio can change six things in Shopify, and only while the switch “Let Restocio update your Shopify store” is on for your store. Each store has its own switch. It sits on Settings, General, in a card called “Changes in your Shopify store”, right under the panel that lists what the app can do in your store, and it starts off. While it is off, the line under it reads “Off. Restocio only reads from Shopify and changes nothing there. Turned on, it changes these, each only when you change it in Restocio:” Turn it on and the line becomes “On. When you change one of these in Restocio, it changes in Shopify too:”
The six things are listed in the open under that line, in this order, and the table adds when each one happens and which permission it uses.
| What changes in Shopify | When | Scope behind it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per item | When you type, import or re-rate a cost, and when goods arrive if you also tick the box described below. Not while your costs include freight. | write_inventory |
| Selling price and product name | When you change them in SKU Manager | write_products |
| Weight | When you type one | write_inventory |
| Missing SKUs | When you let Restocio create them | write_products |
| Stock | When you count in goods, when a count is undone or corrected, and when you adjust stock with a reason | write_inventory |
| Supplier (Vendor) | When you move a product to another supplier, and Restocio asks each time | write_products |
Once the switch is on, one box appears under the list: “When goods arrive, set Cost per item to the new average purchase price (freight not included)”. It starts unticked, and it stays greyed out while your cost prices are set as landed prices, because Shopify's field would then hold freight and the average does not.
Below the box, the same card says where counted goods go. A store with one location sees a single line, “Goods you count in are added to” followed by that location's name and “your only location”, and there is nothing to choose. A store with more than one gets a “Goods arrive at” dropdown. Left on “Work it out automatically”, Restocio skips a product stocked in more than one place rather than guess which shelf to add it to.
Those six are the whole write surface. Orders, customers, fulfillments and collections are not on it. Before launch, Restocio writes nothing to Shopify for any store, even with that switch on.
Does Restocio ask before it changes something?
Sometimes it asks, and always it needs the switch first. The switch is the standing permission. Beyond it, a few writes carry their own question or opt-in. Moving a product to a new supplier opens a dialog titled “Change the supplier in Shopify too?” with two choices, “Only in Restocio” and “In Shopify too”. Updating the cost when goods arrive is its own option, off until you tick it. Costs you typed while the switch was off are not sent on their own later: they wait behind a button, “Send them to Shopify”.
A cost that jumps sharply from the one before it is still written, and the result is marked “Updated in Shopify, but 1 was a big jump, please check”. Restocio cannot tell a real price rise from a slipped decimal, so it names the jump instead of overruling you.
The honest part is that not every write has its own confirmation screen yet. Some have no question of their own, and with the switch on they follow the action you took. Turn the switch on when you are ready for that, not before. Before launch, Restocio writes nothing to Shopify for any store, even with that switch on.
What happens when the switch is off?
Everything still works, and Shopify is left alone. Each screen says so at the moment it matters: “Saved here only. Shopify was not changed” with the reason after it. Your number stays in Restocio, Restocio keeps using it, and the matching field in Shopify stays whatever you last set it to there. Counting goods in still updates the purchase order and the replenishment plan, but your Shopify stock level is then whatever your own routine makes it.
The one thing to check once the switch is on is the cost field. If your Shopify cost per item already includes freight, Restocio refuses to overwrite it with a goods-only price, and says so. How to set that up properly is in the supplier price or landed price guide, and why the field drifts in the first place is in the post on stale cost prices. Before launch, Restocio writes nothing to Shopify for any store.
What happens to your data if you uninstall?
Uninstalling removes Restocio's access to your store straight away, and Shopify then tells Restocio to delete the store's customer-bearing records 48 hours later. There are two steps, and they do different things.
- At uninstall, as soon as Shopify notifies it, Restocio clears the stored access token, so it can no longer read or write anything in your store. It keeps your account and its history, on purpose, so that a merchant who reinstalls does not start from zero.
- Forty-eight hours later, Shopify sends a shop redaction request, which Shopify's compliance page describes as sent 48 hours after the store owner uninstalls the app (read 22 October 2026). Restocio then deletes the store's cached orders, delayed-order snapshots, rescued-order rows, claims, and the stored connection.
Customer requests work separately. Shopify's data request is recorded and answered by hand within 30 days, and a customer redaction request blanks that customer's name, and their address on any claim, as described above.
Your Shopify store itself is never touched by an uninstall. Nothing Restocio wrote earlier is reversed, so a cost or a stock count it already sent stays in Shopify.
What Restocio cannot see
Shopify gives an app only the last 60 days of orders by default, and Restocio's list of scopes does not include read_all_orders, the extra permission that opens older orders. Shopify's page says that scope does nothing on its own and needs its own approval. Where a store has it granted, the app reads a longer history and the settings allow up to 365 days. Where it does not, the sales pace is built from at most 60 days, and the engine shortens any longer sales period to match rather than dividing by days it cannot see.
The panel on Settings, General has a row, “Read more than 60 days of order history”, that shows whether your store has it.
Restocio also does not read your customers' names, so it cannot show you who bought what. That is deliberate, not a gap.
What to do next
If you are connecting for the first time, leave the switch off and look at the numbers in Restocio first. Once the costs and weights in SKU Manager look right, closing the missing ones is the useful next job, and turning the switch on comes after that. Whether you want the cost field in Shopify to carry the goods-only average is a decision about your books, covered in the landed cost post.
Common questions
What Shopify permissions does Restocio need?
Six. It reads products, inventory, locations and orders (read_products, read_inventory, read_locations, read_orders), and it can write inventory and products (write_inventory, write_products). The reads feed what you sell, what you hold and how fast it moves. The writes cover cost per item, weight, stock, selling price, product name, supplier and generated SKUs, and each one only runs when you turn on "Let Restocio update your Shopify store" under Settings, General. That switch starts off. Before launch, Restocio writes nothing to Shopify for any store, even with that switch on.
Does Restocio read my customers' names or email addresses?
No. The order lookups request order numbers, dates, status, tracking details, line items and the destination as a country, province and company name. They do not request a customer's name, email, phone or street address. The one place a name and address can sit is a claim you raise yourself, and those are blanked when Shopify sends a customer redaction request.
How do I stop Restocio from changing my Shopify store?
Leave "Let Restocio update your Shopify store" off, which is how every store starts. It is on Settings, General, in the card called Changes in your Shopify store. With it off, Restocio only reads from Shopify and changes nothing there, what you change in Restocio stays in Restocio, and each screen says so with the line Saved here only. Shopify was not changed. Before launch, Restocio writes nothing to Shopify for any store, even with that switch on.
What happens to my data when I uninstall Restocio?
Access ends at once, because the stored token is cleared, but your account and its history are kept so a reinstall does not start from zero. Forty-eight hours after the uninstall Shopify sends a shop redaction request, and Restocio then deletes the store's cached orders, delayed-order snapshots, rescued-order rows, claims and the stored connection. Nothing in your Shopify store is changed or reversed by an uninstall.
Why does Restocio only see 60 days of my orders?
Because that is Shopify's default. read_orders covers orders created in the last 60 days, and older ones need a separate scope, read_all_orders, which is not in Restocio's permission list and needs its own approval. Without it the sales pace is built from at most 60 days. With it granted, the app reads a longer history, up to the 365 days its settings allow.
Sources
Every source below was opened and read on the date shown against it. Rules, rates and schedules change, so check the current page before you act on a number that matters. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
- Shopify access scopes (shopify.dev/docs/api/usage/access-scopes), the meaning of each scope and the 60-day order window (read 22 October 2026)
- Shopify privacy law compliance (shopify.dev), the shop/redact and customers/redact webhooks and their timing (read 22 October 2026)
Marcus co-founded Restocio and works on it daily with a Swedish importer who plans their purchasing in it every working day. Restocio is built in Sweden by two founders, one Swedish and one Danish, and Marcus is the Danish one. Why we are building it.
Related reading
- Restocio FAQ, answers to the questions merchants ask most
- Supplier price or landed price, and how to pick it right
- Fixing a product SKU Manager flags as missing a cost or weight
- The cost price nobody ever updates
- What a unit actually costs you
- Shopify replenishment, end to end
Restocio plans purchasing for Shopify stores that import. It works out what to order, how much, and whether it should travel by sea, rail or air, so you pay air freight only for the units that genuinely cannot wait.