What are Metafields?

Metafields: The Missing Piece in Your Shopify Store

As your store grows, so does the complexity of the information you want to show your customers. Shopify gives you the basics: a title, a price, a description. Enough to list a product but not enough to explain it.

What if your candle has a 40-hour burn time?

What if your shirts need size charts?

What if your beauty products include ingredients that matter?

Your customers want more than a summary. They want clarity, context and confidence before they buy.

Shopify won’t stop you from sharing that information. But it won’t tell you where to put it either. That’s where Metafields come in. They’re how you organize, structure, and display the details that don’t fit anywhere else (and they’re one of the most powerful tools Shopify offers).

Despite their importance, Metafields are often misunderstood - Too technical. Too abstract. Too confusing.

This guide aims to eliminate the confusion. Whether you’re new to Shopify or have been managing your store for years, by the end of this article, you’ll understand exactly what Metafields are, how they work and why they matter.

What Are Metafields?

Think of Metafields (custom fields) as invisible sticky notes attached to your products. Each one holds specific, customizable information.

You decide what each one stores. You decide how it’s used. You decide where it shows up.

They’re the missing pieces that bring your store to life. Specific, structured details that give context and clarity to what you’re selling. Here’s what that can look like:

• Burn time of a candle (40 hours)

• Fragrance notes of a perfume (vanilla)

• Fabric content of a shirt 100% COTTON

• Care instructions for an electronic device

• Launch dates of a holiday collection

• Supplement facts

None of this belongs in the product title. Trying to cram it into the description leads to cluttered layouts, inconsistent formatting and a poor experience for both you and your customers.

Good ecommerce isn’t about throwing more information at people. It’s about giving them the right details at the right time and in the right place - Metafields make that possible.

Metafields come in different types, such as text, number, date, image or URL. These "types" help Shopify understand exactly how to use the information stored in the Metafield. To illustrate:

• Text: "Handmade with love"

• Number: 40 (hours of burn time for your candle)

• Date: *"2024-12-25" (holiday release date)*

• Image: An extra product close-up

• URL: Link to a detailed care guide

Shopify doesn’t come with a built-in “burn time” field but Metafields let you create it yourself. That means you can answer customer questions before they’re even asked. That means fewer questions from customers, faster decisions and a cleaner path to purchase.

At first glance, Metafields might seem small in isolation. But once you start using them, they quietly transform the way your store works. Hence, adding structure, enabling smarter design and unlocking features that scale with your catalog.

And once your data is structured, everything else becomes easier: sorting, filtering, translating, multi-store syncing and creating dynamic storefronts. All of it starts here.

Scope: Where Metafields Live / Where Can Metafields Be Applied? (Scopes)

Metafields don’t just belong to products. They can be attached to nearly every part of your store.

In Shopify, the part of your store a Metafield is attached to is called a scope. A scope defines where the data lives and where that information can be used.

Shopify’s Default Scopes:

• Products

• Variants

• Collections

• Pages

• Blogs

• Articles

• Orders

• Customers

• Shop (anything related to the store as a whole)

Extra Scopes (available via Accentuate)

• Vendors – useful for adding vendor-specific information, like custom size charts or warranty policies

• Locations – ideal for warehouse data, working hours, delivery access or logistics-related info

• Product types – helpful for naming or grouping items by custom categories or styles (e.g., tagging all men’s long-sleeve shirts as “LSM”)

These scopes unlock a wide range of use cases:

• Products and variants → burn time, materials or sizing details

• Collections → seasonal styling tips or visual banners

• Pages → unique content blocks or custom messages

• Articles and Blogs → author bios or related reading suggestions

• Orders → gift messages or delivery instructions

• Customers → loyalty tiers, preferences or past interactions

• Shop → global content like return policies, disclaimers or storewide messaging

• Vendors → warranty terms to all items from that specific vendor

• Locations → warehouse hours, delivery access or contact information

• Product types → category-level labeling, filters or grouping logic

Wherever your store needs more context, Metafields can follow.

How merchants are using Metafields

Across industries, the goal is the same: provide context, remove confusion and let the content adapt to the customer’s needs.

Here’s how store owners are using Metafields today:

Jewelry store	Custom product options (engraving, monogramming)
Candle shop	Burn time, scent profile, wax type
Beauty brand	Formula details, finish type, vegan certifications
Food store	nutrition info, ingredients list, frequently bought products (wine with cheese)
Toy store	Game instructions, age guidelines
Electronics store	Tech specs, warranty info, setup guides
Sports shop	Video product demos embedded in product pages
Clothing store	displays dynamic sizing guides for each garment based on type (jeans vs. jackets), model measurements
Home decor store	FAQ sections, event or seasonal tags (Holiday Decor)

Why should you use Metafields?

Because this is what happens when Metafields and Accentuate work together:

1. Structure to your content and your own CMS

Metafields let you store data where it belongs, not buried in descriptions or scattered across spreadsheets. With Accentuate, that structured data becomes part of a unified system. Products, collections, vendors, orders - everything is centralized, searchable and easy to manage.

Accentuate acts as your custom CMS (Content Management System) on top of Shopify. Built for your content, your workflows and your store’s growth.

2. Build once, reuse everywhere

Reusable content like size charts or brand warranties shouldn’t be duplicated across 50 products - Accentuate turns it into templates. Update it once and it updates everywhere. No errors, no manual copy-paste.

3. Fully custom storefronts, display exactly what you need

Metafields make your storefront dynamic - content that changes by product, customer, language or location. Accentuate gives you full control over the layout and logic.

4. Scale without breaking your workflow

As your catalog grows, so does the pressure to keep content accurate and consistent. Accentuate gives you a system that scales with you. It’s built for teams, multiple storefronts and fast-changing catalogs.

Metafields give your store flexibility. Accentuate gives that flexibility a system.

And that’s what makes the difference.

Getting Started

If you’re new to Metafields, don’t overthink it. Start with one thing your store is missing:

• A tab for care instructions

• A spec list for electronics

• A vendor-specific warranty field

Then give it structure. Define it once. Use it again and again.

From there, everything else builds naturally. You’ll find new ways to organize. New ways to automate. New ways to scale.

Whether you're a small store owner or scaling across multiple markets, mastering Metafields will give you a strong competitive advantage.

Metafields aren’t a "nice-to-have." They’re the missing layer between Shopify’s basics and what your store truly needs to thrive:

• Clarity for customers.

• Control for your team.

• Creativity for your brand.

The real question isn’t why use Metafields.

It’s: How did I ever run my store without them?