Native eCommerce
Import, Export, and Update Products in Native Store
Import, Export, and Update Products in Native Store
This content is only relevant for native store.
To determine which eCommerce solution you are on, see How do I know if I am using Native eCommerce or Third Party eCommerce?
You can import, export, and update products in native store.
Import Products
You can import products via CSV, which allows you to bulk import up to 500 products and their categories from another store platform, such as third party store, Shopify, or WooCommerce, into native store. Note that variations count towards the 500 product limit. For example, this means you can have 300 products with 200 variations but not 300 products with 300 variations.
To import products from CSV, you need to export a CSV of products from your current store, update the CSV format so it meets native store format requirements, then you can upload the CSV to native store and your products and categories will be added to the product catalog.
Note
These instructions cover how to import new products. To learn how to update existing products in bulk, see Bulk Update Products.
For an overview of the import process, watch the following video:
<!-- iframe instead of embed for d:videodata -->1. Export Products from Store
Following are instructions on how to export products to a CSV from various store platforms:
2. Reformat CSV File
You need to reformat the exported CSV file to meet the required format for native store.
Note
If you are importing products from third party store, you can skip this step. Website Builder will automatically reformat the third party store CSV file for you. However, the third party store does not support category images in the export file. Also, native store does not support products with duplicate names, so if there are two or more products with the same name in the third party store export file they will not be imported.
When reformatting your CSV file, make sure to check for all of the following:
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Ensure column names and fields meet native store requirements (see table below for specifics). For example, your original CSV file might have a column titled ‘product_images’, but for native store to recognize the column you need to rename it to ‘product-image-url’. Or, the price field from your original CSV includes currency, but native store does not include currency in the price field.
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Confirm required columns are present and contain the correct information. For products, title and price columns are required. For variations, field-type, title, product-option-name, and product-option-value columns are required.
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Remove columns that are not supported by native store.
CSV Format Requirements
Note that you can download a CSV template from inside the editor. To do so, go to the Product Catalog and click Import. Select where you are importing from, then on the next screen click Download CSV Template.
The following table displays the supported columns and formats for your CSV file:
Column name
Column description
Example format
Default value if left blank
Additional information
Required
url-handle
The product URL. Can accept any legal URL path. This URL is unique per product and is the product identifier.
sample-product
Same as product title
Must be unique per product. Required only for updating existing products; not required for new products.
It depends, see note in Additional information column
field-type
Indicates whether row data is for a product or a variation.
product
product
Required when updating a variation.
It depends, see note in Additional information column
title
The title of the product.
Purse
Cannot be left blank. Mandatory field for products.
Must be unique.
Required
description
The description of the product in HTML format.
<b> Oversized purse for everyday use. </b>
None
5,000 character maximum.
Optional
price
The price of the product.
100
Cannot be left blank. Mandatory field for products and variations.
Cannot be left blank.
Required
compare-at-price
The sale price of a product.
90
None
Must be lower than price .
Optional
sku
The SKU of the product or variant.
12345
Maximum length of 50 characters.
Optional
status
The status property controls whether a certain product or variation is visible on the site.
ACTIVE
Active for all products except digital, digital is draft by default.
Valid values for product are: ACTIVE, INACTIVE, and DRAFT. Valid values for variations are: SHOW and HIDE.
Optional
type
Sets the type of the product.
PHYSICAL, DONATION, SERVICE, DIGITAL
PHYSICAL
Digital products have to be created without a resource. They can be set to DRAFT or INACTIVE (not ACTIVE) and then in the catalog, you can add the file and activate them.
Optional
product-image-url
URL at which the product image is found.
none
For products you can add up to 10 images, URLs must be separated with a semi-colon or comma. For variations you can add one image.
Optional
product-image-alt-text
Alt (alternate) text describes an image and is an important part of a product description.
Blue purse
None
For products you can add up to 10 alt-texts. The text must be separated with a semi-colon or comma. For variations you can add one alt-text.
Optional
inventory
Determines whether the item is in stock, out of stock, or has a numeric inventory.
100
IN STOCK
Possible values: IN STOCK, OUT OF STOCK, a number.
Optional
product-option-name-1
Name of the option type (e.g. color, size)
Size
Mandatory field for variations.
Maximum of 6 options, see the Create Variations section below for details about formatting.
Optional
product-option-value-1
Value of the option type (e.g. color, size)
Small; Medium; Large
Mandatory field for variations.
Optional
product-option-name-2
Name of the option type (e.g. color, size)
Color
Mandatory field for variations.
Optional
product-option-value-2
Value of the option type (e.g. color, size)
Red; Green; Blue
Mandatory field for variations.
Optional
category
The category or subcategory the product will be assigned to.
Accessories
None
The category the product will be assigned to. To assign multiple categories, separate them with a semicolon (;). To assign a sub category, input the parent category followed by a chevron, then the sub category (for instance Category > Sub Category) .
Optional
seo-title
SEO Title appears on the product's details page under the Search engine listing preview header in the Page title field. SEO Title is alphanumeric and can include up to 70 characters.
Sample product
Same as product title
If left blank, the value in the Title column is entered into the Page title field on the product's details page.
Optional
seo-description
SEO description appears on a product's details page under the Search engine listing preview header in the Description. SEO description is alphanumeric and can include up to 320 characters.
Sample description
Same as product description
SEO description appears on a product's details page under the Search engine listing preview header in the Description. SEO description is alphanumeric and can include up to 320 characters.
Optional
custom-field-name-1
The name of the product attribute (formerly known as Content Blocks).
Details & Care
None
We support up to 20 fields.
Optional
custom-field-type-1
The product attribute type.
TEXT,PLAIN_TEXT, IMAGE, VIDEO
None
Optional
custom-field-value-1
The value of the product attribute.
Hand wash only. When using "IMAGE" with custom-field-type-1, enter an image URL (e.g., https://image.jpg).
None
Optional
3. Upload CSV to Native Store
After reformatting your CSV file to match the native store required format, you can upload it and import your products.
To import products:
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In the side panel, click Store, then click Store Management.
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Click Manage Products.
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Click Import.
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Select your CSV origin using the Select your CSV origin drop down menu.
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Click the Upload your CSV section to upload your file. File size limit is 20MB.
If the file appears greyed out, it is likely that it was not saved as a CSV. Watch the Cannot upload file video to learn how to fix it.
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The number of detected products is displayed on the screen. If it is correct, click Import Products. If it is not correct, click Re-Upload CSV File and try again.
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If there is an error with your CSV, click Download CSV Error Report to learn what needs to be fixed. After making the required changes, click Re-Upload CSV File.
If you received an error, watch our troubleshooting videos for help:
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Once your products are successfully imported, you can click See Product Catalog to view the products and categories.
Variations
Product variants are combinations of product option values. For example, if you sell a shirt with two options: size (with values of small or medium) and color (with values of blue or red). A variant of these options would be a small, blue shirt. When importing products, you need to create variations and define whether or not the variant will display on the product page.
Create Variation for a Product
To create new variations for a given product, you need to define the relevant option and values in your CSV when importing the product.
For example, if you sell a backpack with 3 sizes (small, medium, large) in 2 colors (red, green) the row for importing the backpack would look something like the following table. This creates 6 different variations for your backpack.
field-type
title
price
... (other relevant fields)
product-option-name-1
product-option-value-1
product option-name-2
product-option-value2
product
backpack
90
Size
Small; Medium; Large
Color
Red; Green
Warning
The "product" field-type must be lowercase. If it is capitalized ("Product"), the import will fail.
We recommend watching the following video about preparing your CSV for importing product variants:
<!-- iframe instead of embed for d:videodata -->Update Variations
Warning
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The following fields are mandatory when updating a variation: field-type, title, product-option-name, product-option-value.
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Product fields that can be overridden as part of a variation update: price, product-Image-URL, product-image-alt-text, sku, status, inventory.
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In the field-type cell, if "product" or "variant" are misspelled, it will return an error.
To update a variation, you need to specify which variation is being updated by providing details about the specific variation. Continuing with the previous example, say you want to set a higher price to the large green variant. In that case, the CSV file will look like this:
field-type
title
price
... (other relevant fields)
status
product-option-name-1
product-option-value-1
product option-name-2
product-option-value2
Variant
backpack
100
SHOW
Size
Large
Color
Green
Non-Latin Characters
While special characters outside the Latin alphabet (such as those found in languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and others) are supported, Excel (a spreadsheet program), can cause issues, even if the file is simply opened with it. Because of this we recommend only using Google Sheets to save files.
To export a CSV file using Google Sheets:
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Upload your CSV file to Google and open with Google Sheets.
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(Optional) Make any desired edits.
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Ensure the spreadsheet meets format requirements (see the section CSV Format Requirements above).
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Click File then Download.
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Click Comma-separated values (.csv, current sheet). Do not open the file.
Export Products
All products can be exported to a CSV file.
To export products from native store:
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In the side panel, click Store, then click Store Management.
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Click Product Catalog.
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Click Export.
The exported CSV will download.
Bulk Update Products
You can bulk update your products via CSV file in native store. To do this, you will export your existing native store Product Catalog to CSV, bulk update the desired products in the CSV file, then import the updated CSV file back into the Product Catalog.
To update products in bulk:
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In the side panel, click Store, then click Store Management.
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Click Product Catalog.
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Click Export.
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Make changes to your products in the exported CSV file. To learn about the CSV file formatting requirements, see Reformat CSV File.
Note
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Up to 20 custom fields are supported for import and export.
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When a custom field is deleted in the CSV, the field will still exist in the product catalog, though any text in the field will be removed for the products that are getting updated.
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The only field that cannot be changed is the url-handle since it must be unique per product. If you do change it, a new product will be created.
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The url-handle and the product type are two fields that cannot be changed via CSV.
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To change the url-handle, go to the Product Page SEO tab of the store admin and change it there.
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To change the product type, delete the product from the catalog then recreate it using the correct product type (PHYSICAL, DONATION, SERVICE, or DIGITAL).
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Once you are done making changes to the CSV file, click Import in the Product Catalog.
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Click the Upload your CSV section to upload your file. File size limit is 20MB. In the upper corner, a status indicator will show you the progress of your file upload.
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The number of updated products is displayed on the screen. If it is correct, check Update existing products. If it is not correct, fix any formatting errors in your CSV file, then click Re-Upload CSV File. In the upper corner, a status indicator will show you the progress of your product import.
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If there is an error with your CSV, click Download CSV Error Report to learn what needs to be fixed. After making the required changes, click Re-Upload CSV File.
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Once the import is complete, click See Product Catalog to view the updated products.
Non-Latin Characters
While special characters outside the Latin alphabet (such as those found in languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and others) are supported, Excel (a spreadsheet program), can cause issues, even if the file is simply opened with it. Because of this we recommend only using Google Sheets to save files.
To export a CSV file using Google Sheets:
-
Upload your CSV file to Google and open with Google Sheets.
-
(Optional) Make any desired edits.
-
Ensure the spreadsheet meets format requirements (see the section CSV Format Requirements above).
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Click File then Download.
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Click Comma-separated values (.csv, current sheet). Do not open the file.