The product tells you what to do tonight

Overview

Studio → Products is the evening merchandiser. The index is a tonight file: a ribbon on the photo says why this SKU shines, and the Tonight tab holds only SKUs with a real gesture. Open a product and you get one move — never eight recommendations.

Tonight file

The catalog index is a tonight file, not a status dump. A one-line ribbon sits on the photo — running out Friday, 14 waiting for the 38, soft traffic, one look. The Tonight tab keeps drafts and quiet SKUs out. Click the card to play the move on the product page.

SKU merchandiser

Under the title, one sentence and one button. The aside (when Copilot is not beside you) shows pulse chips — visits, sales, cover, waitlist, carts, reviews, creatives, collections — plus two also-tonight chips. Copilot reads the same pulse before it rewrites alt text.

The 17 gestures

The product picks one of these seventeen. Never eight recommendations.

• Last pieces — Stock is melting and sales are still coming. Prepare a last-pieces pack. Do not email the waitlist.
• They're waiting — Stock is back. Tell the people waiting for this SKU — not the whole store list.
• Reviews waiting — Publish or answer what is pending on this product.
• Climbing tonight — The SKU jumped in the catalog. Prepare a campaign tonight — not a coupon.
• Star of an aisle — Best in its collection, missing from the homepage. Dress that aisle tonight.
• Photos missing — It already sells — the photos don’t keep up. Generate a look after you confirm credits.
• Visits, no sales — Traffic is there, sales are not. Restyle the photo or revisit the price — not another clip.
• The video went quiet — The social post slowed. Make another clip to keep the visits — not a discount.
• Soft traffic — Almost no visits. One look tonight, not a discount.
• One promo gesture — The SKU is stuck. Coupon + collection banner + post + story — only because there is a reason.
• A size is out — One size is at zero, the others are in stock. Prepare the restock. Do not email yet.
• Open carts — Carts still hold this SKU. Use the existing abandoned-cart automation — do not invent a new screen.
• Wishlist heat — Many saves, few sales. A story drop, not a sale.
• Creatives waiting — Looks already generated, not applied or posted. Open the last session.
• Not in a collection — Live, but in no collection. Hang it so shoppers can browse to it.
• Still a draft — Finish photos and shipping, then publish. Do not invent a traffic problem.
• This SKU is quiet — Visits, sales and stock are fine. Nothing urgent tonight — keep the listing tidy.

Stock vs waitlist

Stock melting with sales still coming is last pieces — prepare a pack, do not email the waitlist. Stock back with people waiting is one click: tell those N shoppers, not the whole store list. Already at zero with a growing waitlist: ask when the box arrives, and prepare the email — do not send it empty.

Demand vs conversion

Soft visits get a lifestyle look, a clip, a 9:16 story — not −20% by default. Visits fine and sales flat get a photo or a price look, not another clip. A coupon is third: last pieces, a stuck SKU, or a sale window. Never the Shopify reflex “traffic down → discount”.

Promo pack

When the router has a reason, one confirm creates a SKU coupon plus three scoped creatives: collection banner, 1:1 post, 9:16 story. If the product already has a photo and the collection has no image, the banner hangs on confirm. You land in the first session.

Catalog index

The index still searches, filters and paginates — and now it also files the evening:

• Search by product title or vendor name.
• Filter tabs with live counts: Tonight, All, Active, Offline, Out of stock, Archived.
• Table columns: thumbnail, title, status, inventory, price, tonight one-liner, vendor, last sale and row actions.
• Select rows to bulk mark active, offline, archive or delete.
• Paginate results (25, 50 or 100 per page) and sort by title, price, status or last sale.

Creating products

Three ways to add products:

1. New Product (Copilot) — ask the commerce agent to create an offline draft product.
2. Import from URL with AI — paste a public product page URL; extraction runs as a background job.
3. Edit an existing product or use MCP create_product for programmatic creation.

Editing products

The product editor is still the place you finish photos, price and variants — and now it opens on tonight’s move:

• Variants — option matrix (Color × Size…), SKUs, prices and stock per variant.
• Gallery — upload images, alt text, drag-and-drop order, variant image assignment.
• AI images — restyle or generate product photos from the Creative studio or Copilot.
• Shipping — profiles, packages and digital delivery settings.
• Collections — assign products to manual or automated collections.

Product statuses

Import from URL

URL import extracts product data from any public page:

1. Click Import from URL, paste the link and start the job.
2. Poll until completed — the product is created offline for review.
3. Publish or schedule publication once you have verified title, images and variants.

For recurring imports from the same domain, configure a visual import mapping (Studio → Import mappings) so extraction uses your site's layout instead of generic LLM guessing.

Scheduled publication

Offline products can be published immediately or scheduled for a future date. Scheduled publications appear in the Planning calendar.

MCP & automation

External AI agents connected via MCP can list, inspect, create, update, archive and delete products programmatically — the same services power the Studio UI.

MCP server documentation — see the Products section in the tools reference (list_products, get_product, get_product_stats, bulk_update_product_status, import_product_from_url…).

FAQ

What is the difference between status and published?

Status (active/offline/archive/out_of_stock) is the merchant workflow state. Published reflects storefront visibility — a product must be active and published to appear in catalog listings.

Can I recover a deleted product?

No — deletion is permanent. Prefer archiving (status archive) when you want to hide a product but keep its order history.

Why did my URL import miss some fields?

Extraction is hybrid: structured data (JSON-LD) first, then your domain's import mapping when ready, then LLM fallback. Configure import mappings for best results on sites you import from regularly.