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Customizing your product data for Shopify Catalog

When your products are displayed on platforms such as Shop or through Shopify agentic storefronts, Shopify Catalog automatically structures your product data by consolidating variants and grouping identical items. This helps customers view relevant results with live pricing and stock availability.

You can customize the product data that Shopify Catalog uses on the Channel mapping page, with Shopify Catalog selected. This is the same page that you use to customize product data for your sales channels. For Shopify Catalog, you can complete any of the following optional tasks:

  • Product fields: Choose the sources for your key product data, such as the product title and description.
  • List price: Choose whether Shopify Catalog uses the price or the compare-at price as a product's list price.
  • Custom variant grouping: Group separate products that are variants of the same product, so that they're displayed as a single listing.

All stores can customize their product data for Shopify Catalog, but you might not need to make any changes. Customizing your product data is most helpful when your store uses custom data and grouping logic for products, such as metafields, metaobjects, tag prefixes, or separators/delimiters in product titles. You can customize your product data for Shopify Catalog without affecting the product structure or data that you have in your online store.

For example, you might create the following custom setup:

  • For product descriptions on product pages on your online store, you use a product metafield called Full description. On the Channel mapping page, you change the source for the product description field to your Full description metafield.
  • You want to group certain products into a single listing using a Product ID metafield. In the Custom variant grouping section, you set the grouping method to Product metafield, and you select your Product ID metafield.

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Considerations for customizing your product data for Shopify Catalog

Before you customize your product data for Shopify Catalog, review the following considerations:

  • When you open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog, a default source is displayed for each field. If you don't change a field, then Shopify Catalog uses its default source.
  • If the source that you choose has no value for a product, then Shopify Catalog uses the field's default source instead. For example, if you map the product title field to a metafield, and a product doesn't have a value in that metafield, then Shopify Catalog uses the product title.
  • The Custom variant grouping section is displayed only for Shopify Catalog. It isn't available for sales channels.
  • The product preview displays how Shopify Catalog receives your product data. The preview isn't an exact indicator of how AI channels might view or display your product data.

Open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog

You can open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog from the Agentic sales channel.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Agentic.

  2. In the Sources section, click the arrow down icon for Shopify Catalog, and then click Review product data mapping.

The Channel mapping page opens with Shopify Catalog selected. If you're already on the Channel mapping page for a sales channel, then you can click the current channel name, and then select Shopify Catalog.

Set up your product field source mappings

In the Product fields section, you can choose the source for each Shopify Catalog field. You can change the sources for the product title and the product description. You can't map the product category for Shopify Catalog. You can choose a product field or a metafield. For single-line and multi-line text fields, such as the product title and description, you can also combine sources with text that you enter, or edit the value as Liquid code. Learn more about changing a source and combining values on the Channel mapping page.

The percentage next to each field is its field coverage: the share of your products that have a value for that field. To view the details, click the percentage. For Shopify Catalog, the count includes all of your products. If products are missing a value, then you can click Fix [number] products to add the missing values.

Steps:

  1. Open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog.
  2. In the Product fields section, click the existing source for the field that you want to change.
  3. From the drop-down menu, select the new source that you want to use.
  4. Optional: To check the result, review the field in the product preview. To preview a different product, click the arrow down icon for the current product, select a product in the View products dialog, and then click View product.
  5. Click Save.

Choose the list price for AI agents

In the List price section, you can choose which price Shopify Catalog uses as a product's list price. AI agents might use the list price to advertise strikethrough pricing.

You can choose from the following options:

  • Price: Shopify Catalog uses the product's current price as the list price.
  • Compare-at price: Shopify Catalog uses the product's compare-at price as the list price, but only when the compare-at price is higher than the product's current price.

Steps:

  1. Open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog.
  2. In the List price section, from the List price drop-down menu, select Price or Compare-at price.
  3. Optional: To view how your change affects the price of a specific product, review the price in the product preview.
  4. Click Save.

Set up your custom variant grouping and product option names

When you have certain products or variants that you want Shopify Catalog to display as a single listing, you can turn on custom variant grouping and choose a grouping method.

By default, products are grouped for Shopify Catalog using your Shopify Combined Listings configuration. When you turn on Custom variant grouping, you must select an alternative method to build your product groupings. Any custom variant grouping that you set ignores all of your Shopify Combined Listings app setup for Shopify Catalog.

You can also select your product variant options and set the option names that are displayed to customers through Shopify Catalog. The option names that you set are used only for products that have the relevant options.

Steps:

  1. Open the Channel mapping page for Shopify Catalog.
  2. Turn on Custom variant grouping.
  3. If there are suggestions available, then either click Accept, or click the close icon to reject the suggestions.
  4. From the Grouping method drop-down menu, select the product attribute that you want to use to group your products:
    • If you choose Product title, then from the Delimiter drop-down menu, take any of the following actions:
      • If you have the default delimiter usage in product titles, which is when there's no space on either side of the delimiter, then select your delimiter type from the menu.
      • If you use spaces in product titles in addition to your delimiter, then select Other, and then enter your delimiter in the Value field.
      • If you don't include a delimiter in product titles, then select None.
    • If you choose Product metafield, then select your category metafield or product metafield from the Combination metafield drop-down menu. Supported metafield types are single line text, product reference list, metaobject reference, and metaobject list.
    • If you choose Product tag, then enter your tag prefix in the Tag starts with field.
  5. Optional: To add product variant options and set the option names that are displayed to customers, in the Custom options section:
    1. Click Add options.
    2. Select an option.
    3. In the Display name field, confirm or adjust the display name.
    4. Optional: To set more options and display names, repeat the steps.
  6. Optional: To view how your changes affect Shopify Catalog grouping for a specific product, review the Group name and Products in group sections in the product preview.
  7. Click Save.

Understanding product check results for custom variant grouping

When you set up a grouping method and product option names, all your products are checked against the method and parameters that you choose, and the following results can then be displayed:

  • [Number of products] combined: These products were successfully combined with your Custom variant grouping setup.
  • [Number of products] left separate: These products weren't found to have a shared value with any other products based on your grouping method and parameters, and the products were kept as their own separate listings.
  • [Number of products] need review: These products couldn't be grouped because 2 variants from the grouped products have the same option combination.

If you have any products that are flagged for review, click [Number of products] need review, and then decide whether you need to fix any of the flagged products.

Group size limits for custom variant grouping

Shopify Catalog limits the number of products that one group can contain. The limit depends on which of the following grouping methods you select:

  • If you group products by product title, product tag, or a metafield that doesn't hold a list of product references, then one group can contain up to 10,000 products.
  • If you group products by a metafield that holds a list of product references, then one group can contain up to 1,024 products. Your grouping method can also include up to 100,000 products in total across all the groups that it creates.

If your grouping method creates a group that is above the product number limit, then an error message is displayed in the Custom variant grouping section, and your products aren't combined with that method. The error message includes relevant information to help you resolve it. After you fix the issue, click Retry.