Manual: How to Import Free Product Content Into Your E-commerce System via Icecat API

This guide is intended for developers working with Icecat via API. The document provides an overview of each Pull API, used by channel partners to download the Icecat Product Data Sheets.

If you have the brand account, which updates the product data on Brand Cloud, refer to Push API Manual instead.

Where to start?

Subscriptions

Icecat provides a Free Open Icecat subscription with access to the Open Icecat repository.

The Open Icecat repository is the part of the Icecat XML repository that is sponsored by Brands and is provided for free to the channel. The most recent list of Open Icecat brands is here.
Open Icecat is also useful for testing purposes before you upgrade to Full Icecat. The technical structures are 100% compatible with those of Full Icecat.

However attractive the free Open Icecat database is, the Full Icecat database still contains many, many more brands: tens of thousands. Datasheets are often provided with service levels and coverage guarantees.

In case you want to upgrade to Full Icecat, please contact us via the contact form or click on the Upgrade in your Settings.

 Read more:Main advantages of Full Icecat over Open Icecat

Open Icecat Fair use Policy

We require any user of Open Icecat product data – in a free Open Icecat subscription or as part of the Full Icecat data – to respect the Open Icecat Fair Use Policy.
Explicitly relevant for website development is:

• to mention explicitly the “Specs Icecat” on all product datasheets, with a link to Icecat.biz.
• to include explicitly an AS IS Disclaimer, an example of which is here: English Disclaimer.
• to not use any Icecat data for AI training.

Access to Content

You might be interested in looking and the export files containing Icecat Catalog. For such porposes we have Index Files which are explained at  Manual: XML Index Files – Batch Processing

To access Open Icecat, you will need a username and password provided by Icecat. If you do not have these, please register online for Open Icecat. The Open Icecat catalog is free and contains millions of product datasheets.

If you need higher product content coverage, you will need to upgrade to Full Icecat. You can make a request via our contact page or through your account pages.

In short, access to the product content of Full Icecat is protected. If you want to access Full Icecat product content, you must unlock your IP address. Fill in the IP address(es) of your server(s) and office in the “Allowed IP addresses” field. If you do not know your office IP addresses, visit What is my IP to find your (office) IP. For your server IP address, please ask your system operator or provider.

You can fill in several IP addresses, separated by a space.

Popular Add-ons

If you are searching for a way to connect your app and integrate Icecat product content, check the most popular Icecat Add-ons.

API Overview

LiveHTML

Beautiful ready-to-use HTML pages with pre-defined design.

• The entire integration requires a single <script> tag and one JavaScript method call — no server-side rendering, no data parsing, no frame/iframe management.
• Immediate ready-to-use data is inserted directly into your HTML.
• Great integration with ProductStories – interactive, brand-authored mini-experiences (rich media, interactive layouts) embedded within product datasheets.
• Granular calls allows you to receive partial data to display them in different places of your website, allowig it to be included in your website.
• Supports multi-language fallback: pass ['en', 'fr'] and the API serves the first available locale.

JSON

• The easiest pure data format to work with – JSON is modern and straightforward.
• The response is a predictable two-field structure (msg + data) with dot-navigable nested objects – no XML parsing libraries required, native to JavaScript, Python, PHP, and virtually any modern stack.
• The content parameter enables Granular Calls – fetch only the sections you need (e.g., content=essentialinfo,gallery,featuregroups) instead of the full datasheet, reducing payload size and parsing effort.
• All additional data (Multimedia, ProductStories, Reviews, Variants, Packaging, BrandOrganizations) is available out of the box – no need to request access from an account manager, unlike XML.
• Granular-only sections (packages, brandorganizations, analytics) expose EPR/sustainability data, brand legal entities, and download popularity that are not available in a standard full call.

CSV

• CSV is flexible and easily convertable to tables.
• Multi-product call in a single request — unlike JSON and XML, the CSV API accepts comma-separated icecat_ids (URL-encoded as %2C), letting you batch-fetch many datasheets in one HTTP call without looping.
• Uses the same domain as the XML API (data.icecat.biz/xml_s3/xml_server3.cgi), so if you already have XML integration infrastructure, switching to CSV only requires changing the output parameter.
• Compatilbitlity with CSV Index Files, meaning you can automate a pipeline: download the index → extract icecat_ids → batch-fetch full datasheets via CSV in multi-product calls.
• Compatibility with CSV Reference Files.
• Personal Catalog File is based entirely on CSV API.
• Two response modes via the output param: productcsv (full datasheet — specs, descriptions, gallery, multimedia, variants) or richproductcsv (rich media only – multimedia, gallery, descriptions) — choose based on what you actually need to display.

⚠️ CSV is considered a legacy format – many assets and controls available in other APIs (partial data, relationsLimit, reviews, analytics, FeatureLogos, GeneratedPDF) are not supported in CSV – is best for bulk tabular exports or systems that only ingest flat files.

XML

• The most sophisticated and deeply integrated API in Icecat.
• Compatible with XML Index Files and Reference Files (CategoriesList, FeaturesList, SuppliersList, MeasuresList) – build a complete local taxonomy mirror and join it with product data offline, something other APIs cannot replicate.
• International locale (lang=INT) is exclusive to XML – no other Icecat API supports it. A single INT request returns data for all locales activated in your account, eliminating the need to loop through languages one by one.
• MetaXML provides a lightweight “ping” response (almost equivalent to one row from files.index.xml) – use it to check product existence, last-updated timestamp, distributor stock, and mapped Product Codes without downloading the full datasheet.
• HEAD requests offer an even lighter existence check: 200 = product exists, 404 = doesn’t exist or credentials wrong – zero body parsing, ideal for bulk pre-filtering before full GET calls.
• The Last-Modified header on every response gives you a change-detection timestamp – compare it against your local cache to skip re-downloading unchanged datasheets, enabling efficient delta-sync pipelines.

⚠️ Access to additional fields (BrandOrganizations, Packages, Variants, Reviews) must be enabled by account managers — unlike JSON where everything is available out of the box.

⚠️ Authentication requires IP whitelisting + Basic Auth for Full Icecat (dynamic api_token also supported but does not work for MetaXML). Plan for this setup overhead in your integration timeline.

Selected Assets from Icecat Datasheet

For complete overview of all assets in Icecat refer to 🔍 Product Data Sheet overview.

Access to Product Reviews

Are you interested in adding product reviews professional and user reviews to your webshop? Then check out our review manual.

Access our MCP server

Especially, for agentic AI, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) has become a de-facto standard. Icecat supports MCP to support your AI Agents.

Important information

Flow – importing relevant product data from Icecat

• Download the relevant index.
  1. files.index.xml.gz (.csv.gz) for all products in Icecat. Use this index once at the start of setting up the onboarding for Icecat.
  2. daily.index.xml.gz (.csv.gz) for the daily new and updated products. Use this index daily to select new and updated products.
• In order to import only certain products from the list, you can make your query based on:
  1. Brand
  2. Manufacturer product code(s)
  3. GTINs (EANs, UPCs)
  4. Category
  5. Quality
  6. On market
• Download the relevant product XMLs you need.

Important Links