Adding many products via CSV

Any imports are carried out at your own risk. If you import a defective file, you could potentially destroy the data of your shop.

Normally you add new products to your shop individually, as described in the article Managing products. It is also possible to add a large number of products in one go using a CSV import file.

Please note that this procedure is only recommended for experienced users.

To add products via CSV, follow these steps, which are explained in more detail below:

Collecting product images
Exporting an import file
Editing the import file
Importing products
Checking products

Step 1: Collecting product images

With a ZIP file several images can be bundled into one file. These steps works differently for Windows or Mac computers. Please note that the file names of the images should not contain spaces.

For Windows

1. Gather all of the images you would like to import in one folder on your computer.

2. Select all images.

3. Select one of the images with a right mouse click, select Send to and then Compressed (zipped) folder.

4. If you want to, you can enter a name for the ZIP file. The name does not play a role for the import.

The ZIP file has been created on your computer. You can find it in the same folder.

For Mac

1. In the Mac finder select the images you would like to import.

2. Right click on them and select Compress X Items (X is the number of items you selected).

The ZIP file has been created on your computer. You can find it in the same directory.

Step 2: Exporting an import file

1. Within the administration area, select Settings from the main menu and then Export and import.

2. On this page you can specify the various export settings and then start the export process. Maybe you need to select More options to see all the options that are available. Take a note of all the settings you select as you will need to select them again both when editing the file and when importing it.

Option

Description

Data export

Here the option "Products" needs to be selected.

Encoding

Select “Standard (UTF-8)” if you use characters that are not contained in the standard character set. Otherwise, these will be exported as "?" characters. (Example: ™). In most cases, “Standard (UTF-8)” is a safe choice.

Separator

Here you can select the character that should be used as a delimiter within the export file. The data within the file is then separated by this character. In most cases, we recommend using the semi-colon as separator. Since commas are often used within the data sets (for instance in product descriptions), using commas as a separator can cause problems when you edit the file with an external program such as LibreOffice Calc.

3. Select Export.

4. The export process is launched. In certain cases this can take some time. Save the export file on your computer.

Step 3: Editing the import file

In this step, you edit the previously exported file and add new products to it.

We recommend the freely available program LibreOffice Calc for editing CSV files. Microsoft Excel can change the formatting of the files, which can damage them.

How are CSV files structured?

CSV files always have the same structure, independently from the type of data they contain. The first line contains the column names. Starting with the second line, the actual content starts. Each record (for example, each product) is shown in a new line.

If you open a CSV file using an external application such as LibreOffice Calc, the data is automatically sorted into columns. For product export files, these are, for example, the product name or the list price. The lines contain the individual data records, for example individual products.

For more information about editing import files, read the article Editing exported data.

How do I edit CSV files with LibreOffice Calc?

1. Open the exported file in Calc.

2. Now you need to make some adjustments to the formatting of the file.

Option

Description

Character set

Select the encoding type that you chose when you exported the file previously. The encoding "Standard (UTF-8)" equals the encoding "Unicode (UTF-8)" in Calc.

From row

This value should remain "1".

Separator options

Select Separated by and then the separator that you chose when exporting the file in your shop’s administration area. For String delimiter, the quotation marks should remain selected.

3. Select Ok.

4. Now you can edit the file. Each line in the table corresponds to a product of your shop. Enter the corresponding data for each new product in a new line. In the column "Image for magnified view", enter the file name of an image from the ZIP file that is to be used as the main image for the corresponding product - for example productimage-1.jpg. In the "Images for gallery/slideshow" column, enter the file names of the images to be used as additional images for this product. Separate the file names with a comma. An example: productpicture-2.jpg,productpicture-3.jpg,productpicture-4.jpg

5. When you are done, save the file.

6. If you want to import more than 10,000 products into your shop, split the import file into multiple files. Select 10,000 lines at a time and insert them into a new Calc document. Add the header line from the first import file at the top and save each file.

Step 4: Importing products

1. Within the administration area, select Settings from the main menu and then select Export and import.

2. Select Import.

3. From the Data import menu, select "Products".

4. Next to the CSV import file field, select the Select file... button. Select the import file from your computer.

5. Select the button Select file besides Image archive (.ZIP file format). Select the ZIP file from your computer.

6. Under More options choose the settings that you chose during the export of the product file.

7. Select Import.

8. If you want to import multiple import files, go back to step 3.

At the top of the page there's a message letting you know if the import was successful. If it wasn't successful, please consider the information from the article Editing exported data.

If error messages for invalid attributes occur during the import, you can delete the corresponding attributes from the import file.

Currently you cannot import product bundles, personalised products or download products.

Product types can only contain attributes of the types Text and Text with value selection.

Step 5: Checking products