Metafields, also known as attributes allow you to create and add custom fields to various sections of your Shopify site, such as products, orders, customers, etc. Doing so allows you to enrich the product data you're displaying to potential customers, improves search ranking by being more relevant, build a more granular view of your customers or store & transfer data between your store and other ecommerce systems or apps (such as Codisto!).

 

In simpler terms: Metafields are the fields that you populate when creating or editing a product in Shopify.

 

In the context of multichannel sales, using custom metafields can add value to your listings and significantly increase your chances of conversion. For example, Codisto recommends enriching your product details with as much structured data as possible. This allows each sales channel to surface your products to the most relevant search query. Customers will also be able to use the available filters to more accurately specify their search (and your listing won't disappear from search!). Once you have created your custom metafields in Shopify, you can use Codisto's attribute mapping tool to map your custom fields to your sales channels.

 

A Shopify metafield consists of:

Name	Description	Example
Namespace	Metadata 'category' to differentiate from other metafield types	Product attributes
Key	The name of the metafield	Size
Value	The metafield content (this is usually what is displayed)	Large

 

 

Shopify does not allow metafield management directly from the platform, so retailers are required to use a third-party app to create and manage meta fields in Shopify through API calls. There are numerous free and paid metafield management apps available in the Shopify app store.

 

For more information on Shopify metafields.