Shopify Akakçe and Cimri integration is the process of transferring your store's product, price, and stock information to these two price comparison sites via an XML feed file. In the feed setups we manage, we have observed that most businesses confuse this with marketplace integration; however, Akakçe and Cimri do not accept orders—they simply redirect users from the price comparison results to your store. This guide explains step-by-step how the feed is created, how it is defined in both panels, and the most common approval errors encountered.
What is Shopify Akakçe and Cimri Integration and How Does It Work?
Akakçe and Cimri integration is a one-way connection that feeds your store's product catalog to these sites in XML format; unlike a marketplace, it does not involve order or stock synchronization. When a user sees your product in a price comparison and clicks on it, they are redirected directly to your Shopify store, and the sales transaction takes place entirely on your site.
This structure is fundamentally different from marketplace integrations like Trendyol or Hepsiburada. Marketplaces involve a seller account, category matching, and order transfer; for Akakçe and Cimri, all that is required is an up-to-date XML file containing product name, price, stock status, image, and category information. Shopify does not have a ready-made, built-in connection for Akakçe or Cimri; therefore, the feed is usually provided via a URL generated automatically by a third-party app or a custom-developed script and is updated at regular intervals.
Critical Note: Do not attempt to set up Akakçe and Cimri like a marketplace integration. Waiting for approval via a seller panel or looking for order synchronization on these channels is a waste of time; all you need is a correctly formatted XML feed.
How to Create a Product XML Feed in Shopify?
An XML feed in Shopify is a file or a live URL that exports your product catalog with standard fields that Akakçe and Cimri can read; generating this feed automatically via an app yields more reliable results than manual updates. One of the frequently preferred apps for this in Turkey is FeedFix; the international app Mulwi serves the same purpose and can generate feeds for over 200 sales channels. The feed URL created with one of these apps is defined in Akakçe and Cimri once, and thereafter, product, price, and stock changes are reflected automatically.
Beyond these apps, a custom-coded feed that updates every minute via API can also be set up; stores with high transaction volumes or those requiring custom fields not supported by standard apps prefer this route, as the update frequency and field structure are tailored entirely to the store's needs. As Nodus Works, we also perform these types of custom feed setups; for a feed tailored to your specific needs, you can contact us.
The essential fields the feed must carry are: product name, product description, price, stock status, category, image URL, product URL, and GTIN/barcode (if available). Akakçe and Cimri perform category matching automatically based on the information in these fields; if the category or title is missing, the product will not be accepted for listing.
Tip: Instead of creating the feed manually once and forgetting about it, use an app that updates automatically. Having an out-of-stock product appear as "in stock" in the feed causes the user to click and then be disappointed in your store; this both wastes your click-through budget and lowers your store trust score on Akakçe/Cimri.
How to Define a Feed to Akakçe?
To define a feed to Akakçe, you must first register as a seller on Akakçe and then share your XML feed URL as requested during registration. You create this URL in Shopify using an app like FeedFix or Mulwi, as Shopify does not have a built-in connection to Akakçe. Akakçe pulls the URL you registered at regular intervals itself; there is no need for you to perform a periodic upload process on your end.
After registration, Akakçe matches the products in the feed with its own category tree; products that do not match or have missing information remain in a pending approval status. This matching is largely based on the brand and model information in the product title: a title with a clear brand and model, such as "Nike Air Max 90 Men's Sports Shoes," will be categorized correctly much faster than a title that just says "Sports Shoes."
Critical Note: A common issue that delays account approval is when the company and billing information you provide during registration on Akakçe does not match the details in your Shopify store. Before registering, compare your company name and billing address with your Shopify settings.
How to Set Up a Feed for Cimri?
The process for setting up a feed for Cimri follows the same logic as Akakçe: you register as a seller and provide your XML feed URL to Cimri. The difference is that Cimri places more weight on product attributes (such as color, size, and material) compared to Akakçe when matching categories; therefore, ensuring that variant-based attribute fields are filled in your feed will increase your matching rate.
Cimri also crawls the feed URL at regular intervals and captures price/stock changes during these scans; therefore, the feed must be a live URL rather than a static file. If you share a static file, price changes or out-of-stock statuses will not be updated on Cimri's side, leading users to your store with incorrect information.
Cimri's attribute-based matching requires different variants of the same product (e.g., different color options) to appear as separate rows in the feed. A product with variants in Shopify must be converted into a separate XML row for each variant by the feed generator app; variants combined into a single row will not be accepted for listing on Cimri.
Tip: To shorten the approval time on Cimri, start with a small number of fully completed products in your initial upload. Feeds starting with hundreds of products containing missing fields are flagged for manual review, which can take days; starting with 20-30 fully populated products and getting approved first will yield faster results before you open up your entire catalog.
Common Approval and Format Errors in XML Feeds
The most common reason for product rejection on Akakçe and Cimri is not a format error, but rather missing or inconsistent data; even if a feed is technically a valid XML, the product will not be listed if the field content does not meet the platform's expected standards. The three most frequent errors are, in order: confusion regarding prices including/excluding VAT, failure to update stock information in real-time, and category names not matching the platform's category tree.
VAT inconsistency particularly occurs in stores where prices are entered excluding tax in Shopify; if the feed generator app does not automatically add the tax, the price displayed on Akakçe and Cimri will be lower than the actual selling price, and the user will encounter a different price upon arriving at the store. This not only damages user trust but can also lead to the temporary suspension of your account due to the platforms' "misleading pricing" policies.
Stock synchronization is the second most common error: if the feed is updated only once a day, a product that runs out of stock during the day will continue to appear as "in stock" for hours. Both Cimri and Akakçe negatively reflect clicks on out-of-stock products in your store's performance score; shortening the feed update frequency as much as possible (ideally hourly) reduces this risk.
A Risk to Avoid: If the price appears low in the feed but high in the store, this harms not only the user experience but also your relationship with the platform. Akakçe and Cimri may manually lower the visibility of stores that receive recurring price complaints; resolving this situation takes longer than opening a new account.
How Does the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) Model Work on Akakçe and Cimri?
Akakçe and Cimri do not charge for the product listing itself; billing works on a cost-per-click (CPC) model that activates when a user clicks on your product and is directed to your store. This is the same CPC logic used in Google Ads: there is no payment without a click, but keep in mind that not every click will convert into a sale.
The CPC amount varies depending on the category and the intensity of competition; in highly competitive categories (electronics, cosmetics), the cost per click is significantly higher than in low-competition categories. Both platforms operate on a balance-loading system; when your balance runs out, your products are automatically removed from the list, so it is necessary to manage balance tracking by setting up automatic alerts rather than doing it manually.
The only way to understand if the cost per click is profitable is to monitor your conversion rate. If the average CPC in a product category is 2 TL and 3% of the clicks from this category convert into sales, your cost per sale is approximately 67 TL; allocating a budget without comparing this figure to the product's profit margin can quickly lead to losses.
Critical Note: If you do not track traffic from Akakçe and Cimri as a separate source in Shopify Analytics, you will confuse the true contribution of these two channels with Google Ads or organic traffic. By using a feed URL with UTM parameters, you can clearly distinguish which platform is performing profitably for which products.
Competitive Pricing Strategy on Price Comparison Sites
Visibility on Akakçe and Cimri depends heavily on price ranking; a competitor listing the same product at a lower price will appear above yours and capture the majority of clicks. For this reason, the pricing of products fed into these channels should be handled separately from your general store pricing strategy.
A common approach is to keep high-margin products at a competitive level for price comparison while excluding low-margin products from the feed entirely. Feed generator apps usually offer the option to include or exclude products on an individual basis; removing products with low margins or those that do not cover CPC costs from the start prevents unnecessary budget depletion.
Another dimension of price competition is shipping costs. Akakçe and Cimri users typically compare shipping fees alongside the product price; even if your product price is competitive, a high shipping fee can make the total cost higher than your competitor's. Keeping shipping information accurate and up-to-date in the feed builds a more reliable competitive advantage than simply showing a low product price.
Converting Akakçe/Cimri Traffic on Shopify
Users coming from Akakçe and Cimri have already performed price comparisons and enter your store with a high intent to purchase; the key to not losing this traffic is ensuring the product page is perfectly consistent with the information seen in the feed. If the price, stock, or image does not match what is in the feed, the user will bounce within seconds.
For this type of user, three things on the product page directly determine conversion: the price appearing exactly as it did in the feed, the stock status reflecting the feed's data (e.g., "out of stock"), and clear shipping times. Users coming from price comparison sites often keep the same product open in multiple tabs; if your page loads slowly or the price appears different for even a moment, they will switch to a competitor's tab instantly.
This is exactly where conversion rate optimization becomes the perfect complement to your feed setup. Nodus Works' Shopify conversion optimization serviceanalyzes why high-intent traffic from price comparison sites is abandoning your product pages and calibrates page speed, price consistency, and the checkout flow specifically for this traffic type; even if the feed itself is set up correctly, you won't get a return on your click costs if the product page is weak in these three areas.
Akakçe and Cimri share the same feed logic as Google Shopping; for stores managing these three channels simultaneously, our guide on Shopify Google Shopping and Merchant Center integrationdemonstrates how most feed optimization principles can be transferred from one channel to another.
Tip: Track Akakçe/Cimri traffic as a separate segment in Shopify Analytics and compare this segment's add-to-cart rate with organic traffic. If the add-to-cart rate is significantly lower than organic traffic, the issue is not in the feed, but in price/stock inconsistencies on the product page.
Observations from the Field by Nodus Works
Observation 1: Stores that launch on Akakçe and Cimri simultaneously experience a higher rate of wasted clicks in the first month compared to those that start with a single platform. Instead of launching on both platforms at once, perfecting the feed on one platform first (usually Cimri, as it brings more qualified traffic due to its detailed feature requests) and observing the conversion rate before adding the second platform allows for more controlled budget spending.
Observation 2: The bounce rate increases significantly when the product image in the feed is not identical to the main image on the product page. When users cannot find the image they saw during price comparison on the product page, they leave the site with the feeling that they have "landed on the wrong page"; this is a problem that disappears in setups where the feed image is automatically synchronized with the primary image on the product page.
Observation 3: Stores that do not display shipping costs in the feed receive a lower click-through rate compared to competitors who show shipping information, even when selling the same product at the same price. Users skip products missing shipping information because they cannot make a decision without seeing the total cost; this detail is the most overlooked part of feed setup, yet the easiest to fix.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Is the Shopify Akakçe and Cimri integration a marketplace integration?
Answer: No. Akakçe and Cimri do not process orders; they only provide product price comparisons and redirect the user to your Shopify store upon clicking. The sales transaction takes place entirely on your site.
Question: Should I connect to Akakçe and Cimri at the same time, or one by one?
Answer: It is more budget-friendly to perfect the feed on one platform and observe the conversion rate before launching on the second. Cimri's requirement for detailed specifications usually brings in higher-quality traffic.
Question: Should the XML feed be created manually in Shopify?
Answer: No, a manually created static file will not reflect price and stock changes. You need to use a live feed URL via an app that updates automatically.
Question: Why is my product not being approved on Akakçe and Cimri?
Answer: The most common reasons are category names not matching the platform's category tree, incomplete product titles (missing brand/model information), and inconsistent pricing. Adding the brand and model to the product title increases the matching rate.
Question: How do Akakçe and Cimri pricing work?
Answer: Both operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) model; product listing itself is free, and you are only charged when a user clicks. Once your balance is depleted, your products are automatically removed from the listings.
Question: How can I distinguish Akakçe/Cimri traffic in Google Analytics?
Answer: You can track this traffic as a separate source by adding UTM parameters to your feed URL. This is the only reliable way to clearly see which platform is performing profitably for which products.
Conclusion
Shopify Akakçe and Cimri integration is a channel established via a properly formatted XML feed that does not carry order flows but drives high-intent traffic. Keeping price, stock, and shipping information in the feed in real-time is the only way to ensure you get a return on your cost-per-click; even the slightest discrepancy between the product page and the feed will waste your clicks. To correctly configure the Akakçe and Cimri feed setup for your store or for product page optimizations that convert this traffic, contact Nodus Works; if you would like to combine all three channels, including Google Shopping, into a single strategy, check out our Google Shopping and Merchant Center integration guide as well.
