Expanding your product offering is one of the key ways to grow your ecommerce business. But the more extensive your selection of products, the trickier it can become to update your store – making all your changes on each product page can become extremely time-consuming and a waste of resources.
Collating customer information can be equally challenging, especially if you’re manually copying and pasting information to collect data on past orders and user accounts.
So, what if we told you there’s a quicker and easier way to bulk upload hundreds of products and download all of your customer purchase information with a single click? The answer: use CSV files.
What is a CSV file or delimited file?
CSV stands for "Comma-Separated Value". A CSV file is essentially a plain text file that contains tables or spreadsheets of data and ends with the extension .csv.
The great thing about CSV files is that they are compatible with almost any text editor, from Microsoft Excel to Google Sheets to Numbers, making them easy to create, share, and edit.
A CSV file is also a type of delimited text file because it uses a comma to separate (delimit) values. There are other types of delimited text files, such as Tab-Separated Value (TSV) files which use a tab spacing to separate values.
What is a CSV file used for in ecommerce?
CSV files are used to upload and download data to and from ecommerce sites easily. Some examples of what you can do with CSV files include:
- Bulk import new products to your ecommerce store
- Update or edit existing product information
- Add or update sellers and seller information if yours is a multi-vendor marketplace
- Export customer account information and past order details
- Download data on store discounts
The main advantage of using CSV files to update your ecommerce store is that the data is in plain text, not code. This means business owners like yourself can easily read, comprehend, and edit the information without expert help from a web developer or data specialist.
CSV文件也通常规模较小,their download and transfer of information faster and smoother, even for large amounts of data. This can be especially helpful if you're moving your ecommerce store from one domain or platform to another.
And as mentioned above, CSV files are universally compatible with a wide variety of text editors and don’t require any specialized programs to read or write.
How to use the Shopify sample products CSV template
When a CSV file is uploaded or imported onto Shopify, the platform automatically converts all the text data from the file into product information on your store.
To make things easier for sellers, we’ve created a CSV template that already includes all the necessary fields (columns) that need to be included in the final uploaded file.
Step 1: Download the template
如果你是一个新卖家是谁刚刚开始你的电子商务OB欧宝娱乐APPommerce store on Shopify (welcome!), you can easily upload your products using our CSV template.
First, download thesample product CSV file. It’s very important that you do not edit the first row of column headers as they must all be included, in the same order, for the file to be translatable by the Shopify platform.
Here’s what the file should look like:
Alternatively, if you are an existing seller who already has products in your Shopify store and you are looking to upload new ones, you need to firstexport (download) your existing productsas a CSV file before editing accordingly.
Step 2: Edit the information
Fill in all the necessary information in the CSV file, and remember not to edit the first row of column headers. Here’s an explanation ofwhat the CSV column headers meanand which data fields are required for the file to be valid.
Step 3: Import your CSV file
Once all the information in the spreadsheet has been updated, it’s time toimport (upload) your CSV fileto the Shopify platform and get your text data converted into product information.
After uploading your CSV file, you should see a preview screen to help you check that the information you’ve submitted is valid. If any errors are detected, here's where the platform will notify you to edit and resubmit your file.
If there are no errors, you should see a summary of what you’ve uploaded, including the number of products, SKUs, images, and whether or not you’ve chosen to overwrite any existing product information.
CAUTION: It is highly recommended that you save a backup of your original exported product data before importing your new CSV file in case of mistakes or broken image links.