> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.merchantops.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Brands

> Brand identity as shared reference data, and how products reference it.

A **brand** is the maker of a product — the label under which it's sold. In
MerchantOps a brand is reference data: it identifies the brand and its official
site, and it is shared across the platform rather than owned by any one
organization. For the wider vocabulary, see [Core concepts](/getting-started/concepts).

## Brands are shared reference data

Brand identity is the same no matter who is selling the product, so brands are
**always shared** across the platform. Unlike products, variants, and pricing —
which are scoped to your organization — a brand carries no per-organization
ownership. There is one canonical identity for a brand that every organization
references.

<Note>
  Because brands are shared identity, editing a brand is a change to reference data,
  not to your private catalog. Your product data (attributes, variants, pricing,
  publish status) stays scoped to your organization.
</Note>

## How products reference a brand

Each [product](/catalog/products-variants) points at the brand it belongs to. The
brand supplies identity — the name shown in the catalog and the official site
that [enrichment](/getting-started/concepts) uses when it looks for authoritative
product data.

<ResponseField name="name" type="brand identity">
  The brand's name as it appears in the catalog.
</ResponseField>

<ResponseField name="official site" type="enrichment source">
  The brand's website. Enrichment discovers and scrapes the brand site to pull
  authoritative content, which takes priority over other sources when merging.
</ResponseField>

<Tip>
  Because the brand site is the highest-priority enrichment source, an accurate
  brand and site produce better enrichment. If a product's brand is missing or
  wrong, enrichment has a weaker anchor to work from.
</Tip>

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Products & variants" icon="box" href="/catalog/products-variants">
    How a product references its brand.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Core concepts" icon="book" href="/getting-started/concepts">
    The lakehouse, enrichment, and the rest of the vocabulary.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>