When transferring products between Etsy and Shopify, it's often necessary to adapt descriptions to match each platform’s format and audience expectations. Shuttle provides advanced tools to easily and automatically adjust product descriptions during transfers and updates, helping you save time, maintain consistency, and present your listings professionally.
Include or Exclude Product Descriptions
Decide whether product descriptions should be included during transfers. Typically, you'll want this enabled, but it can be disabled if extensive manual editing is required after transfers and you'd rather enter the description manually.
Batch Remove or Update Content (Find & Replace)
This powerful feature enables you to find specific text within all product descriptions and either replace it with different content or remove it entirely.
It’s particularly useful for bulk adjustments to language, policies, promotions, or brand references that differ between your Etsy and Shopify stores.
Example use cases:
Replace brand-specific Etsy language with Shopify-appropriate language.
Remove unnecessary shipping or policy information that doesn’t apply to your Shopify store.
Batch Add Content (Prepend or Append)
Automatically add content to all transferred or updated product descriptions:
Prepend to Top: Enter text that will be added at the very beginning of every product description.
Append to Bottom: Enter text that will be added to the end of each product description.
Example use cases:
Add introductory messages, disclaimers, or promotional highlights to the beginning of each product description (prepend).
Append terms, policies, care instructions, or shop announcements at the end of each description.
This significantly reduces repetitive work and ensures consistency across all your listings.
Truncate Product Descriptions by Paragraphs
Many Etsy descriptions contain multiple paragraphs, including product-specific details followed by general store information or shipping details. Shopify might not require all these paragraphs, especially those that are Etsy-specific.
With Shuttle, you can set descriptions to automatically retain only a certain number of paragraphs from the start or remove several paragraphs from the end. This simplifies your descriptions, making them concise and platform-appropriate, improving readability, and enhancing buyer focus on essential product information.
Remove All Content From a Specific String
If your descriptions consistently contain a standard block of text (such as a footer, promotional segment, or shipping policy), Shuttle can remove all content from a specified string onward.
Just enter the exact text string. Shuttle removes the text and everything that follows.
Automatically Remove Paragraphs Containing Etsy Links
Etsy product descriptions often contain internal links directing customers to other Etsy listings or shop sections. However, these links won't be relevant on your Shopify store.
Shuttle automatically identifies and removes any paragraph that includes Etsy-specific URLs, ensuring your Shopify descriptions remain clean, focused, and free of irrelevant or misleading information.
Remove All Shortcodes (Bracket Tags)
Shortcodes—bracketed tags like [tag] or [/tag]—are often used by Shopify apps or Etsy templates for formatting purposes. These codes will not function correctly once transferred to the other platform, potentially cluttering or confusing your listings.
Shuttle can automatically detect and remove all shortcodes from your descriptions, ensuring that your transferred content looks professional and is easy for customers to read.
Add Content from Shopify Metafields & Pages
This advanced functionality lets you enrich your Etsy product descriptions by automatically including dynamic content directly from your Shopify store's metafields or pages.
You can specify the exact metafield or page title to pull content from and choose whether to place this extra content at the beginning or the end of your descriptions.
This is particularly beneficial for managing standardized details such as size charts, shipping information, or detailed product care instructions, which can be centrally maintained in Shopify and automatically integrated into all relevant Etsy listings—simplifying updates and maintaining consistency.
Additionally, you can optionally give this included content a custom title, clearly distinguishing it from the main description content.
Style List Items for Etsy Compatibility
Shopify supports formatted lists (bullet points, numbered lists), but Etsy does not recognize standard HTML formatting. Shuttle helps bridge this gap by automatically inserting a character, such as a dash (-), before each list item transferred to Etsy.
This ensures your product descriptions retain their clarity and readability, effectively displaying lists in a clean and user-friendly format on Etsy, without manual editing.
Include Tables in Etsy Descriptions
By default, Shuttle excludes table-formatted content from Shopify descriptions when transferring products to Etsy, since Etsy doesn't natively support HTML table formatting.
If your product details include crucial information formatted within tables (such as dimensions, specifications, or comparisons), Shuttle offers an option to transfer these tables as plain text.
Enabling this option helps ensure essential product details are preserved and communicated clearly to customers on Etsy, even though they lose their table structure.
Summary of Benefits
By leveraging Shuttle’s description adjustment tools, you can:
Ensure descriptions are platform-appropriate without extensive manual editing.
Quickly remove or replace outdated, irrelevant, or incorrect content in bulk.
Automatically append or prepend standardized promotional or informational text.
Simplify long descriptions by selectively truncating paragraphs or strings.
Maintain readability and professionalism by automatically removing incompatible formatting.
Include dynamic content from Shopify to keep your Etsy listings accurate and up-to-date effortlessly.
These automated adjustments significantly reduce the manual workload involved in transferring products between Etsy and Shopify, helping you maintain polished, accurate, and consistent product descriptions across platforms.
If you have questions or need further assistance, our support team is always available to help!