How to Build Your ProductDNA Catalog

ProductDNA is the catalog of everything MorningAI knows about your products. The richer it is, the better every downstream output — ad copy, product photography, social posts, briefs — becomes. This guide walks you through the rebuilt ProductDNA experience: connecting your Shopify or WooCommerce store for live sync, Auto-Import with AI, three flexible view modes, bulk upload, image fallback, and brand-scoped attributes.

What ProductDNA Powers

Every Studio brief, ad concept, and product photography output that mentions a SKU pulls from ProductDNA. If your catalog is sparse, your outputs will be generic. If it is rich and well-structured, MorningAI can write campaigns that namecheck specific features, hero a particular product, or build a multi-SKU shoppable post.

Four Ways to Populate ProductDNA

You have four ways to get products into ProductDNA. Most teams use a combination — for example, syncing Shopify for the live catalog and Auto-Importing competitor pages for research.

1. Connect Shopify or WooCommerce — best for any team running an active store. Set it up once and your catalog stays current automatically.
2. Auto-Import with AI — best when you do not have a connected store, or for one-off imports from any product page URL, sitemap, or feed.
3. Bulk upload from CSV — best for migrating from a legacy PIM or seeding a brand new catalog from a spreadsheet.
4. Add manually — best for a small set of hand-curated SKUs or for editing a single product after import.

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Open ProductDNA. From the sidebar, hover DNA and click ProductDNA. You will land on the catalog view for the active brand.
2. Pick a view mode. ProductDNA now offers three view modes you can switch between at any time:

• Cards — visual, image-forward grid. Best for scanning a small catalog.
• List — compact rows with thumbnail and key fields. Best for medium catalogs.
• Table — spreadsheet-style with every attribute visible. Best for editing in bulk.

1. Connect your store (recommended). If you sell on Shopify or WooCommerce, this is the fastest way to a complete, always-current catalog. Click + Add Products → Connect a Store and choose your platform. See Connect Your Shopify Store or Connect Your WooCommerce Store for the full walkthrough.
2. Or add products with Auto-Import. Click + Add Products and select Auto-Import with AI. Paste in a product page URL, drop in a CSV, or upload a product feed. MorningAI extracts product names, descriptions, prices, attributes, and primary images automatically.
3. Or add a single product manually. Choose + Add Products → Manual. Fill in name, description, price, and attributes. Drop in product photography. Save.
4. Or bulk upload from CSV. Choose + Add Products → Bulk Upload CSV. Download the template, fill in your SKUs, and re-upload. MorningAI maps columns to ProductDNA attributes and shows you any rows that need attention before importing.
5. Add brand-scoped attributes. Click the gear icon, then Custom Attributes. Add fields specific to your category — Material, Roast Level, Skin Type, Size Range, etc. These attributes only apply to the active brand, so each brand in MorningAI can have its own catalog shape.

Connect Your Store for Live Sync

If you run your store on Shopify or WooCommerce, connecting it is the highest-leverage move you can make. Set it up once and your catalog stays current with zero ongoing work.

Shopify. OAuth from Settings → Integrations. MorningAI pulls product name, description, price, compare-at price, vendor, product type, tags, variants, images, inventory levels, and any metafields you map to ProductDNA custom attributes. Webhooks keep ProductDNA in near-real-time sync after the initial import. Optional reverse sync pushes ProductDNA description and metafield improvements back to Shopify. Full walkthrough in Connect Your Shopify Store.

WooCommerce. Use the standard WooCommerce REST API — no premium plugin required. MorningAI imports product name, descriptions (long and short), regular and sale price, categories, tags, variations, images, stock status and quantity, plus mapped custom attributes. Variable products come in with variations, and you can choose one ProductDNA entry per parent product or per variation. Full walkthrough in Connect Your WooCommerce Store.

What you get from connecting a store, not just importing once:

• New SKUs appear in ProductDNA within minutes of being published in your store.
• Price, inventory, and image edits flow automatically.
• Existing tags and categories become filters inside ProductDNA without extra setup.
• Optional opt-in reverse sync lets ProductDNA improvements (better descriptions, alt text, attribute values) push back to your store.
• Studio briefs and ad concepts always reference your real, current catalog.

You can mix and match: many teams sync Shopify for their live catalog and Auto-Import competitor pages into a separate "research" brand to study the market.

Auto-Import: How It Works

Auto-Import is the fastest way to seed a new ProductDNA catalog when you do not have a connected store, or to add products that live outside it:

1. From a product page URL. Paste the URL. MorningAI fetches the page, extracts product attributes, downloads images, and creates a draft ProductDNA entry. Review and click Save.
2. From a sitemap or collection URL. Paste the URL. MorningAI walks the page, queues every detected product, and imports them in batches. Watch the progress bar and review when finished.
3. From a CSV or product feed. Drop the file. MorningAI parses it and imports.

In every case, the imported draft is editable before you save. You can override the AI's pulls, add missing attributes, swap the hero image, and refine the description.

Three View Modes

Switch between Cards, List, and Table from the toolbar. Your selection is remembered per brand. Quick guide:

• Cards for visual review and storytelling moments — picking hero products for a campaign, sharing the catalog with a creative partner.
• List for day-to-day management — quickly checking that prices are current, editing one or two SKUs.
• Table for bulk editing — fixing categorization across 200 products, adding a new attribute to every SKU at once, copy-pasting from a spreadsheet.

Brand-Scoped Attributes

Custom attributes used to be global. Now they are scoped to the brand. This means a coffee brand can have Roast Level and Origin without polluting the schema of an unrelated apparel brand in the same workspace.

Add custom attributes from the gear menu in ProductDNA. Choose the type (text, number, select, multi-select), name it, and save. The attribute appears immediately in your add/edit form and as a column in Table view.

If you connect a Shopify or WooCommerce store, brand-scoped attributes also act as the mapping target for store metafields and custom fields — so the work you have already done in your store carries straight into MorningAI.

Real-World Use Cases

Onboard a Shopify brand in under 10 minutes. Connect the store from Settings → Integrations. Run the initial sync. Switch ProductDNA to Cards view. The full catalog is now ready for Studio briefs, ad concepts, and social posts.

Onboard an agency in one session. Bulk-upload your full catalog from a CSV, or connect your store and let the sync run while you walk the agency through hero products in Cards view. They have full context without a single deck.

Migrate from a legacy PIM. Export your existing PIM to CSV. Use Bulk Upload. Add brand-scoped attributes for the fields your old system did not support. Done.

Multi-brand workspace. Connect Shopify for Brand A, WooCommerce for Brand B, and use Auto-Import for a third brand that lives on a custom platform. Each brand has its own catalog shape via brand-scoped attributes.

Pro Tips

Connect first if you can. A live store sync removes ongoing maintenance entirely. Auto-Import and Bulk Upload are best for the cases where a sync is not possible.

Use Auto-Import on competitor URLs to study them. Paste a competitor product page into Auto-Import, but save the result to a separate "research" brand. You now have a structured view of how they describe and price their products.

Keep descriptions structured. The more context you provide the better. Include descriptions, flavors, calories, technical specs and more.

Edit in Table view. Once you have more than 20 products, every bulk change is faster in Table view than in Cards.

Set custom attributes before bulk upload or store connect. Add your custom fields first, then your CSV columns or store metafields will map cleanly on import.

Decide where descriptions live. If you connect a store, pick either the store or MorningAI as the system where descriptions are authored. Sync handles the other side. Authoring in both creates drift.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does ProductDNA sync with my e-commerce store? Yes. MorningAI has direct connectors for Shopify (OAuth) and WooCommerce (REST API). Connect from Settings → Integrations. After initial sync, ProductDNA stays current via webhooks (Shopify) or polling (WooCommerce). See Connect Your Shopify Store and Connect Your WooCommerce Store for full walkthroughs.

Can I use a connected store and Auto-Import together? Yes. Many teams sync their live catalog from Shopify or WooCommerce, then Auto-Import additional products (new launches, exclusive bundles, competitor research) on top.

What happens if I disconnect a store? Your imported ProductDNA entries remain. They simply stop receiving updates. You can reconnect at any time and ongoing changes will resume.

Does ProductDNA sync go both ways? It can. Shopify and WooCommerce connectors support optional, opt-in-per-field reverse sync of descriptions, alt text, and mapped custom attributes back to your store. Most teams treat the store as the source of truth and sync one way (store → ProductDNA).

How many products can ProductDNA hold? Tens of thousands per brand. Performance stays smooth in Table view because rows render virtualized.

Can I delete a custom attribute later? Yes. Removing a custom attribute deletes its data across all SKUs in that brand. There is a confirmation prompt so you do not lose data accidentally.

Will Auto-Import overwrite my edits? No. Re-running Auto-Import on a product that already exists creates a separate draft entry rather than overwriting your saved edits.

Next Steps

If you run a Shopify or WooCommerce store, connect it now via Connect Your Shopify Store or Connect Your WooCommerce Store — it is the lowest-effort, highest-leverage move you can make.

If not, open ProductDNA and try Auto-Import on one of your product page URLs. Then jump into Studio and run a brief that references a SKU by name — the difference between an empty catalog and a populated one is dramatic.