IT Glossary
What is a product feed?
A product feed is a structured file, generated automatically by your online shop, through which the catalogue — titles, prices, stock, images — reaches Google Shopping, advertising platforms, marketplaces and price comparison sites.
Every additional sales channel wants your catalogue, and none of them wants it the way you keep it. The product feed is how that problem is solved once instead of repeatedly: your shop generates a structured file — commonly XML or CSV — listing every item with the attributes each channel requires, and each channel reads it on a schedule. Titles, descriptions, identifiers, prices, availability, images, shipping and category mapping all live in that file, and the channel's listing is only ever as good as what it contains. Two operational realities decide whether this works or bleeds money. The first is freshness: a feed refreshed nightly will advertise a price you changed this morning and a product you sold out of at lunchtime, which costs you either margin or an angry customer, and eventually costs you the channel account. The second is data quality, because the feed exposes catalogue neglect ruthlessly — missing manufacturer codes, three-word titles, one photograph per product — and every rejected item is a product that simply does not exist on that channel.
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Why it matters for your business
Access to the channels that actually sell
Shopping listings, social commerce, marketplaces and comparison sites all require a feed, so one file unlocks several revenue routes.
Prices and stock always in sync
Frequent automatic refresh prevents advertising an unavailable product or a superseded price, which protects both margin and account standing.
One catalogue, any number of channels
Channel-specific rules are applied on top of a single source, so adding a marketplace does not add another catalogue to maintain.
Frequently asked questions
What format does a product feed need to be in?
It depends on the destination, which is why generation should be automatic rather than manual. Google Merchant Centre accepts XML in its own schema or a structured spreadsheet; social platforms accept CSV and XML with their own field names; marketplaces publish individual specifications. Modern shop platforms generate several variants from one catalogue, and a feed management tool handles the rest.
Why does Google Merchant Centre reject products from my feed?
The frequent causes are dull and fixable: missing GTIN or manufacturer part number, price or availability that disagrees with the landing page, image with promotional text or a watermark, missing shipping or return details, and category mapping that does not match the product. The diagnostics screen names the exact reason per item, and fixing categories in bulk usually clears most of the queue at once.
How often should the feed be updated?
Once a day is the floor and rarely enough for anything with volatile stock. Prices and availability should refresh at least hourly, and the major platforms support supplemental updates that push changes within minutes. Match the frequency to how fast your prices actually move: a shop that repriced daily and refreshed nightly is advertising yesterday's offer to today's customers.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247