Here are a few best practices to note when creating new products in Lightspeed that will sync to your Shopify site. For clients that prefer the idea of creating the entire product in Lightspeed (all data and images) and then having it sync to Shopify without ever having to login to Shopify, this recommendation is for you.
This is only a recommendation and there are other options you can explore. It all comes down to how much double-data entry you want to do. If you have to put the data in Lightspeed anyhow, why not have it sync to Shopify versus entering it again. Also some clients want to explore sending products to more than just Shopify (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Etsy). If all the data is in Lightspeed, it makes it very easy to send the same product data and images to another online channel without doing your data entry twice.
Some of our Shopify clients do 100% of all data entry in Lightspeed. It may take some work initially, but in the long run it will make life so much easier over the years as you open more retail stores.
Simple Products (products with no variants) on Shopify:
- Create the product title in Lightspeed the same way it will appear in Shopify - spelling and sentence case is exactly the same.
If it looks like this on Shopify: wool clutch with leather detail, it would also look like that in Lightspeed.
Note 1: There are options in Lightspeed to use the Web Short Description as your Shopify product title also.
- Images and alternate images are the same
- Weight is the same
- Web Long Description is the same
- System ID or Custom SKU is the same as the Shopify SKU
- Price is the same - You can use the default or online price in Lightspeed for Shopify. There is a setting in Hyperspace to choose which one you want to use.
Products with variants (e.g sizes, colors) on Shopify:
You would first create a Matrix Attribute for each Attribute Type. Lightspeed offers several by default including color/size or just size or color. You do not have to use the default ones in Lightspeed. You can create custom attribute labels such as: Metal finish or Fabric.
How you spell it in Lightspeed will affect how it looks on Shopify (Fabric, fabric or FABRIC).
The attribute label in Lightspeed will sync to Shopify and create a drop-down in Shopify for that product called: FABRIC and under it you would have your selections like cotton, satin, silk...
So the attribute label and the attribute values in Lightspeed will become the attribute label and attribute values in Shopify. Also be sure to use consistency when adding your attribute values to Lightspeed. For example, we had an instance where 3 employees added the sizes like this:
- small, medium, large
- s, m, l
- SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE
Everything still worked fine, but the values in the dropdown menu were not consistent.
It is a good idea to review your standards on how data should be entered with your team before creating the values in Lightspeed.
For example, if you want this product to have a ‘label’ of Fabric. We need to create a matrix attribute in Lightspeed called: Fabric
You can find this under the inventory tab in Lightspeed in the row titled Inventory Maintenance: Matrix Attribute Sets
See example below. If you want 2 drop-downs to appear on Shopify like Fabric and Thread Count for a product you would choose 2 Attribute.
Then you would create attributes for each Item-Matrix product. For a complete video tutorial on creating Item-Matrix products in Lightspeed, please review this video.
Note 2: If you sell a product that comes in different colors and want the image to change to that color when you select it from the drop down, you will need to load the correct image into each child product.
For example, if you create an Item-Matrix product in Lightspeed with an attribute value of color and the children values of blue, green and red. You will need to load the image for each color to each child product.