Telling Google that your Shopify store sells used products

Lauryn sells vintage jewelry so she recently asked me how to change JSON-LD for SEO so her items are marked as used items in the structured data.

She needed this for Google Merchant Center. Google Search doesn’t care about the item condition but Merchant Center does.

In Shopify, there isn’t any way to set an item’s condition so the few themes that have that structured data will just mark them as new items.

JSON-LD for SEO by default assumes your products are new as well, but there’s an option to switch the condition to used products if needed.

Storewide product condition

Within the app, you can set the product condition a few different ways.

The first is a condition override to for all products in Shopify from New to Refurbished, Used, or Damaged (same as used).

The condition override is a great solution for stores selling only used products like antiques.

To set the condition of your products across the entire store in JSON-LD for SEO, go to Settings -> Product.

If setting all products doesn't suit your needs, you can configure the condition for Used and Refurbished Conditions. Using product tags in Shopify we'll update the product condition automatically when a tag is assigned. Either create a tag or use one you already have set up in Shopify.

If for some reason you don't want to use the handy dropdown in the app, you can use your favorite metafield tool and set the following metafield for your store. (NOTE: as of the time of this article, Shopify’s Metafields doesn't support Shop level metafields, so you'll need to use a third-party app.)

• object: Shop
• type: single line text (or string depending on the tool)
• namespace: jsonld
• key: itemCondition
• value: UsedCondition

The value can be UsedCondition, DamagedCondition (same as used), RefurbishedCondition, or NewCondition.

Per product condition

The second option also uses metafields but instead of setting the item condition store-wise, you can set it for a specific product. You can use Shopify’s Metafields or your favorite metafield tool and set the following metafield for each product.

• object: Product
• type: single line text (or string depending on the tool)
• namespace: jsonld
• key: itemCondition
• value: UsedCondition

The value can also be UsedCondition, DamagedCondition (same as used), RefurbishedCondition, or NewCondition.

Setting the condition per product will take more time because you’re setting each product but it’ll let you sell a mix of new and used products.

Hopefully, in the future Shopify will have better support for used products.

If you sell used products and you’re not using JSON-LD for SEO yet, there’s a good chance your theme is telling Google that your products are new. This can wreak havoc on Merchant Center and cause confusion in general about your products.

If you sell only new products, when was the last time you checked your structured data? You still might have some work to do to get your data quality up.