Product Feed
A product feed is a structured data file containing product information — such as titles, prices, images, and descriptions — formatted for submission to a specific marketplace or advertising platform.
What is a Product Feed?
A product feed (also called a data feed) is a file or API stream that contains structured information about your products, formatted according to the requirements of a specific channel or platform. Common destinations for product feeds include Google Shopping, Facebook Catalog, Amazon, comparison shopping engines, and affiliate networks.
Product feeds are the mechanism by which brands make their product catalog available to advertising platforms and retail channels in a machine-readable format.
Common Product Feed Formats
- XML/RSS — used by Google Shopping, comparison shopping engines
- CSV/TSV — simple tabular format used by many platforms
- JSON — used by modern APIs and platforms like Facebook Catalog
- EDI — used for B2B retailer integrations
What a Product Feed Contains
- Product ID and GTIN/UPC
- Product title and description
- Image URLs
- Price and availability
- Product category and attributes
- Landing page URL
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a product feed be updated?
It depends on the volatility of your data. Price and inventory change frequently and should update daily or in real time. Product descriptions and images change less often and weekly updates may suffice.
How does a PIM help manage product feeds?
A PIM system centralizes all product data and can generate optimized feeds for each channel automatically, applying channel-specific formatting rules and ensuring data quality before submission.