Shopify product information management means keeping your product data in a PIM and sending it to Shopify from there. PIM is short for product information management system. Shopify still runs the store and the checkout. The PIM holds the titles, descriptions, prices, SKUs, attributes and photos, and decides what each store receives.
For one Shopify store, you probably don’t need a PIM. The Shopify admin is a good product editor. It stops being enough when the same products have to live somewhere else too, such as a second Shopify store, a WooCommerce site or a supplier spreadsheet. Our guide to product information management covers the general idea. This post is about Shopify.
What Shopify handles on its own
Shopify is better at product data than its reputation suggests. Out of the box it has:
- Products with variants, each with its own SKU, price, barcode, weight and stock
- Metafields for extra product data, with definitions that give each field a type
- Collections, picked by hand or filled automatically by rules
- A bulk editor that works like a spreadsheet across many products
- CSV import and export in Shopify’s own format, one row per variant
Metafields alone cover most of what small stores used to buy a PIM for. If Shopify is your only channel, start there.
Where Shopify runs out
The limits all come from one fact. Your product data lives inside one Shopify store, and the admin was built to run that store.
A second store means a second copy. Plenty of brands run a separate Shopify store for wholesale or for another region. The products and the metafield definitions have to be set up in each store, and every change after that happens twice.
Shopify’s CSV only fits Shopify. The export uses Shopify’s own columns. Moving the catalog to WooCommerce or a marketplace means rebuilding the file by hand.
Nothing tells you a product is unfinished. Shopify will publish a product with no description, no weight and empty metafields. On 2,000 products, finding the gaps means filtering and scrolling.
Metafields pile up. Apps add their own metafields and staff add more. After a year the list is long, and it’s hard to tell which ones the theme still reads.
Signs your Shopify store needs a PIM
- You run two Shopify stores, or Shopify and WooCommerce
- Prices and descriptions drift apart between stores
- Product data starts in a spreadsheet that someone pastes into Shopify
- Several people edit products in the admin, and changes get lost
- You can’t say how many products are missing a photo, a weight or a description
- Supplier files take hours of cleanup before every import
If only the last one sounds familiar, a cleaner spreadsheet may do. If the first two do, you have a sync problem, and the Shopify admin won’t fix it.
How a PIM connects to Shopify
A PIM connects to Shopify as an app. You start the connection in the PIM, Shopify shows what access the app wants, and you approve it. The PIM then creates and updates products through Shopify’s Admin API.
A field map decides which PIM field lands in which Shopify field. This is the map Sellufy uses:
| Sellufy field | Shopify field |
|---|---|
| Product name | Title |
| Description | Description |
| SKU, price, barcode, weight | Variant SKU, price, barcode, weight |
| Compare price | Compare-at price |
| Brand | Vendor |
| Category | Product type, plus a collection created if missing |
| Tags | Tags |
| Images | Product media |
| Variants | Variants with their own SKU, price, stock, image |
| Stock | Inventory at your store’s location |
| Custom attributes | Metafields |
Check which way data flows before you commit to any PIM. Sellufy sends data to Shopify, and nothing comes back. Change a price in the Shopify admin and the next publish from Sellufy overwrites it. So once you have a PIM, you edit products there and nowhere else.
Shopify PIM app or a separate PIM
Search for a Shopify PIM and you’ll find two kinds of tool.
Some PIM apps live inside the Shopify admin. They’re built around Shopify’s own product model, with variants, metafields and collections, and they fit well when Shopify is your only channel. They can’t feed a WooCommerce store, and some can’t feed a second Shopify store either.
A separate PIM keeps product data in its own database and sends it to Shopify and anywhere else you sell. That’s the setup for more than one store. It’s also one more tool to pay for and learn, so it only makes sense once you have the sync problem.
How Sellufy works with Shopify
Sellufy is a PIM with Shopify and WooCommerce built in.
- Connect a store from the Sellufy dashboard and approve the app in Shopify.
- Export your products from Shopify as a CSV and import the file into Sellufy. Sellufy groups the variant rows by handle, the same way Shopify’s export lays them out.
- Publish one product or a whole batch. Sellufy creates each product in Shopify the first time and updates that same product after.
- Variants go across with their own SKU, price, barcode, stock and image.
- Categories become collections. Sellufy adds the product to a collection with the same name, or creates one.
- Map custom attributes to metafields once, and every publish fills them.
- Images come from the built-in DAM, so the photo on Shopify is the one in your library.
- AI enrichment writes missing descriptions and attribute values before you publish.
- Connect a second Shopify store or a WooCommerce store, and the same product record feeds both.
Sellufy doesn’t pull products out of Shopify by itself, and edits made in the Shopify admin don’t flow back. Use the CSV import for the first load, then edit in Sellufy.
Free lets you build a catalog of 50 products but doesn’t connect a store. Growth, at $9 a month, connects two stores and holds 250 products. The pricing page lists the larger plans.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify a PIM?
No. Shopify stores product data so it can sell it in one store. A PIM stores product data so it can send it to many places. For a single store, Shopify’s product admin does the job a PIM would.
Do metafields replace a PIM?
For one store, mostly yes. Metafields hold the extra fields a PIM would hold. They don’t help once the same product has to reach a second store, because each store keeps its own metafields.
Can one PIM run Shopify and WooCommerce together?
Yes. The product record lives once in the PIM, and each store gets it in its own format. Read WooCommerce product information management for the WooCommerce side.
What happens to my products if I stop using the PIM?
They stay in Shopify. The PIM created normal Shopify products, so the store keeps working, and you go back to editing them in the Shopify admin.