They're the heart of your online shop: your products. Even if you want to offer a lot of products, you don't have to worry about a lot of effort with Shopify. The shop system is intuitive and so clear that you can add products in no time.
In our guide, we'll walk you step by step through the Shopify admin and show you all the important features you need to create and effectively manage products.
Our e-commerce expert Adrian has already helped numerous brands launch on Shopify. In his book, Shopify for Dummies, he provides retailers with all the essential information they need to navigate Shopify ( view on Amazon / view at your local bookstore ).
1. How to create a new product on Shopify
To add products to your online store, select "Products" in the navigation bar of the admin area. Here you'll find all the important options for managing your products.
Shopify makes this particularly easy, as the system already includes everything you need to manage your product information and inventory. You won't have to worry about external software providers or technical terms like PIM, ERP, or ERP systems until your e-commerce becomes very complex.
1.1. Provide basic information
Here you can see all the products you've already created. Click on a product to edit it. Or you can create a new one using the "Add Product" button.
When you create a new product, an input mask opens with various fields for entering the desired information about your product.
You can fill out the following basic information here:
- Title: Enter the name of your product. You can change this name later.
- Description: In this field, you can enter all important information about your product. Meta fields and product page templates allow you to add even more detailed information.
- Product category: Choose the appropriate category from the industries provided by Shopify. This is especially important if you sell on third-party marketplaces.
- Product type: Here you can define specific types for your products, which is useful for filtering options on the category page or when creating categories.
- Vendor: Note the product's manufacturer. This is helpful if you offer products from multiple brands. Many themes display this information right next to the product name and price.
- Categories: If you already have categories in your store, you can assign the product to them and it will be listed in the corresponding category.
- Tags: Tags are keywords you can add to your product to better organize and structure it. Learn more about Shopify tags in our blog.
- Price: Set the price at which customers can purchase the product.
- Compare price: Enter the original price here when the product is currently on sale. The Shopify theme will then display this price with a strikethrough and mark the product with an "On Sale" badge.
- Cost per item: Enter the unit cost if you want to better plan your product margin. This information is not displayed in the store but is used for internal data analysis.
How can you create and manage categories in Shopify ? We'll show you how in our guide.
1.2. Setting VAT
When you create your product, you can specify whether VAT is charged directly in the product information using a checkbox. This is usually the case, so make sure you check the appropriate box.
If you have different tax rates for your products, you can adjust this in the settings. There you can define the VAT rates and assign the respective products to these rates.
1.3. Set the base price
If you sell products that are offered in specific units of quantity, such as drinks in milliliters or liters, creams in milliliters or grams, and spices in grams or kilograms, you must state the base prices in addition to the normal price in this country.
You can set this up directly when creating products in German Shopify stores, so that your pricing information complies with legal regulations right from the start.
1.4. Upload product images
A product in an online store only really stands out through its product images. Therefore, it's important that you complement your products with compelling photos. You can do this when creating products in the "Media" section, where you can either upload files from your computer or enter an existing URL.
Once the product images are uploaded, you can easily adjust the arrangement using drag and drop. To do this, hold down the mouse pointer on an image and drag it to the desired location.
The leftmost image is displayed first in your product photo gallery and also appears as a thumbnail on category pages and in other areas like the shopping cart. Some themes also offer the option to display a second image when hovering over it, which then becomes the second image in the array.
1.5. Store inventory information
To make your warehouse processes and inventory management more efficient, we recommend that you enter important additional information in the “Inventory” section when creating products:
- Item number (SKU): This number is crucial for assigning products in your warehouse and is often used by warehouse software.
- Barcode: Sometimes external partners require additional product data, such as ISBN numbers. You can add such information in this field.
- Track Quantity: This option lets you decide whether to automatically update your inventory when products are sold. Check this box to adjust the inventory with each order, or leave it unchecked if inventory isn't relevant for certain products.
- Continue selling even if product is out of stock: If you want products to continue to be available for purchase even when stock levels drop to zero, enable this option. Your stock level will then go negative, but sales will continue.
- Inventory: Here you can view and adjust your current inventory. Shopify even allows you to manage inventory levels across multiple locations.
2. Shopify: Sell digital products
There may be times when you offer products that don't require shipping, such as digital products. In Shopify, you can easily specify this with a checkbox when creating your store. If you uncheck the box, no shipping information will be requested, and no shipping costs will be charged.
3. Create product variants in Shopify
Often, you don't just have a single product, but several variations of it. A common example is online fashion stores, where, for example, a T-shirt is offered not only in one size, but in S, M, L, or XL. Of course, you can also offer different colors, quantities, or other variations – there are almost no limits to your creativity here, as long as you stay within Shopify's specifications.
To create different product variants, you can navigate to the "Variants" section within the product. Here you define the variant levels (called "option names" in Shopify) and the corresponding variant options ("option values").
Remember to save your changes. The created variants will then be listed and displayed in this area.
Shopify imposes certain limitations on creating product variants. For a long time, the maximum number of product variants was 100. However, Shopify has already announced an increase.
Furthermore, the number of variation levels is limited to three. For example, you can add color and fit as additional levels in addition to size. However, this exhausts all three dimensions. A fourth level, such as fabric, would not be possible in this case.
Our experience: Only online shops with complex configuration requirements, e.g. in the Home & Living sector, reach their limits.
4. Publish product
Once you've entered all the information and are ready to publish your product, simply save it. Once your product's status is set to "Active," it will be displayed in your online store and accessible via the product page.
If you want to remove a product from the online shop, you can change the status from "Active" to "Draft." Your product will then no longer be visible in the online shop.
With Shopify, you can also offer your products not only in your online store, but also through other channels, such as your Instagram shop, a retail space operated with Shopify POS, or external channels like Google Shopping. By default, your products are enabled for all your sales channels.
However, if you want to offer certain products only through certain sales channels, you can configure this for each product individually. In the product entry area, you'll find the "Publication" section, where you can specify which channel your product should be offered through.
If you haven't added any additional sales channels to your online store, only the online store will be displayed as a sales channel by default. As soon as you add additional channels, they will also appear in this selection.
In this video, Adrian walks you through the entire process of adding a product, step by step. This clip is part of his VisualMakers course , which provides an ideal start to your Shopify experience.
5. Create products in bulk
If you have a lot of products you want to add to your Shopify online store, manually creating products can be very time-consuming. In such cases, we recommend using tools that allow you to quickly add many products at once, often referred to as "bulk upload."
You can upload your product data using a CSV file. Shopify provides a template to help you navigate and correctly adhere to Shopify's predefined structure.
To do this, click the "Import" button in the product overview in Shopify Admin. A window will open where you can upload the CSV file.
6. Advanced Settings
6.1. Optimize products for SEO
To be easily found in search engines like Google, it's important to provide your product pages with specific information. In addition to all the data you've already entered, Shopify also offers the option of storing specific information for search engines. You can make these adjustments directly in a product under the "Search Engine Listing" section.
The following options are available to you:
- Page title: Determine which title should be displayed in search engines. This helps you optimize your SEO activities.
- Meta description: This is also crucial for search engine listing and ranking optimization. Write a text of up to 320 characters that appears below the page title in search engine listings.
- URL handle: If you want to customize the last part of your product page URL, you can do so here. By default, Shopify uses the product name as the URL handle, but you can change it at any time. If you change the URL handle, Shopify will automatically suggest setting up a redirect from the old URL to the new one, so visitors don't get lost if they go to the old URL.
6.2. Assign template
If you want to use a different product page design for your product, you can easily assign it in Shopify. To do so, select a different template under "Theme Template" in the "Online Store" section.
To assign a specific product page template to your product, you must first create it in the Theme Editor. There, you can make general adjustments to the structure and appearance of the product page. By default, all newly created products are assigned the default product page template. If you want to make changes that affect all product pages, you can do so in the "Default Product" template in the Theme Editor.
You can learn more about the features of the Theme Editor in our guide.
6.3. Using metafields
In Shopify, meta fields allow you to present products even more flexibly. Our recommendation is to actively use meta fields in addition to description fields to add custom content.
Existing product meta fields are listed at the bottom of the page. You can add information for your product and fill in the available fields.
If you want to add new metafields for your product, you will be redirected from the product creation area to the Shopify settings. Metafields are stored across all shops in the "Custom Data" section. By clicking the "Add Definition" button, you can create a new metafield, which will then be listed in the product creation area.
You can also assign custom meta fields to individual product variants. This can be particularly useful for supporting specific filtering logic or displaying additional information specifically for each product variant on the product page in your online store.
You can find out exactly how to use meta fields and dynamic sources in Shopify in our guide.
