A catalog you can trust across every storefront.

Before connecting websites, decide which information belongs to the business and which belongs to an individual surface. Identity, contact information and catalog facts can be shared. A local hero, page content and checkout configuration have a different purpose and should remain associated with the website that uses them.

Write that distinction into your team's operating process. An editor changing a shared product is potentially preparing changes for several drafts; an editor changing a local page is working on that website. Explicit ownership helps prevent a visual refresh from becoming an unintended catalog change. Do not use a shared source merely because two brands happen to sell similar items.

• Name the person responsible for catalog facts.
• Identify websites that should share those facts.
• Keep unrelated brands on independent sources.

Connecting a storefront is a meaningful change to its future editing scope. Select the intended source, prepare the connection and inspect the proposed result before confirming. The target should use the correct business identity and catalog while retaining its local presentation. Check the affected website names rather than assuming a familiar logo identifies the right source.

The review is tied to source and draft revisions. If another editor changes those inputs, refresh the proposal and inspect it again. This protection is useful precisely because a shared source can affect more than the website currently on screen. Keep publication separate from the connection so a source decision is not also a public release.

• Read the source and target names.
• Review the affected drafts and projected catalog.
• Recreate a proposal that has become stale.

Retain a clear source file and stable item identifiers for each import. Decide whether the file represents new items, updates or a mixture, then inspect the proposal produced from it. A repeated title alone is not a reliable business identifier, especially when similar variants or services appear in the catalog.

Review a representative set of rows and open the detailed differences where a field changes unexpectedly. Check descriptions, image references, amounts, status and search metadata together. After applying the batch, search for both an updated record and an unchanged record. This verifies the intended effect rather than relying on the number of rows accepted by the importer.

• Keep a known source and stable identifiers.
• Review additions separately from unexpected changes.
• Inspect the resulting records after confirmation.

The current managed catalog supports up to 500 items, with up to 20 websites connected to a shared source. These are concrete planning limits, not a claim of unlimited enterprise capacity. Compare them with your active catalog and expected growth before deciding how to structure the business.

A catalog is not a complete operational ledger. Shared product information does not merge stock, orders, payment settings or accounting. Evaluate those workflows separately and verify the providers and records each one depends on. A common description across storefronts is useful, but it does not establish that two stores should also share their fulfillment or financial responsibilities.

• Compare expected catalog size with current limits.
• Define inventory and order responsibilities separately.
• Check checkout and accounting requirements independently.

After a shared edit, inspect at least two affected drafts and confirm that a local page or hero remains unchanged. Also check a website outside the shared group. This gives your team practical evidence that the update reached the intended surfaces without turning every website into the same presentation.

Review image delivery and visible product status in each website before publishing. Publishing one surface is a separate decision from maintaining the shared catalog. Keep domain ownership and data export expectations documented so the catalog's operational value does not depend on a single person's memory of how the sites were connected.

• Compare shared facts across affected drafts.
• Check local content and an unrelated website.
• Publish and verify each intended public surface.