Shopify launches MetaObjects for improved customisation and streamlined product management

By Jade Willis

Shopify has recently introduced a new feature called MetaObjects that promises to revolutionise the way we organise and manage product data on the platform. MetaObjects are essentially custom data fields that can be added to products, allowing merchants to store and retrieve additional information about their products beyond the standard fields that Shopify currently provides.

The introduction of MetaObjects is a significant step forward for Shopify, as it addresses a long-standing limitation with the platform: the limited number of product fields available to merchants. Until now, merchants had to rely on workarounds such as using the product description field to store additional data or resorting to third-party apps to manage their product data.

Tailored Product Data

With MetaObjects, however, merchants can now create their own custom fields to store any type of data they want, such as product specifications, dimensions, warranty information, and much more. This means that merchants can now tailor their product data to their specific needs, making it easier to manage and organise their inventory.

One of the biggest advantages of MetaObjects is that they are fully customisable and can be added to any product, collection, or page on a Shopify store. This means that merchants can create different sets of MetaObjects for different types of products, making it easier to manage and organise their product data across their entire inventory. 

With the rollout of StoreFront 2.0, on our own vvastify 2.0 theme to our brands, and internal improvements in product data management, this has come at a crucial time. Previously product data was duplicated on all products via the use of metafields, which caused a huge time sink creating product imports and opened the team up to potential human error and single point of failure. 

A single source of truth

Now, this product data can be stored in one global location in the merchant admin, and can be referenced by any product. If any updates need to be made to the data, it is amended in one central location. Combined with one of my favourite and must have Shopify apps, Matrixify, it also slims down the product import process, with the idea that there is only one Metafield to point to a globally defined MetaObject.

Room for improvement

However, like any new feature – there is always room for improvement. Although globally storing data in this way reduces duplication, there may still be thousands of MetaObjects to define and this process is very manual. Shopify currently does not support the import or export of MetaObject entities of definitions, much like our golden child, Matrixify. We hope that in the future this is addressed allowing for seamless product data management.

Overall, MetaObjects represent a significant step forward for Shopify and its merchants. By providing a more flexible and customisable way to manage product data, MetaObjects will help merchants streamline their inventory management processes and create a better shopping experience for their customers. 

With the introduction of MetaObjects, Shopify is once again demonstrating its commitment to providing a best-in-class e-commerce platform that meets the evolving needs of merchants and customers alike.