For over a decade, Aurora Commerce has been creating custom product feeds and exports for our clients. In that time, we've seen the same challenge repeatedly: businesses need specialised data feeds for various channels and partners, but the cost and resource requirements of custom development have often forced difficult choices between business needs and budget constraints.
Today, that changes. We're excited to introduce Custom Data Feeds, a powerful new feature that puts feed creation directly in your hands, giving you unprecedented control over how your product data is formatted and shared with the world.
Modern e-commerce businesses need to distribute product data across an ever-growing ecosystem of channels. Whether it's Google Shopping, Facebook Dynamic Ads, affiliate networks, or comparison shopping engines like Shopzilla and PriceGrabber, each channel has its own specific requirements and formats.
Previously, when clients asked "Can we run our own exports on your platform?", the answer was unfortunately no... until now! Creating large data feeds traditionally required dedicated development resources and ongoing maintenance, making it challenging for businesses to achieve the level of customisation and control they needed for their unique requirements.
Custom Data Feeds leverages the power of Smarty templating to give you complete control over your product data exports. You can now create feeds in any format - XML, JSON, CSV, YAML, or any custom text format your business requires, using your own internal resources without depending on external development roadmaps.
The system provides you with rich product data including categories, pricing, inventory, images, and custom attributes, which you can manipulate and format exactly as needed. Whether you're creating a simple CSV export for internal analysis or a complex XML feed for a specialised marketplace, the choice is entirely yours.
The flexibility of Custom Data Feeds opens up numerous possibilities for your business:
This isn't just a simple export tool - it's an enterprise-grade feed management system designed to handle the demands of large-scale e-commerce operations:
The power of Custom Data Feeds comes with surprising simplicity. Create your feed templates using familiar Smarty syntax, configure your schedule, and let Aurora Commerce handle the rest. The system automatically processes your products, applies your templates, and generates your feed files according to your specifications.
For businesses already managing complex product catalogs on Aurora Commerce, this represents a quantum leap in operational efficiency. No more waiting for external development resources, no more dependency on third-party roadmaps - just direct control over your data exports using your own team's capabilities.
Don't have technical resources on hand? Aurora Commerce's "Ask AI" feature can guide you through feed creation step by step. Here's a genuine example of how AI assistance works in practice:
Step 1: Starting directly from Aurora Commerce documentation, the user clicked "Ask AI" and chose their preferred AI assistant from the available options (Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot).
Step 2: The user then provided specific requirements for creating Google Shopping feed templates, referencing both Aurora Commerce's Custom Data Feeds documentation and Google's product data specification.
The Result: Within minutes, the AI produced a complete implementation including setup documentation, template files, and working code, everything needed to create a Google Shopping feed.
This example demonstrates how AI can bridge the gap between technical documentation and practical implementation. By starting directly from Aurora Commerce's documentation and using the built-in "Ask AI" feature, even non-technical teams can create sophisticated product feeds with context-aware guidance.
Want to try this yourself? Visit our comprehensive documentation guide to learn more about the "Ask AI" feature, or go directly to the Custom Data Feeds documentation and click the "Ask AI" button to get started.
Disclaimer: This example was created using Claude AI by Anthropic for illustration purposes only. Aurora Commerce has no partnership or affiliation with Anthropic or Claude, but chose this genuine example to demonstrate the practical value of AI assistance in technical implementation.
Custom Data Feeds exemplifies the power of Aurora Commerce's shared platform approach. When one client's specific needs drive platform development, the entire client community benefits from the resulting capabilities. This feature transforms feed creation from a resource-intensive custom development process into a flexible self-service capability that provides functionality comparable to dedicated feed management platforms.
For our enterprise clients, this means faster time-to-market for new channel partnerships, reduced dependency on external resources, and the agility to respond quickly to changing market requirements. It's another way Aurora Commerce delivers enterprise-grade functionality that grows with your business needs.
Custom Data Feeds is now available as a mature feature within the Aurora Commerce platform, with ongoing development focused on expanding its capabilities and ease of use based on client feedback. As this powerful new feature continues to evolve, we're working closely with select clients to ensure it meets the diverse needs of modern e-commerce operations.
Want to learn more about implementing Custom Data Feeds for your business?
Q: What technical knowledge is required to create custom feeds?
Basic familiarity with Smarty templating syntax is helpful, but our comprehensive documentation includes examples and templates for common use cases and with the help of AI you can produce these feeds with very little expertise in the field. Many feeds can be created by modifying existing examples rather than building from scratch.
Q: What if I don't have any internal dev resource?AI can assist you in creating and customising feed templates using the "Ask AI" feature built into our documentation. This allows you to get context-aware guidance specific to Custom Data Feeds implementation. Visit our documentation guide to learn more about AI assistance, or go directly to the Custom Data Feeds documentation to get started.
Q: Who has control over the custom data feeds?Aurora gives you complete control over which users can manage this feature. Under Users -> Edit -> Access Rights, the complete family of "Custom Data Feeds" permissions offer you complete control. Learn more about user access rights and permissions.
Q: How does Custom Data Feeds handle large product catalogs?Custom Data Feeds is built for enterprise scale and can handle hundreds of thousands of products without performance degradation. The system includes multi-file support to split large catalogs across multiple files, automated scheduling to keep data current, and performance optimisation to ensure reliable processing of even the largest product inventories.
