Product import
Import products from a CSV, a Google Sheet or a supplier's feed
Bring a whole catalogue in from a spreadsheet, and keep it up to date from one. You say where the file is and which column is which, you see what would change before anything is written, and then you run it once or let it run itself every hour, day or week.
Four places the file can be
Files from the continent are read as they come: semicolons between columns, a comma as the decimal mark, and the older Windows encoding that Excel still saves are all recognised without a setting.
- A file you upload. A CSV from your computer, up to 10 MB. Run it again whenever you have a newer one; the column mapping is kept.
- A web address. A CSV at an http or https address, with a username and password if the address asks for one.
- A Google Sheet. Shared as "anyone with the link can view". Paste the link from your browser and the open tab is read.
- FTP or SFTP. A file in a folder on your supplier's server, with the folder and the file's name in the address.
Say which column is which
The columns we recognise are matched for you, in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French, and the product file Shopify exports is recognised whole. Change any that are wrong, and skip the columns you do not want. A column can become a variant option, such as Size, or an attribute, such as Material.
The fields are the ones a product has: name, description, price, the price before a reduction, stock, SKU, barcode, weight, brand, type, tags, categories, status, pictures and the search title and description. A category that does not exist yet is made. Rows that share a handle are the variants of one product. There is a sample file to start from.
See it before it happens
The preview is the run itself with the writing left out, so the two cannot disagree. It counts what would be added, updated and left unchanged, shows examples, and lists every row it would leave out with the reason: a SKU that appears twice, a new product without a price, a status it cannot read. Nothing runs until you have seen one.
| Rule | What a row does |
|---|---|
| Add and update | New products are added; products already in the shop are updated where the file says something different |
| Only add new | Rows whose SKU the shop does not have become new products; nothing already in the shop is touched |
| Only update | Products in the shop are updated; rows the shop does not have are passed over. The rule for a stock or price file |
A product is found by its SKU, and by its handle when a row has no SKU.
A supplier's feed, kept up to date
On Pro an import runs itself: every hour, every day or every week, at the hour you choose on your shop's clock, up to three per shop. The usual pair is the whole catalogue once a day and the stock file every hour. A file that has not changed since the last run is not read twice, so an hourly import costs nothing when there is nothing new.
Each run is listed with what it read and what it did, and can email you its report: never, only when rows were left out or it failed, or every time. An import that fails three times in a row pauses itself and tells you. Running an import by hand is on every plan, Free included.
Built not to wreck a catalogue
- An empty cell is skipped, it never empties a field. A stock file with a SKU and a number leaves every name and description alone.
- A product's web address never changes on an update, so links and search results keep working.
- Products that leave the file can be set to draft, never deleted, and only the products that import itself brought in or updated.
- If more than a fifth of them vanish at once, or a mapped column is gone, the run stops and changes nothing: a file like that is far more often broken than true.
- Pictures are copied from the addresses in the file into your shop's own storage, so nothing depends on the supplier's server afterwards, and they are only fetched again when the addresses change.
- One import runs on a shop at a time.
How fast it is
In our own test a file of 10,000 new products, 14,000 variants, came in in under two minutes, and a file changing the price and stock of 2,000 products ran in under a second. Pictures take as long as the server they come from allows; the run shows how far it has got.
Stock in a spreadsheet, and back
The Inventory screen exports every variant with its handle, SKU, name, count and status. Change the counts in the spreadsheet and import the same file with Only update: its columns are recognised as they are.
- 1
Open Products, Import
Choose where the file is and read it.
- 2
Check the columns
Correct the matches, skip what you do not need.
- 3
Preview
Read what would be added, updated and left out.
- 4
Run it, or schedule it
Once by hand on any plan, or on a schedule on Pro.
What it does not do
- Customers and orders do not come in from a spreadsheet. From Magento 2 they do, with the one-file importer.
- Excel files are not read directly: save the sheet as CSV first.
- A private Google Sheet cannot be read; it has to be shared by link.
- There is no one-press importer for Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix or PrestaShop. Their product export is a CSV, and that file is what you import here.
Questions
Is the CSV import free?
Yes. Importing by hand, as often as you like, is on every plan including Free. Imports that run themselves on a schedule are on Pro, up to three per shop.
How are products matched when I import the same file again?
By SKU, and by handle when a row has no SKU. A row that says what the shop already says changes nothing, so importing the same file twice is safe.
Can I update only stock and prices?
Yes. Map the SKU, the quantity and the price, skip every other column, and choose Only update. Nothing else on the product is touched, and rows the shop does not have are passed over.
How do variants work in the file?
One row per variant. Rows that share a handle are one product, and the option columns, such as Size and Colour, say which variant each row is. This is the layout the shop's own export and Shopify's product CSV use.
Where do the pictures come from?
From web addresses in the file: one column for the main picture, and another for more, separated by a comma or a vertical bar. They are copied into your shop's storage.
What happens when my supplier's file is broken one night?
If a mapped column is missing, the run stops and changes nothing. The same happens, when products that leave the file are set to draft, if more than a fifth of them vanish at once. After three failed runs in a row the import pauses and emails you.
Read next
- Import and migrationImport products from a CSV file, a Google Sheet or a supplier's feed, or migrate a whole Magento 2 store with one file. Preview first, nothing written unseen.
- SwitchingMigrate your online store to WhizzyCommerce: a one-file Magento 2 importer, a free move for 100 shops; from elsewhere, products from a CSV file.
- vs ShopifyShopify vs WhizzyCommerce: €0 in a month with no sales, less under €2,450 a month or with any other provider, and a €499 ceiling. Worked out month by month.
- Free ecommerce platformCreate an online store free: no monthly fee, unlimited products, 1.5% only when an order is paid. See when Pro, €49 and 0.35%, costs less.