productfeeds

Product feeds are structured data files used to distribute product information to external platforms. They enable retailers to publish catalogs to shopping engines, marketplaces, price comparison sites, and advertising networks. A feed may be delivered as CSV, TSV, XML, or JSON, and often follows a platform-specific schema such as Google Merchant Center, Facebook Catalog, or Bing Shopping.

Core fields typically include id, title, description, link, image_link, price, availability, brand, gtin or MPN, and category. Additional attributes commonly cover color, size, material, condition, shipping, tax, sale_price, and custom attributes for internal catalog mapping.

Feeds are generated from a retailer's product database or content management system and regularly updated to reflect inventory changes, price updates, and new or discontinued items. Automation and feed-management tools help generate, schedule, validate, and optimize feeds, while error reporting supports quick remediation of rejected or malformed items. Data quality is critical, as missing or inconsistent attributes can lead to disapproved listings or poor performance in downstream platforms.

Practices for effective use include ensuring unique product identifiers, maintaining up-to-date stock data, optimizing titles and descriptions for target platforms, and providing rich media such as multiple images. Compliance considerations include platform policies, regional tax and shipping rules, and data privacy requirements. Common destinations for product feeds include shopping ads, merchant marketplaces, affiliate networks, and comparison engines. See also: product information management, data feeds, e-commerce data standards, shopping engine, feed validation.