Almost every day we receive requests for support from our users because their product feed contains none or fewer products than expected. Mostly this is caused by product feed configurations which result in fewer products.
For you to be able to identify possible causes we have listed the most common causes:
- The “Include product variations” feature has been disabled;
- The “Only include default product variation” has been enabled;
- The default item_group_id field mapping has been removed;
- Created filters;
- WP-cron has been disabled or is broken;
- Caching plugins block updates or creation of product feeds;
- You removed products based on total sales or time range.
Include product variations
When you have both simple and variable products and you want to have both in your product feed(s) then you need to make sure you have enabled this option:
Only include default product variation
When you have enabled the “Only include default product variation” option only 1 variation of a variable product will make it to the product feed, instead of all variants, that 1 variant will only make it to the feed when you have configured it as the default variation.
Default item_group_id field mapping
By default, our plugin adds a mapping for the item_group_id field (used for Google Shopping). The item_group_id field indicates to Google which product variants belong to the same mother products and can be grouped together. When this default mapping has been removed on the plugin field mapping page our plugin won’t be able to retrieve all of the parent product information and can’t put it in your product feeds. Therefore, when you are creating a product feed for Google or Facebook, make sure to leave this default field mapping in place:
Created filters
Filters are, of course, intended to remove products from your product feed that you don’t want to put in your product feeds but sometimes your filters, especially when you have multiple filters, they remove more products than expected. To test if your filters are causing the issue at hand your best option would be to copy your original feed and remove the filters to see if all your products now do make it to your product feed.
WP-cron is disabled or broken
Our plugin utilizes WP-cron to automatically update your product feeds and process them in batches. If your WP-cron is disabled or not functioning properly, the plugin will be unable to update or process your product feed. You can read our blog post about WP-Cron for more information.
Caching plugins
When you install caching plugins, they can block the updates of your product feeds. If you suspect this is happening, you need to disable your caching plugin and clear the cache of the plugin and your browser to see if it solves the issue at hand.
Hopefully, the above pointers will help you to resolve the problem of too few products in your feed. When it does not, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team.
You removed products based on total sales or time range
When you enable some plugin features that remove products based on a number of sales or based on sales within a certain time range than your feed could be empty. Read our blog post about the total sales filter and time range feature.
