Product identifiers for AI commerce
Use stable item IDs for catalog records and genuine assigned identifiers where applicable. A valid-looking GTIN is not proof of ownership, and a feed ID is not the same as a product ID.
Separate identifier roles
Document which field identifies an individual sellable item, which describes a variant group and which carries an external product identifier. Reusing the group ID as every item ID can collapse distinct products. Changing item IDs on every export makes comparisons and external diagnostics harder to interpret.
Investigate missing and duplicate values
Check whether a duplicate comes from the source catalog, a join in the exporter or a normalization step. Repair the source cause rather than adding random suffixes. When a GTIN or MPN is absent, verify whether it was actually assigned and which destination rules apply. Never manufacture an identifier to silence a warning.
Understand validation boundaries
A checksum can catch some transcription mistakes, but cannot establish that a number belongs to a particular product. A platform feed configuration ID, a remarketing tag ID and a product identifier serve different purposes. This tool does not diagnose remarketing tag matching.
Practical example
Synthetic variant pair: DEMO-BLUE-S and DEMO-BLUE-M are two item IDs; DEMO-BLUE is their group. Keep the item IDs distinct and preserve real assigned identifiers rather than copying one sibling's GTIN.
What Product Feed Scan checks
The general and AI checks identify missing or repeated IDs and identifier coverage. The separate GTIN validator checks supported length and checksum only. Neither tool verifies registry ownership or tracking integration.
Open the relevant checker See a sample report