Channel requirements

Marketplace product data requirements, side by side.

Every channel asks for roughly the same information in a slightly different shape. Preparing for the overlap once is far cheaper than preparing for each channel separately, and the overlap is larger than it looks.

Prepare one catalog for every channel See the Google feed specification

Common core

Identity, title, images, price and availability everywhere.

Category rules

Each channel imposes its own required attributes per category.

Media rules

Image size, background and content rules differ by channel.

The overlap

Five things every channel wants, in every category.

Whatever the channel, a listing needs an identity the channel can trust, a title a shopper would recognise, at least one clean image, a price, and an availability state. Getting these five right and keeping them consistent with your own storefront removes most of the rejections a new channel produces.

The differences are in the details rather than in the substance. Title length limits vary. Some channels require a category-specific attribute set. Image rules differ on background, minimum size and whether promotional text is allowed. None of these change what your catalog needs to hold, only how it is rendered on the way out.

Requirement	What every channel expects	Where they differ
Identity	A GTIN, or brand plus MPN where none exists	Which exemptions are granted and how
Title	A descriptive name a shopper would search	Length limits and formatting rules
Images	A clean main image of the product alone	Minimum size, background, text overlay rules
Price	Current price matching the landing page	Whether tax and shipping are included
Availability	Accurate stock state	Refresh frequency expectations
Category attributes	The fields that category requires	Entirely channel specific

Identity

The identifier rules are where most channels are strictest.

Channels match your item against a product they may already know, which is why identifiers get the most validation. The pattern is consistent: send a GTIN when the product has one, send brand and manufacturer part number together when it does not, and declare explicitly when neither exists. Some channels operate an exemption process for products that genuinely have no manufacturer identifier, typically handmade goods, private label and bundles.

The failure that wastes the most time is a valid-looking identifier that belongs to a different product, usually because a SKU was placed in a GTIN field or a restricted-distribution barcode was scanned from a shelf. Validate identifiers in the catalog rather than discovering the problem in a channel's rejection queue.

Normalized GTIN validated for length and check digit
Brand written as the manufacturer registers it
Verbatim MPN, never a cleaned or prefixed variant
An explicit record of products that genuinely have no identifier

Category attributes

The per-category requirements are the real integration work.

Beyond the common core, each channel publishes required attributes per category, and these are where a listing that passes validation still performs badly. Apparel needs variant attributes so sizes group. Electrical and industrial categories ask for technical values. Food and consumables ask for ingredients, allergens and net content.

The efficient response is not to chase each channel's list. It is to define a complete attribute set per product type in your own catalog, driven by what a buyer actually needs to decide, and then map outward. A product type modelled well tends to satisfy several channels at once, and the gaps that remain are visible as completeness failures rather than surprises.

Attribute sets defined per product type in the catalog
Channel requirements expressed as outbound mappings
Completeness measured against the union of channel needs
Gaps visible before submission, not after rejection

Media

Image rules reject more listings than attribute rules.

Channels are specific about images: a minimum pixel size, the product alone against a plain background for the main image, no watermarks, no promotional text, no props that are not included. Supplier-provided images regularly violate at least one of these, because they were produced for a brochure rather than for a marketplace.

Treat image compliance as a catalog attribute, not a design opinion. Record which images are marketplace-safe, keep derivatives at the sizes channels need, and make a missing compliant main image a completeness failure. Nexodo generates deterministic image derivatives from linked product assets, so the sized versions a channel needs come from the same approved record as the data.

Main image of the product alone, plain background
No watermark, promotional text or unincluded props
Derivatives generated at the sizes each channel requires
A compliant main image treated as a completeness requirement

Frequently asked questions

Clear answers before you evaluate a PIM.

Can one export serve every channel?

No, and it should not try to. One canonical catalog with one outbound mapping per channel is the pattern that scales. A single shared export always ends up carrying the most restrictive rules from every channel at once.

What if a product has no barcode at all?

Declare it. Every major channel has a way to state that no manufacturer identifier exists, and some run an exemption process for it. Inventing a number is worse than declaring the absence, because an invented identifier can collide with a real product.

How often do these requirements change?

Often enough that a mapping should be reviewable rather than embedded in a script. Confirm the current requirements in each channel's own published specification before a major mapping change, and version the mapping so the change is traceable.

Where should channel-specific values live?

In the outbound mapping, not in the product record. The record holds what is true about the product. The mapping holds what a particular channel wants that truth to look like.

Continue your product data research

Feed specification

Test Nexodo with a supplier file your team already uses.

Tell us how your supplier files arrive and what your channels reject, and we will tell you whether this workflow fits.

Talk to us See what Nexodo does

A person replies, normally within one business day
Use a representative product sample
We will say plainly if Nexodo is the wrong fit

Marketplace product data requirements, side by side.

Five things every channel wants, in every category.

The identifier rules are where most channels are strictest.

The per-category requirements are the real integration work.

Image rules reject more listings than attribute rules.

Clear answers before you evaluate a PIM.

Continue your product data research

Google Shopping feed specification: what is required, what is conditional, and what breaks.

Every product identifier your catalog carries, and what each one is actually unique across.

Build channel output from approved product data, not another spreadsheet.

Product attribute mapping: turning every supplier's columns into one model.

Test Nexodo with a supplier file your team already uses.