Options to sync product data
Sales channel apps need access to merchant product data to syndicate catalogs to external platforms. Shopify provides several methods depending on your use case.
Anchor to Contextual product feeds (recommended)Contextual product feeds (recommended)
Contextual product feeds are the recommended way to sync product data for sales channel apps. Product feeds provide localized product data for each country and language pair that a merchant supports, and they keep your channel in sync through incremental updates.
Product feeds offer the following advantages:
- Localized product data (pricing, translations) per country and language
- Full sync to bootstrap your catalog and incremental sync for ongoing updates
- Automatic or manual feed management via the channel config extension
- Webhooks for real-time notifications when products change
To get started, see the contextual product feeds tutorial.
Anchor to Storefront APIStorefront API
The Storefront API is useful when your channel needs to look up product data on demand rather than maintaining a synced copy. When called in context of your sales channel app, the Storefront API returns products that are published to your channel.
This approach works well for:
- Real-time product lookups at checkout or browsing time
- Lightweight integrations that don't require a local product database
Make sure you have the correct access scopes. The Storefront API requires the unauthenticated_read_product_listings scope. Also consider rate limits when pulling data on demand.
Make sure you have the correct access scopes. The Storefront API requires the unauthenticated_read_product_listings scope. Also consider rate limits when pulling data on demand.
Anchor to Other approachesOther approaches
For specific use cases, you can also query products directly via the GraphQL Admin API or use bulk operation queries to download large datasets. However, contextual product feeds are the recommended path for sales channel apps because they handle localization, incremental updates, and publishing scope automatically.