Smart Feed: Creating a General XML Product Feed

This guide explains how to create a shared XML product feed that can be used across multiple channels. Each General XML feed targets one country and one language, using the prices and product content from that country's market. This makes it easy to create a separate catalog for each country, which many ad platforms require for multi-country campaigns.

Before you start, make sure you’ve completed the preparation steps outlined in "Smart Feed : Overview and Key Features."

Before You Start

Before creating a product feed, please ensure the following:

• Products have been created and published in the SHOPLINE Admin > Products.
• Products are enabled for the Online Store channel.
• The country and language you want to target have been added to an enabled market in your store's Markets settings.
• The products you want to sync have been added to that market.

Create a General XML Feed

Step 1: Sync Products from SHOPLINE

In Smart Feed, go to: Manage Product > Sync products.

The system will fetch product data from SHOPLINE via API.

Recommended usage:

After making bulk updates or changes to key products in SHOPLINE, it is recommended to manually trigger a sync.

Estimated sync time:

• Up to 10,000 variants: ~30 minutes
• Up to 50,000 variants: ~2 hours

Step 2: Connection Setup

Go to Smart Feed > Manager channels > Choose General XML, and click Add channel.

The same store can create 5 general XML feeds, used for unified field rules across multiple channels or to sync feed data to media channels not yet connected to SmartFeed.Each feed targets one country and one language. To reach several countries or languages, create a separate feed for each combination.

Setting the Product ID Format

After you click Add channel, the Set Product ID Format dialog appears.

1. Choose how product IDs will be generated for this feed:

   • SHOPLINE's Product ID: Uses the product ID from your SHOPLINE Admin (SPU ID or SKU ID), consistent with the existing behavior for this channel.
   • Custom Product ID: Upload a file mapping your own product and product group IDs (supports .csv, up to 20MB). Any product not found in your uploaded file will use its SHOPLINE product ID instead.

   Note: A template file is available for download when setting up Custom Product ID.

2. Click Next to continue.

Media Channel Reporting Management (SHOPLINE's Product ID Only)

If you choose SHOPLINE's Product ID, you can turn on Media Channel Reporting Management for this feed. When enabled, Smart Feed syncs this feed's product IDs and product data in real time to the channels you select (for example, Google, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, or Microsoft), making it easier to spot and troubleshoot product issues in those channels' feeds.

1. Turn on Media Channel Reporting Management.
2. Toggle on reporting for each channel you want to include.

Step 3: Select the Country, Language, and Product Sync Scope

On the Product Filter page, choose the country where this feed's ads will run and the language for its product content. Then set which products to sync.

To select the country and language for a General XML feed:

1. Under Select Country for Ads, choose a country from the dropdown. Each option shows the market, the country, and its currency, for example EU–Netherlands (EUR).
2. Under Select Ad Language, choose one language. The list shows the languages added to the selected market:

• Recommended Language: The official or commonly used language of the selected country. It appears at the top of the list.
• Market Default Language: The default language of the selected market.

Example: A store sells in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, all in EUR, and its ad platform requires one catalog per country. The store creates three General XML feeds:

• Netherlands, in Dutch
• Belgium, in French
• Luxembourg, in French

Product filtering rules determine which products will be synced to this channel. Only products added to the selected market can be synced. Products manually excluded from that market are not synced.

Available methods:

• Specify products by SPU ID / SKU ID

Step 4: Configure Product Field Rules

• Core fields are pre-configured based on best practices
• You can customize fields like title, category, labels

Macro example:

Enter colour: system maps to product attribute (e.g., red)

Use Preview Products to validate results.

Step 5: Preview Products

Check:

• Field accuracy
• Variants completeness
• Product ID consistency

Step 6: Generate XML Feed

Click XML generation to generate the XML feed.

You can:

• View XML link in Feed Management
• Check sync time and product count 

The feed is named automatically in this format: General XML-{Currency}-{Country}-{Language}. For example, a feed for Luxembourg in French is named General XML-EUR-LU-FR.

The feed uses the prices set in the selected market, and product content such as titles appears in the selected language.

Smart Feed updates the XML feed daily. You can check the updates in Feed Management.

How Market Changes Affect a General XML Feed

A General XML feed gets its products, prices, and content from the market you selected. Changes to that market's settings can affect the feed.

The feed stops working if its market, country, or language is removed: This applies when any of the following happens:

• The market is deleted.
• The country is removed from the market.
• The language is removed from the market.

When this happens, the feed is removed from your feed list, and a notice appears on the Manage Products and Manage Channels pages. To continue syncing products for that country, create a new feed with an active market, country, and language.

The feed updates automatically if the market's currency setting changes: For example, if you turn on local currency for the market, the feed switches to the country's local currency. The new currency applies at the next daily update, or immediately when you update the feed manually.

Reviewing Missing Required Fields

After your products sync, Smart Feed checks whether any required field for General XML renders empty, and flags it directly on the Manage Products page — so you don't have to trace the issue back from a rejection on the ad platform.

Required fields for General XML: id, title, description, link, image_link, price, availability.

To review and fix missing fields:

1. Go to Manage Products > Submitted tab for the General XML channel.
2. If any product has an empty required field, you'll see a banner: "Some products have required fields left empty. Please complete them on the main site.” 
3. Click into a product row to see field-level detail. Any field still missing is marked Required field is empty.

FAQs About Creating a General XML Product Feed

Q1: Why do some of my products show a "Required field empty" warning even though the feed has already generated successfully?

A required field can still render as empty even after your field rules are set up correctly — usually because the underlying product data is missing on the main site (for example, a blank product description). Smart Feed flags this directly on the Manage Products page so you can fix it before the channel rejects the product, rather than finding out later from an error on the ad platform.

Q2: Can I change the country or language of an existing General XML feed?

No. The country and language can't be edited after the feed is created. To target a different country or language, delete the feed and create a new one.

Q3: Why is my General XML feed no longer in my feed list?

This happens when the feed's market is deleted, or when its country or language is removed from the market. Check the notice on the Manage Products or Manage Channels page, then create a new feed with an active market, country, and language.