We investigate shift invariant subspaces of $L^2(G)$, where $G$ is a locally compact abelian group. We show that every shift invariant space can be decomposed as an orthogonal sum of spaces each of which is generated by a single function whose shifts form a Parseval frame. For a second countable locally compact abelian group $G$ we prove a useful Hilbert space isomorphism, introduce range functions and give a characterization of shift invariant subspaces of $L^2(G)$ in terms of range functions. Finally, we investigate shift preserving operators on locally compact abelian groups. We show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between shift preserving operators and range operators on $L^2(G)$ where $G$ is a locally compact abelian group.