Fully optimized Shopify feeds are essential for performing well on all the major channels and marketplaces. But, should you use Shopify’s integrated, in-app channels, or export your product feed a different way?
For fully relevant use of Shopify, you need the capability to quickly export your product feed from your online store to your various sales channels like marketplaces, shopping engines and product listing ads.
Products listed in a Shopify store can be pushed out quickly to a select list of in-app channels built directly into the standard dashboards on Shopify and Shopify Plus. Or, you can instead choose to export this product feed yourself, through a feed syndication service like Shopping Feed.
We will explain what you can do using your own product feed from Shopify in a minute. First, let’s look at what you can and can’t do with the in-app versions that come already installed.
Before tackling the “how,” here’s the “why.”
Both Shopify and Shopify Plus offer easy access to in-app channel integrations to several of the major channels such as Ebay, Amazon, etc. An in-app channel is simply a sales channel, managed on its own, and inside app.shopify.com. But these are limited both in number and functionality.
For one, Shopify doesn’t natively let you automatically export your products on a daily or hourly basis. In theory, you could do a manual dump of all your products, but that doesn’t assure your Shopify product feed is always up to date. There are other problems, too.
These in-app channel integrations are known for being severely limited. For instance:
- Ebay – cannot take over existing listings, limited categories available, no way to make auction listings (all are Buy It Now), and limited shipping options
- Google – No way to make changes to titles for SEO, cannot manage bidding, does not support Google Shopping Actions, cannot assign custom product attributes
- Amazon – extremely limited categories can be sold, not able to match products to existing ASIN’s, limited FBA order support (need another tool).
How you can sell far more product with a minimal amount of setup time, using an independent product feed syndicator like Shopping Feed.
Once you connect Shopping Feed’s API integration to your Shopify dashboard, you’ll have access to 1000’s of channels & integrations powered by the same refined product data from Shopping Feed, all synced perfectly with the unique product feed requirements of each channel. You can access channels literally across the globe, in 32 different countries.
Those capabilities are non-existent with any other integration.
Product stock levels get automatically updated in your online shop, according to your average sales levels within the various channels.
With the Shopping Feed API, we can easily pull variant data from Shopify for your product feed, including attributes like size, color, stock data, and prices for each variant.
Refine one set of product data, fixing problems for all channels at the same time. You use just one tool to manage all channel selling and orders from those channels, not jumping between 10 different tools.
Shopping Feed gives you the ability to seamlessly connect and manage all channels and orders with industry-standard tools. For instance, ERP Systems like Netsuite, PIM systems like Akeneo, and tools like Zapier, all connect via our API-first platform.
We also feature an Error Investigator to easily understand listing errors and how to fix them.
With over 11 million product attributes, you enjoy a large boost to your listing SEO as well as increasing your OMR. Expert data manipulation tools (also called ETL Tools) are provided to perfect your product listings.
See more secrets to Shopify success here.
How to install our independent product feed on a Shopify dashboard
Existing Shopping Feed users install via a module available from an app store in Shopify. (It’s also available in the app stores on Magento, WordPress, Squarespace, and Prestashop.)
Upon installing the app, an account is created for the user, and a redirect occurs to our platform and their account on app.shopping-feed.com
When a user is managing the account, they can log in either at app.shopping-feed.com, or click through to their account from the Shopify store.
