Etsy now allows up to three options per listing, and Shuttle transfers all three options of a Shopify product to Etsy as they are. A product with three options does not need option merging to transfer.
This article is for merchants who still use option merging and have not yet moved to three options on Etsy. Shuttle plans to remove option merging, so we do not recommend turning it on.
Option merging is off by default. When it is on, Shuttle merges two of a 3-option product's options into one combined option, so the product reaches Etsy with two options.
Turn on option merging
In Shuttle, go to Settings > Products > Shopify → Etsy.
Under Inventory, find Merge options for products with 3 options.
Tick Enable option merging.
If you want, fill in Exclude from merge and Merge separator.
Click Save.
Transfer the product to Etsy again.
How merged options look on Etsy
Shuttle joins the names and values of two options with a separator, and puts a space on each side of it. For example:
Shopify product with 3 options:
Size: Small, Medium, Large
Color: Black, White, Blue
Material: Cotton, Polyester
Merged options on Etsy:
Option 1: Size (unchanged)
Option 2: Color & Material (merged), with the values Black & Cotton, Black & Polyester, White & Cotton, White & Polyester, Blue & Cotton and Blue & Polyester
The default separator is &. To use a different one, change Merge separator.
Etsy limits option names to 45 characters. Two merged names can be too long together. If that happens, see An option name was shortened to fit Etsy's 45-character limit.
Choosing which options to merge
In Exclude from merge, enter the name of the option you want to keep separate. Shuttle merges the other two. For example, on a product with Color, Size and Material, entering Color merges Size and Material.
You can enter several names, with a | between them, for example Color|Material. Shuttle keeps the first name in your list that the product has as a separate option.
Upper and lower case do not matter.
If the field is empty, or the product has none of the names, Shuttle keeps the first option separate. It then merges the second and third options, in the order they have in Shopify.
If you exclude an option entirely with Exclude options by name in the same section, Shuttle drops it before merging. A product left with two options is not merged.
Merging only changes what Shuttle sends to Etsy. Your Shopify product keeps all three options.
Move a listing with merged options to three options on Etsy
An Etsy listing that Shuttle transferred with merged options keeps its two options until you rebuild its variations. Turning off option merging is not enough on its own, because a normal update only refreshes the variations the listing already has.
In Shuttle, go to Settings > Products > Shopify → Etsy.
Under Inventory, in Merge options for products with 3 options, untick Enable option merging.
Click Save.
Open Products and choose the Shopify → Etsy tab.
On the product's row, click Update in Etsy.
Under Advanced, tick Recreate Etsy inventory. Shuttle then also ticks SKU, Price and Quantity for you.
Click Update Etsy product.
Shuttle then deletes the listing's variations on Etsy and creates them again from your Shopify product, with all three options.