Shopify Metafields: What Are They? + How to Use Them

When creating a Shopify store, you have many tools to choose from. One of these highly versatile tools is the Metafield.

Shopify metafields are fields that store owners use to add crucial information that can help customers in decision-making. They provide additional details that complement the product descriptions and images. Examples include color, date, dimension, weight, volume, number, and rating.

What metafields do

Metafields add special information in Shopify

Metafields are a powerful feature for adding information about Shopify objects. They allow store owners to capture additional pieces of data — such as text blocks or content that don’t otherwise fit into Shopify’s traditional data model. Because of that, these fields are handy when adding custom product details or creating unique customer experiences.

Metafields improve Shopify customer experience

They can add unique information to your Shopify store using custom namespaces and values. You can use this feature to attach extra data to existing attributes like a product or customer record. 

For example, you could add an image or a recent video associated with a product page. That allows you to enhance the customer experience with more up-to-date information than ordinarily available on the website itself.

Metafields help integrate apps that automate tasks

They also come in handy when integrating third-party applications with Shopify. By leveraging the extra data fields, it becomes easier to pass large amounts of structured data between two platforms without having to do manual coding or integration work on either side. 

As a result, it is easier to automate complex processes like order fulfillment or inventory tracking across multiple stores and services.

Metafields help with dynamic content

Finally, they are especially useful when dealing with dynamic content that frequently changes daily — such as promotions and sales events. They provide merchants with an efficient way of keeping track of critical dates and other important information without manually updating it every time something new happens.

Notably, you can use them to add countdowns to promotions and sales events to keep customers informed and increase sales. 

Metafield content types and values in Shopify

Shopify offers various content types that can be assigned values via metafields. These data types come in handy when you create custom experiences for customers with greater flexibility and automate complex tasks behind the scenes.

Here are some content types you can use in Shopify Metafields:

• Color: You can use this field to assign a color to products, collections, or pages.
• Date: You can use this type to set promotions and special events dates.
• Dimension: This allows shop owners to add dimensions to a product or page, such as height and width.
• Weight: You can assign an item’s weight.
• Volume: This allows you to specify an item’s volume in liters or gallons.

Tip: Check the Shopify Help Center for more insights into the content types and values you can use in metafields.

How to use Shopify metafields

Using metafields on your Shopify store is easy once you understand how they work. All you need to do is create a custom field with an associated value and add it to your page or product using liquid code snippets provided by Shopify.

Here are the steps:

1. Log in to your Shopify dashboard and navigate to the “Settings” tab.
2. Select “Metafields” from the drop-down menu.
3. From the “Metafields” page, you can either create a new metafield or edit an existing one.
4. When creating/editing a metafield, you can enter data such as namespaces, keys, values, and descriptions that will be used to store additional information about products, customers, or orders within Shopify.

1. After you’ve finished adding any desired details to the metafields, click “Save” so they can take effect.

Video explanation

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that Shopify metafields are practical tools for any eCommerce store owner looking to gain an edge over their competitors. Metafield data allows store owners to add additional information not available elsewhere on the web and customize their pages and products easily.

By using Shopify metafields, you can create a more immersive and engaging experience for your customers while streamlining the process of managing your store.