Shopify Integration Information & Understanding Navigation

Shopify Integration Information & Understanding Navigation

This article explains what data is exported from Retailer and what field it will appear as within Shopify.
To configure the link please see Setting up a new Webstore

Product Data

Products that have 'Webstore' ticked will be sent to Shopify with the following information:
  1. Description as Title
  2. Web Description (On the extra details tab) as Description
  3. Web Price as Price (Optional)
  4. Barcode as SKU
  5. Variants as Options 
  6. Classifications as Metafields (Product Specs)
  7. Product Images will also be exported
TWC settings also allow for the following information to be synced:
  1. Categories as Collections or Tags
  2. Product Tags as Tags
  3. Product Tags starting with "Brand_" as Shopify Vendor
  4. Product Weight
  5. Stock Item Catalogue Price as Discounted or 'Compare at' Sale Price
See full TWC settings list here  Setting up a new Webstore - Check your Sync Settings


Additional info for Classifications

View advice sheet here - Stock Classification


Additional info for Variants 

Note: If any item in a variant group is ticked for Web Store, all its variants will be.
Any variant ticked as Webstore cannot have a blank variant value.
To change an existing item from a normal stock item to a variant it needs to be deleted off the website and then re-created by the link.
When all items of a variant group have run out of stock - the unpublish option in TWC won't hide or unpublish the variants, as this causes issues with the variant sync.
View advice sheet here Variants (Colour, Size and Style)
Due to the nature of the connection, variant types will be ordered by the length of the variant name.
E.g. Item with
Colour
Size
Style
will have variants rearranged as (shortest name first)
Size
Style
Colour

If you want to maintain the original order, you can change the variant names to be more descriptive (make some longer).
Colour
Shirt Size
Fashion Style

Product Setup for webstore & Understanding navigation

Like departments, Shopify uses ‘Collections’ to group products. These in turn are used to create main navigation links and showcase product ranges throughout your site. 
The goal is to keep it easy to manage by using Stock structure where possible.  Further groupings can be created online.
You can extend your offerings online with products across multiple departments. Shopify: Understanding Automated collections
This is can be achieved through tags or other data such as category names.  
Suggestions: Mother's Day Sale, Christmas, Clearance, Gifts under $50.

While products are sent through at one level, you can easily create up to 3 levels of navigation based on stock data.
This leaves you with three options in which to choose from:

Option one: Treat Departments as Collections, Categories and Tags as Shopify tags
Simplest approach - Perfect when not heavily using additional tags

Option two:  Treat Categories as Collections, Stock tags as Shopify tags, Use Stock tags or data to recreate Department collections in Shopify  
Great for content - Allows you to showcase categories with their own feature photos.

Option three:  Ignore Retailer groupings, Use tags to manage grouping in Shopify.
Time consuming - Requires upkeep of tags to maintain desired product ranges online.  


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