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Sales channels

Sales channels put your catalog in front of shoppers on Google (Shopping, free listings, Search, Images and YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat and Microsoft Shopping (Bing and Copilot). Each channel reads its own product feed from your store on a schedule you set on the channel's side, so a price, photo or stock change reaches it without another upload.

Sales channels come with every plan that sells online. They are set up under Products → Settings → Sales channels, with one card per channel.

Turn on a channel​

  1. On the channel's card, switch the feed On. The card shows the feed's address.
  2. Select Copy address.
  3. Follow the steps on the card: each one opens the channel's own setup and says where the address goes. In short:
ChannelWhere the address goesFormat
GoogleMerchant Center → Products → add products from a file → enter a link to your fileXML
MetaCommerce Manager → Catalog → Data sources → data feed → scheduled feedXML
TikTokAds Manager → Assets → Catalogs → add products with a data feed → scheduled feedCSV
PinterestAds → Catalogs → create a data sourceTSV
SnapchatAds Manager → Catalogs → add products from a feed URLCSV
MicrosoftMicrosoft Advertising → Merchant Center → Catalog → Feeds → scheduled downloadText

Set the channel to fetch at least daily. Products appear on YouTube through Google: link your YouTube channel to Merchant Center in Merchant Center's settings.

The address appears once the site has a web address — a subdomain or a custom domain — and it is always on your store's own domain.

Keep the address private​

Each feed's address carries a long random code, different for every channel, and the feed answers only that address. Anyone holding it can read what your storefront already shows publicly, nothing more. If an address is shared by mistake, select Replace address (site admins): the old address stops at once and the card shows the new one to paste into the channel.

Switching a feed Off stops it answering; switching it back on keeps the same address, so the channel picks up where it left off.

What each product sends​

Every active product is listed; drafts, archived and deleted products never are. A product with options (sizes, colors) is listed once per variant, grouped so the channel shows them as one product with choices.

Each listing carries:

  • the name (with the variant's choices), description, product page link and photos — the variant's own photo first, then up to 10 more (20 for Meta);
  • the price in your store's currency, and the sale price when a compare-at price is set above it;
  • availability from your stock: in stock, out of stock, or backorder when the product keeps selling after it runs out;
  • the brand, barcode (GTIN), part number (MPN), condition and Google product category — see below;
  • your store's category path, and the variant's color and size;
  • the weight and, for Google, the packed size;
  • shipping: the cheapest rate to each country your shipping zones name, from the same rates checkout charges.

There is no limit on catalog size.

Brand, barcode and category​

Channels match listings to products they know by their identifiers. In the product editor, the Shopping channels section holds a product's:

  • Brand — what shoppers know it by.
  • Barcode (GTIN) — the UPC, EAN, ISBN or JAN on the packaging. A product with variants keeps a barcode per variant, in each variant's barcode field. A barcode whose last (check) digit does not match is not sent, because channels refuse it.
  • Part number (MPN) — the manufacturer's number, for products with no barcode.
  • Condition — new, refurbished or used.
  • Google product category — an id such as 2271 or a path such as Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Dresses.

A product you make yourself usually has no barcode: leave it blank, and the feed tells Google and Microsoft the product has no manufacturer identifiers.

Defaults for every feed, at the top of the Sales channels card, fill what a product leaves blank: the brand (blank sends your store's name), the condition and the Google product category.

Shipping​

Feeds state the cheapest shipping rate to each country your shipping zones name. A rest-of-world (*) zone names no country, so set shipping for those countries in the channel itself.

Where checkout prices shipping by carrier rates, the price depends on the address, so the feeds send none for those countries. In Google Merchant Center, set up carrier-calculated shipping for them: it prices each product from the weight and packed size the feed sends, so add both in the product editor.

Check your products​

Select Check products on the Sales channels card. Each channel's card then counts the products it lists, leaves out and lists with suggestions, and Show products names each one with what to fix.

A product is left out of a channel's feed when the channel would refuse it anyway:

  • it has no photo or no price;
  • it is a service, or sold only as a subscription — shopping channels list goods sold at one price;
  • the site has no web address yet, or no product page template is chosen in the store settings, so the product's link would not open.

A suggestion means the product is listed but may show less widely: no barcode or part number, no description (its name is sent instead), a name longer than the channel shows, clothing without a Color and a Size option, or missing shipping.

How fresh the feed is​

A product you edit and save reaches the next fetch at once. Stock that a sale takes reaches it within 30 minutes. Each card shows when the channel last read its feed.

The earlier Google Merchant Center address​

Stores that set up Merchant Center before sales channels existed used an address ending in /api/commerce/feed?hostId=…. It keeps working, now with everything above, until you retire it: once Merchant Center reads the Google card's address, select Turn off beside the earlier address on the Google card. Replacing the Google address turns it off too.

Turn sales channels off for a site​

Sales channels are on for every site in a workspace. A site admin can switch them off for one site under Admin → Plugins → Sales channels. Every feed of that site, the earlier Google address included, then stops answering; each feed's address, switch and the defaults are kept for when it is switched back on.