One of the essential parts of your online store is your Shopify product feed. Product feeds are critical to any eCommerce business looking to sell its products. It’s the first thing your customers will look at when browsing your products, so it’s vital to ensure they display as effectively as possible. More than half of shoppers who check out your product page leave without making a purchase, so it’s key to ensure they find what they’re looking for.
Your time as a Shopify merchant is precious, so we have put together this extensive guide that covers everything from the application of feed rules to publishing your feed—to help you make the most out of Shopify product feeds.
In this post, we’ll walk you through what is a Shopify product feed, how you can create one and then optimize it, and answer the most-asked questions about them.
Key Takeaways:
Use a feed management system instead of sending your automatically exported product catalog directly to the channel if you want to advertise many products from your Shopify store.
Users of Shopify have three different ways to create a data feed and link it to a shopping channel: directly through an API, via export, or through third-party applications.
A Shopify product feed is a file containing a list of all the products available for sale on a Shopify store. It includes information about each product, such as its name, price, image, and description. The product feed can be used to list and promote products on other websites or platforms, such as shopping comparison sites, social media platforms, or marketplaces.
There are several ways to create a Shopify product feed for your store. We’ve covered the options below for you to choose your needs.
Overall, a Shopify product feed is a valuable tool for promoting and selling products in your store, and it can help you to reach a wider audience and drive more sales.
The URL of your Shopify product feed depends on the method you use to create and manage your product feed.
If you choose a third-party app or plugin, those will provide the product feed URLs.
If you are using the Shopify API, the URL of your product feed will depend on the specific parameters and settings that you have used.
The usual format of the URL for a Shopify API product feed is “https://[store-name].myshopify.com/admin/api/2022-07/products.json”, where [store-name] is the name of your Shopify store.
There are several options for creating a product feed in Shopify, and the specific method you choose will depend on your technical skills and the particular requirements of your store.
Let’s look at each one in detail and see what fits best.
Product feed setup with Shopify App
This method is recommended for those merchants looking for Dynamic Feeds, where your feed is automatically updated with the changes you make to the website.
Direct upload to Google Merchant Center
The steps for this method include the following:
As easy as that sounds, it can be very inconvenient for merchants with a large inventory. If you have 10-15 products in your store, this method can quickly get the product feed from the ground up.
However, it is NOT possible to create a dynamic feed here. You’ll have to manually change every time you run a sales campaign or update product descriptions.
Product feed setup using Google Sheets.
This method suits merchants who are comfortable using Excel and Google Sheets. Like the previous one, it’s also NOT possible to create a dynamic feed here. If you’re willing to update the feed information regularly and prioritize bulk editing, this one is for you.
Using third-party applications
The final option is to use a third-party app or plugin designed to generate product feeds for Shopify stores. They allow you to easily create one for your store by specifying the products you want to include in the feed and customizing the format and content of the feed.
If you choose this method, you will need to install the app or plugin from the Shopify App Store and then follow the instructions provided by the app or plugin.
If you’re using a third-party app, follow the instructions provided by that.
For those using the Shopify API to download a custom product feed, you must make an API request to the Shopify API. You can retrieve the data for your products and then organize them into a product feed file. After completing the organizing process, download the file.
The process for updating your product feed in Shopify depends on the method you use to create and manage your product feed. Suppose you use a third-party app or plugin to generate your product feed. You can update your product feed by accessing the app or plugin’s settings.
If you are using the Shopify API to create a custom product feed for your store, you can update your product feed by making changes to the parameters and settings of your API request.
You can update the range of products included in your product feed by changing the filters and parameters of your API request, or you can update the format and content of your product feed by modifying the code used to generate the feed.
To update your custom product feed using the Shopify API, you need a basic understanding of coding and web development.
There are several reasons why you might want to optimize your Shopify product feed:
Here are a few less common reasons for optimizing your Shopify product feed:
Improve search engine rankings: By optimizing your product feed for relevant keywords and using structured data and rich snippets, you can improve the visibility and ranking of your products in search engine results.
Bonus Tip: You can also check out your Google Seller Ratings to improve your rankings on Google search results.
Enhance the user experience: Optimizing your product feed for mobile devices, using high-quality product images, and providing detailed and accurate product information, improves the UX.
Increase efficiency and automation: Using tools and techniques to optimize and automate your product feed, you can save time and reduce the effort required to manage and maintain your product feed.
Enhance compatibility and interoperability: Optimizing your product feed for compatibility with other platforms and systems improve your product feed’s overall effectiveness.
Now you get the complete picture of why optimizing is essential. Let’s look at some of the steps you can take to optimize a Shopify product feed:
Using an accurately optimized product feed is vital for every Shopify merchant. Having accurate information about your portfolio at all times, you multiply your chances of turning every visitor into a regular customer.