A commerce product feed lets a merchant distribute catalogue information in a machine-readable form. Search engines, marketplaces and artificial intelligence assistants can index the feed ahead of time and use it to answer product queries without contacting the merchant for every search.
The feed must remain current and use stable identifiers so a later cart or checkout can refer to the correct item. Retailers also need controls for availability, regional differences, pricing changes and information that an assistant may present to a shopper.
Why do artificial intelligence shopping agents use product feeds?
Feeds give assistants a scalable, structured catalogue to index, making discovery faster and more consistent than querying every merchant for every request.
Is a product feed the same as live inventory?
Not necessarily. A feed can become stale, so important purchase steps may still require a current inventory or pricing check against the merchant system.
