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Want a catalog from your Shopify products? Run the Shopify import below first, then open AI Concierge — it can build catalogs and edit fields for the imported products. Learn more
Note: This article covers the latest Catalog Machine version 2, our latest platform with enhanced Shopify integration features.
Overview
Catalog Machine's Shopify integration allows you to import products and variants directly from your Shopify store, keep product information synchronized, extend products with additional fields and images, and create professional catalogs quickly.
Before You Start
You'll need: an active Shopify store, admin access, a Catalog Machine account, products set up in Shopify
Consider organizing your products in Shopify first
Import Process
Watch this short 3-minute video for an overview of the steps for importing products from Shopify:
1. Connect to Shopify
Go to Import → Shopify in Catalog Machine
Click Install from Shopify App Store
Authorize the Catalog Machine app in your Shopify store
You are returned to Catalog Machine automatically, with the store connected
Installing adds Catalog Machine to the Shopify store your browser is currently signed in to. Shopify offers a store picker only when the stores sit under a single Shopify account, so if you manage several stores under separate logins, switch stores in Shopify first, then install. Catalog Machine cannot ask you which store to use.
Changing or disconnecting your store
Only one Shopify store is connected at a time, and the connection is stored on your Catalog Machine account. Signing out of Shopify, clearing cookies, or opening a private window does not change it.
From the import screen (the usual way):
Go to Import → Shopify. The connected store is named on a button in the toolbar, next to View Shopify products.
Click it to see the full
.myshopify.comname.Click Change Shopify store. That disconnects the current one.
Reconnect by installing from the Shopify App Store again, after switching to the store you want in Shopify.
From your account: Account → Admin → Shopify Connection → Disconnect Shopify Import does the same thing.
If your Catalog Machine plan is billed through Shopify, you cannot change stores yourself. Import and billing share one connection, so repointing it would leave the recurring charge running on the old store with no way to cancel it. Catalog Machine blocks the change and asks you to contact support, who will move it for you.
2. Select Products
Load and view your Shopify products
Filter products by collections, keywords, status (active/draft), stock availability
Select products to import
Choose load size (up to 1000 products per batch)
An import only brings in the products you actually select — and a later re-import only refreshes those. Products you skipped the first time, or that were added in Shopify since, stay missing until you load and select them too. If Catalog Machine shows fewer products than Shopify does, use Load all, filter to the collection, and select everything before importing. Re-importing a product that is already there updates it in place; it does not create a duplicate.
3. Import
Select Products for Import
Choose Product Organization — pick a Category for new products, and in the Collection dropdown choose ⥃ Match Shopify Collections if you want your Shopify collections carried across (see the note below)
Import options — toggles that sit directly on the import toolbar once you have selected products: Inventory only update, Use 'Compare at price', Metafields, Skip variants, Skip images
Inventory only update refreshes stock for products already in Catalog Machine and nothing else. Selecting products you have never imported will not add them, and every variant of a multi-variant product is refreshed, not just the first. For a collection you already track, ⋮ → Update stock only on the Shopify collections page is simpler, because it cannot add anything by design.
Can't find the Metafields toggle? It only appears when a product you have selected actually carries Shopify metafields — those products show a META badge in the product grid. If no product shows that badge, this store has no Shopify metafields to import and no setting will change that. The toggle is also disabled while Inventory only update is on, and your choice is remembered for next time.
What Gets Imported
Standard Fields: product name, description, prices, SKUs, images (main and variant-specific), product type and vendor, tags, store URL.
Variant Information: SKUs and barcodes, prices (regular and compare-at), options (size, color, etc.), stock levels, variant-specific images.
Additional Data: meta fields from Shopify apps, custom fields, product status, and collection assignments (only when ⥃ Match Shopify Collections is selected — see below).
Variants are capped per product: 5 on a free account, 500 on a paid one. A product with more variants than the cap imports only the first ones, and the import log records "A product exceeds more than N variants". On a free account this shows up quickly in apparel: a jersey with Size × Colourway × Turnaround runs to dozens of combinations, so what lands is the first five sizes of the first colourway. The rest were not hidden — they were never imported.
The import also selects whole products, never individual variants. If your store models designs or colourways as a variant option inside one Shopify product, there is no way to pick which of them come across — it is all of them, up to the cap, or none. Two ways around it: split the designs into separate Shopify products, or use a CSV import, where each row is a variant you chose to include.
Collections are not imported automatically. In the import toolbar, the Collection dropdown starts on -- Import to collection --. Unless you change it to ⥃ Match Shopify Collections, your products import with no collection assignments at all — and the import still reports success, so nothing tells you until you try to group a catalog by collection and find nothing to group.
If that has already happened, just run the import again with the option selected. Products are matched by their Shopify product ID, so nothing is duplicated, and any collection that does not exist yet is created for you.
One caution: matching replaces a product's collections rather than adding to them. If you have built your own collections inside Catalog Machine that do not exist in Shopify, a matched re-import will remove those products from them. In that case group by Product Type instead, or re-add your Catalog Machine collections afterwards.
Bringing your Shopify collection order across. To keep the product order you arranged inside a Shopify collection, pick that collection in the Shopify Collection dropdown at the top of the import screen before you load and import. Products are then added to the Catalog Machine collection in the same order they appear in that Shopify collection. This works whether you import into a chosen collection or use ⥃ Match Shopify Collections.
Four things to know:
The order applies to products being added. Products already in the Catalog Machine collection keep the positions they have, and new ones are appended after them.
Use Load all first if you want the whole order. Importing a single page carries the order of that page only.
Without the collection filter there is no order to carry, so products are simply appended.
Re-importing never reorders a collection you arranged by hand. If you want it back in Shopify's order, use Sync on the Shopify collections page below.
Keeping a collection matching Shopify
You no longer have to re-import a whole collection to make it match Shopify. On Import → Shopify, open the Shopify collections page for a side-by-side map: every Shopify collection, its Catalog Machine counterpart, both product counts, and a status.
Sync — puts the collection in the same order as Shopify and adds anything missing. It never removes, and products you added in Catalog Machine stay where they are.
Create — shown when there is no Catalog Machine counterpart yet. Creates it and links the two.
⋮ → Link to a different collection — pairs the Shopify collection with an existing Catalog Machine one when the names do not match.
⋮ → Update stock only — refreshes stock quantities for that collection's products, and adds nothing.
⋮ → Replace with Shopify — the only action that removes products from a collection. It makes membership identical to Shopify and asks you to confirm how many are being dropped.
Sync all and Update stock at the top run the same thing across every linked collection.
Points that matter:
Sync only touches membership and order, not product data. It does not re-download images or refresh prices and descriptions — use a normal import for that.
If Shopify has products you have never imported, Sync offers to import them and asks which category they belong to. New products need a category or the importer skips them; existing products are not changed.
"Nothing to sync" means the collection's products are not in Catalog Machine at all, which is different from "Up to date".
Collections are matched by name at first, then remembered. Syncing a name-matched row links the pair permanently.
Replace on a large collection can drop a lot. If your Catalog Machine collection holds more products than Shopify does, Replace removes the difference — read the confirmation count before accepting.
After Import
Products are copied to Catalog Machine's database
Changes in Catalog Machine won't affect Shopify
Updates from Shopify can be imported anytime — there is no automatic or scheduled sync, so refreshing product data means running the import again on the products you want refreshed. For collection membership and order, Sync on the Shopify collections page is faster than a re-import.
Custom fields and additional images in Catalog Machine are preserved during updates
Tip: Once products are imported, AI Concierge can build a catalog from them automatically — just ask "build a catalog from my Shopify products".
Next Steps
Create product catalogs using AutoGrid, Product Lists, or custom layouts
Add custom fields for additional information
Create custom Product Cards for consistent display
Advanced Features
Price Management: Add price tiers, use parameters, import compare-at prices
Image Management: Multiple image fields, custom labels, Product Cards displaying all images
Automation: Use Zapier to schedule imports or set up regular sync
Tips and Best Practices
Before Import: Organize products in Shopify first, create categories in Catalog Machine, plan your structure
During Import: Start with a small batch as test, review settings, match categories appropriately
After Import: Verify imported data, add additional fields, create catalogs (or ask AI Concierge to build one)
Troubleshooting
Connection problems: Check Shopify app permissions
The wrong store's products are showing: The store button in the import toolbar, next to View Shopify products, names the store you are connected to. To switch, click it and choose Change Shopify store, then install again from the Shopify App Store while signed in to the store you want. See "Changing or disconnecting your store" above.
Missing products, or products out of date: Both have the same fix and different causes. Check filter settings first, then compare the counts — if Catalog Machine holds fewer products than the Shopify collection does, they were simply never selected. Use Load all, select everything, and import again; existing products update in place rather than duplicating.
A product came in with fewer variants than it has in Shopify: it hit the per-product variant cap — 5 on a free account, 500 on a paid one. The import log names any product it had to truncate.
Collections empty, or products ungrouped after import: Almost always because ⥃ Match Shopify Collections was not selected during import — it is off by default. Check Products → Collections: if your collections are missing, or exist but contain 0 products, re-run the import with the option selected. If the products are already imported and only the grouping is wrong, Sync on the Shopify collections page fixes it without a re-import.
Products are in the wrong order inside a collection: Check stock first — out-of-stock products are often hidden in your Shopify storefront while still sitting in the Catalog Machine collection, which looks like a bad sync and is not one. If the order really has drifted, use Sync on the Shopify collections page. It reorders the collection to match Shopify and adds anything missing, without emptying it and without re-downloading every product and image.
Metafields not appearing after import: Turn the Metafields toggle on in the import toolbar before importing. If you cannot see that toggle, none of the products you selected carry Shopify metafields — look for the META badge in the product grid to confirm. Metafields must be Shopify native metafields (Settings → Custom data), not third-party app internal data, and empty metafields won't create fields. If you already imported without it, re-import the same products with the toggle on — they match by Shopify Product ID, so nothing duplicates.
A replaced product image still shows the old picture: this is not a Shopify problem. See Images & Image Manager — replacing an image under the same filename updates on its own, and renaming the file is not the fix.
Field mapping: Review category structure
Need Help?
Use AI Help (chat icon in the app) for instant answers, or chat with our support team for: connection issues, import configuration, custom requirements.