Adding & Updating Products on Shopify

Overview

Learn more about adding and editing product details:

Basic procedure

To add or update a product:

From your Shopify admin, click Products (or press G P P):
Click Add a product, or click the name of an existing product to edit it.
Enter or update the product information.
Click Save when you're happy with the product information that you've entered.

Product information overview

To get the most out of your store, it's worth taking some time to understand the fields on the product information page. Products vary in their complexity and you don't have to provide every detail for each product. Be aware that many elements of a product's description are used elsewhere in Shopify. For example, carrier-calculated shipping rates will be inaccurate if you haven't provided correct product weights.

All the fields described here appear on every product information page, which you'll access when you update a product or add a product from Shopify.

You don't have to provide all a product's information at once. You can retrieve the details of existing products at any time if you want to add or update information.

Title

Enter a name for your product as you want your customers to see it. This field is mandatory.

Description

You can enter a product description using the rich text editor. Describing your products in detail helps your customers decide to buy your product. Avoid copying a manufacturer's exact description, because you want your product pages to look unique to a search engine.

Images

Product images display on your online store, and let your customers see what your product looks like. These images are also used on Shopify POS.

Price

This is the price that you're charging for your product. (The currency your store uses is set in your General settings page.)

Compare at price

If you're putting an item on sale, then enter its original price here. Your product will show a sale price.

Charge taxes on this product

If you're required to charge tax on your product, then check this box. Your taxes are set in your tax settings.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

Enter a unique identifier that you want to use for this product. The SKU is useful for organizing fulfillment.

Barcode

Enter an existing or new barcode for the product. This is the same barcode that is used by Shopify POS in a retail store.

Scan a barcode with your device's camera

You can use the Shopify app to enter a barcode by scanning it with your mobile device's camera.

To scan a barcode with your device's camera:

From the Shopify app, tap Products:
From the Products screen, either create a new product or tap an existing product.
Under Inventory, tap the barcode icon to open your device's camera:
The camera's screen shows a rectangular box. Position your iPhone so that the barcode appears within the box on the screen.
Wait for Shopify to recognize the barcode. When it does, the app returns to the Inventory screen and the barcode number is entered for you:

Inventory policy

Sets whether your product's inventory will be tracked by Shopify.

Weight

Enter the weight of your product. This is used to calculate any weight-based shipping rates or carrier-calculated shipping rates. You can purchase shipping scales at the Shopify Hardware Store.

Note

You must enter your product's weight accurately if you intend to offer carrier-calculated shipping or use a third-party fulfillment service. Shopify rounds weights to the nearest gram.

HS tariff code

If you're using Shopify Shipping to ship internationally, then you'll need to provide customs information so that internationally-agreed tariffs can be applied to the order. Click look up code to search for the Harmonized System (HS) codes that you need from the U.S. International Trade Commission's Harmonized Tariff Schedule.

Fulfillment service

Select the fulfillment service that you'll use to fulfill this product. If you're not using a fulfillment service, then select Manual.

Requires shipping

Uncheck this box if you're selling a digital product or service. If you uncheck the box, then the Weightfield will disappear, and the item will not use your Shipping rates.

Variants

Use variants to create different versions of a product that you have for sale.

For example, you might sell a product named sunglasses in different colors - black, red, and brown. In this case:

the product Title is sunglasses
the variant Option name is color
the variant Option values are black, red, and brown.

You can create variants when you're adding a new product or at any time afterwards.

Search engine listing preview

Most customers look for products by using a search engine like Google or Bing. From your Shopify admin, you can edit the way that your products appear by clicking Edit website SEO in the Search engine listing preview section of the product page:

Tip

The page title and meta description have set character limits. Going over the character limit might negatively affect your product SEO.

Page title

The title of your product page as it would appear on a search engine. There's a limit of 55 characters maximum.

Meta description

A brief description of the page content. This is a good place to enter an appealing description to attract a customer. There's a limit of 160 character maximum.

URL and handle

The web address of the product. This cannot contain spaces. Handles are used in theme design.

Read more about SEO and how to maximize your products' online exposure.

Visibility

You might set a product's visibility for a variety of reasons:

You have seasonal products that you want to display for only part of the year.
A product is out of stock but you will have more in stock at a later date.
You no longer want to display a product, but are unsure of whether you will offer it again at a later date.
You want to offer online exclusive, or in-store exclusive products.

To set product visibility:

From your Shopify admin, click Products (or press G P P):
Click a product's name.
In the Visibility section, click the checkboxes to show or hide a product from a channel:
Click Save.

Tip

You can also set product visibility by channel as a bulk action.

Type

The type of product that you're selling. This is helpful for use in automated collections of products, such as all your store's hats, shirts, or shoes, etc.

Vendor

The vendor of your product, if you purchase it from another party.

Collections

Use this field to add the product directly to a manual collection. Automated collections will automatically include the product if it matches the collection conditions.

Knowledge Base