Everything You Need to Know About Shopify Metafields

Metafields give you the ability to add custom fields to your shop's pages, products, orders, customers, collections, and content. They're a powerful tool that can be used to store additional information about your products, customers, and orders. In this article, we'll share how you can add metafields to your Shopify store. We'll also provide some tips on when and how to use metafields to get the most out of them.

What are Shopify Metafields? 

Shopify metafields are custom fields that can be added to any Shopify object, including products, orders, customers, and pages. They provide a way to store additional information about an object that is not supported by the  Shopify admin.

Metafields are a powerful tool that can be used to customize your shop's data and improve your workflow. For example, you can use metafields to:

• Store extra information about a product, such as its manufacturer or material
• Track inventory levels for a product across multiple locations
• Add custom notes to an order
• Store customer preferences or loyalty points
• Add details like variant data, ingredient list, product release date, and more.

A Shopify metafield consists of four components as explained below.

- Namespace: A namespace is like a container for metafields. It helps you store your metafields and keep them organized.

- Key: The key is the unique identifier for a particular metafield within its namespace.

For example, "SKU" or "manufacturer".

- Value: The value is the actual data that you're storing in the metafield. It can be anything from a simple string of text to a complex object.

- Value type: This indicates the type of data that is being stored in the value field. Shopify supports six different value types: string, integer, float, boolean, json, and date.

What are the different types of Shopify metafields? 

Shopify allows businesses to use several types of metafields to store custom information. Let's take a look at five of them below.

- Collection metafield

Collection metafields are a powerful way to add extra data to your Shopify collections. They allow you to store information such as pricing, inventory levels, discounts, and more. 

- Variant metafield

Variant metafields allow businesses to add extra information about each variant of a product. This includes colors, weight, dimensions, and technical specifications. 

- Product metafield

The most common type of Shopify metafield, product metafields are used to store data about a product that isn't covered in the existing product fields. For example, if you wanted to add extra information about a product's materials or manufacturing process, you could use a product metafield.

- Order metafield

You can use order metafields to add custom data about your Shopify orders. This includes special remarks, order priority, or delivery details. 

- Customer metafield

Customer metafields are a type of custom Shopify metafield that allow you to store additional information about your customers. This information can be used to segment your customers, track customer behavior, or even customize the shopping experience for each customer.

How to create a Shopify metafield definition

You can create a Shopify metafield in a few simple steps - 

1. Go to Settings and click 'Metafields'. 
2. Now choose 'Metafields Type'. You can choose product, variant, or any type of custom metafield. 
3. Choose 'Add Definition'. 
4. Add the 4 components – namespace, key, value, and value type. You can choose to add a description. 
5. Choose 'Save' to create the metafield definition.

How to add a Shopify metafield value

Once your metafield definition is added, you can now add values to the metafield for each of the corresponding pages in admin. Adding values can help you leverage internal tracking or display specialized information related to your products. 

Displaying metafields on Shopify 

After you add the metafield definitions and values, you can display this specialized information and connect it to specific product pages. For example, if you are an online fashion retailer, you may want to add extra information such as fabric composition to your product page. 

You can display metafields by using the Shopify theme editor if your theme supports metafields. In case you are comfortable with a little codling, you can edit your theme code to display the metafields on your Shopify store.  You can then use Liquid (Shopify template language) to reference metafields in your page templates. 

Using Shopify metafields to boost your store's performance 

Shopify metafields can be a great way to boost your store's performance. Here are a few tips on how to use them:

- Use metafields to track product information

Adding metafields to your products can help you keep track of important information like sizes, colors, materials, and more. This can be especially helpful if you have a lot of products with different variations. For example, let's say you want to track the number of days each product has been in your inventory. You could create a metafield for each product and set the value to the number of days the product has been in your inventory. Then, you could use this information to run reports and make decisions about which products are selling well and which ones need to be reordered.

- Improve your Shopify store's functionality

By adding extra data fields to your products, customers, and orders, you can create custom features on your store that are not possible with the default Shopify fields. For example, you could use metafields to add customer testimonials to your product pages, or create a custom order status for your customers' orders.

- Use metafields to track customer information

This can include things like customer preferences, contact information, and order history. Keeping track of this information can help you provide better customer service and target your marketing efforts more effectively.

- Improve your Shopify store's functionality

Metafields offer more control over how information is displayed on your shop, and makes it easier to customize the look and feel of your shop. For example, you could use metafields to add customer testimonials to your product pages, or create a custom order status for your customers' orders.

Additionally, metafields can also be used to create dynamic customer profiles, segment customers based on their purchase history, and much more. 

Wrapping Up

Using Shopify metafields is a brilliant way to build an accessible and professional storefront. It helps you offer up-to-date information about the different aspects of your online business, building trust and transparency with your customers.