Listing profile vs edit product page

Which products details are supposed to go in the listing profile and which should be entered on the edit product page?

Everything that is the same for some or all of your products, should be set in your listing profile - and everything that is unique for a particular product should be set on the product level.

For example: Unless you sell books and other products, your "Product ID Type" would always be UPC (books have ISBN). So there is no need to set this for each product, just set it to "UPC" in your listing profile(s) and you're all set.

On the other hand, the actual UPC number is unique for each single product - which is why you have to enter it on the edit product page, just like the SKU. Some users already have UPCs stored in some custom meta field, in which case they would use a different shortcode in their profile, but if you enter the UPC in the dedicated field provided by WP-Lister for Amazon, simply keep the default shortcode [amazon_product_id] and it will pull the value from that field.

Similar to that, you can use other shortcodes in your profile to pull any product attribute value or custom meta field data into your listing feed.

In a nutshell, your listing profile is where you do two things:

set default values which can be overwritten by values set on the product level, and
pull values for certain columns from specific product attributes / meta fields

It's supposed to save you the effort of having to enter everything on the edit product page - but it can take some effort to get everything up according to Amazon's requirements for listing new products.

If your products already exist on Amazon, you don't have to use a listing profile at all - all you need is an ASIN in that case.

Should I use the Amazon Feed Attributes box on the edit product page?

The Amazon Feed Attributes section should only be used if you have to. It's a tool for advanced users to give you access to every single feed column on the product level, but if you are just trying to list your first items on Amazon you should keep it as simple as possible.

Once you have successfully listed new products on Amazon, you can use the Amazon Feed Attributes section to further refine your listings by providing information about your target audience or set platinum keywords. But you should never use it to set a value that already has a dedicated form field on the edit product page, like listing title or price.

Listing profile vs edit product page

Further reading