Nobi needs access to your product catalog or inventory to provide accurate search results and answer visitor questions. Whether you sell clothing on Shopify, vehicles from a CSV feed, or real estate listings via an API, Nobi ingests and indexes your data automatically. This page explains how catalog sync works and what options are available.
Nobi's semantic search and conversational assistance work by understanding your entire product catalog. When you connect Nobi to your store, we:
Without proper catalog sync, Nobi can't help customers find your products or answer questions about them accurately.
Nobi syncs your product catalog twice daily to keep product information, pricing, and availability current. This means:
For most stores, twice-daily sync is sufficient. If you need real-time inventory updates for flash sales or high-turnover products, contact us about custom sync schedules.
Nobi reads and indexes:
Better product data means better Nobi results. While Nobi works with your existing catalog, these improvements help:
Detailed descriptions - Include materials, features, use cases, and specifications. Nobi uses this to answer customer questions.
Accurate titles - Clear, descriptive titles help semantic search understanding.
Complete variant information - Label all sizes, colors, and options clearly.
High-quality images - Product images appear in search results and chat.
Relevant tags and categories - Help Nobi understand product relationships.
Not on Shopify? Nobi supports multiple feed formats for ingesting your product catalog or inventory. You can configure your feed source in Account > Products > Catalog > Product Feed.
Upload a CSV file containing your product or inventory data. Nobi uses AI to automatically detect what each column represents — which columns are product names, prices, descriptions, images, and unique identifiers. No manual mapping required.
CSV feeds can be hosted in a cloud storage bucket (like Google Cloud Storage) or provided via a URL. Nobi will resolve the latest file automatically if your feed files include dates in their names.
Upload your feed files to our FTP server, and Nobi will process them automatically. FTP-uploaded files are stored in our cloud and processed as CSV feeds. Contact us at [email protected] for FTP credentials and setup instructions.
Provide a JSON API endpoint that returns your product or inventory data. Nobi will poll this endpoint on a regular schedule to keep your catalog current. Contact us to discuss your API format and integration requirements.
For CSV and FTP feeds, Nobi automatically analyzes your column headers and sample data to determine the role of each column. It detects:
It also generates search synonyms for each column to improve search quality. For example, a "drivetrain" column might get synonyms like "AWD", "4WD", "front-wheel drive" to help visitors find what they need using natural language. Column mappings are saved and reused on subsequent syncs, if your headers change, Nobi re-runs detection automatically.