Shopify product structured data, in plain English

Every product page has two audiences. Shoppers see your photos, copy and Add to cart button. Machines, like Google and AI assistants, read a separate block of text in the page's code that lists the facts about the product. That block is called structured data, and for products it usually looks something like this:

{
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Linen Throw Cushion, Sage, 50 x 50 cm",
  "brand": { "@type": "Brand", "name": "Your Brand" },
  "gtin": "9351234567890",
  "offers": {
    "price": 79.00,
    "priceCurrency": "AUD",
    "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock"
  }
}

Shoppers never see it. Anything reading your page for facts goes straight to it.

What Google requires, and what it recommends

Google says product data can make a page eligible for its shopping features, including the shopping knowledge panel, Google Images, popular product results and product snippets. For that it requires:

• The product name, an image, and an offer
• A price (greater than zero) and the currency

It recommends more, including availability, a description, the brand, the rating and review count, and every barcode (GTIN) that applies.

What Shopify gives you, and what it usually doesn't

Most current Shopify themes output the required basics automatically, so name, image and price are usually fine. In the stores we've inspected, the gaps are almost always in the recommended parts:

• The review rating, because review apps show stars with JavaScript instead of writing them into the data
• Shipping costs and the return policy, which aren't in the data at all
• Barcodes, because the Barcode field in Shopify is empty
• The brand, because the Vendor field holds something else, like a category or region

How to see yours

1. Paste a product page into Google's Rich Results Test.
2. Open the Product result and read through what's there, and what's missing from the list above.

Or run our inspection, which checks all of it and explains each gap in plain English, with a note for your developer.

Why it matters now

Structured data has mattered for Google Shopping for years. AI shopping assistants are a newer reason: they read pages for facts too. To be clear about what's known, nobody has shown that complete product data makes an assistant recommend you more. It does make sure that when one reads your page, the facts are there.