Product status

A product with product status active will be available for sale.  A draft product will not be visible on the website

Title and Description

A product’s title and description determine the description of the product displayed on the website. 

Title

The title should give the full name and brand of the product without keyword stuffing.  A suitable template might be:

[Brand name] [Product name] [Keywords]

e.g. Tomy Freddie the Firefly Developmental Toy

The title will be included in the page’s title, so it should include major keywords.

Media

In this section, users can add images to the product i.e. images and videos.  Best practice for product images

• Image should be of a high quality and zoomable (1000+ pixels on the longest side)
• Main image should show the product only on a white background, close cropped
• Use multiple images of the product from different angles
• Include lifestyle shots

Description

The description should give all the salient features of the product and give all the information which will be required to make a purchase.  It should also include all the keywords which user will likely use to find the product online.

Pricing

Shopify products have three prices set:

• Price. The price at which the item is offered for sale
• Compare at price. The manufacturer recommended price or the price before discounting
• Cost price.

If you tick charge tax on this product, the tax will be charged at the relevant country rate. The country rates are defined in Settings.  Tax level on a product is set using a collection.

Shipping

If the product is a physical product, setting the weight will enable weight-based shipping calculation at the checkout. 

HS code and Region of origin are required when shipping products overseas to calculate duty.  If this information is not provided then the product may become stuck at customs or returned to sender.

Inventory

SKU (Stock numbers)

It is best to set a stock number for each product as this allows products to be uniquely identified in Shopify.  The best practice for stock numbers is as follows:

• Use a combination of letters and numbers.  This will prevent Excel from treating the stock number as a number
• Do not start the stock number with a zero.  Excel will strip out preceding zeros
• For variants, use a stem and then add a variant identifier, e.g. TWO100-Blue, TWO100-Black

Barcodes

Record barcode information if you have it, as this is useful for identifying the product and listing it on marketplaces and Google shopping

Track inventory

If you do not tick Track Quantity, the product will never sell out.  If you tick Track Quantity and also Continue selling when out of stock, the stock can go below zero.

Variant products

Some products come in several different sizes, colours etc.  If the option ‘This product has multiple options, like different sizes or colours’  is ticked, then the user can enter the different options.

Once the product has been converted to a variant product, the product details must then be specified for each variant, e.g. each variant has its own stock level, SKU, barcode etc.

Metadata

Product metadata are user-defined attributes that can be added to products to record additional information.  Metadata attributes are defined in Settings  metadata.

Inventory

Inventory can be amended from the Inventory option in the LHS menu.

Product Types

Each product can have one standard product type and one custom product type. 

A standard product type uses a Shopify taxonomy.  It is useful when submitting product data to services like Google shopping which require a standard category.

Collections

A product can be assigned to one or more collections. Collections are groups of products.

Tags

Product tags are used to categorise products automatically into collections.  They are also used to filter for products on the products screen.