Import Products to Your Store

The import tool in ShopBuilder allows to upload your products in the form of CSV files. You may want to use this if you need to add or update a lot of products at a time. For information about troubleshooting, see Import Products FAQs and Troubleshooting.

To import products to your store:

1. In the left panel, click eCommerce, and then click Manage Store.
2. Click Catalog, and then click Products.
3. Click Import Products.

For examples of the import tool usage, see Store Import and Export Basics.

CSV

ShopBuilder uses the CSV format for import and export of files. A CSV file is a plain text format, thus you can use any text editor for creating or editing CSV files. However, spreadsheet editors provide better editing experience. Currently, the most powerful and convenient tools are OpenOffice, MS Excel, and Google Docs. We should note that Excel (especially its old versions) does not always open CSV files properly. There are a number of workarounds, however, we recommend using the free OpenOffice app to edit and save your CSV import files.

File Contents

Each line in a CSV file represents the properties of a certain item (for example, a product, an order item or a customer) separated by a delimiter. The same delimiter should be used for the whole file.

The very first line in a CSV file can contain column names, for example:

sku;name;quantity

Export always puts column names on the first line. For import, it supports both formats (with or without column names line). The ShopBuilder import dialog has the option to Skip first line. When you select this option, ShopBuilder skips the first line in the file without any verification. If the “Skip first line” option is disabled, this indicates the whole file contains data, and ShopBuilder checks every line.

Data Columns Separators (Delimiters)

ShopBuilder supports three CSV value separators:

• semicolon
• comma
• tabulation

Line Separators

ShopBuilder supports three different line separators for CSV files:

• \r\n – Windows
• \n – Unix, Linux, MacOS X
• \r – classic MacOS

ShopBuilder automatically recognizes file line separators. you do not need to set it up or adjust it in any way.

File Encoding

ShopBuilder supports more than 10 charsets, such as UTF-8, UTF-16, US-ASCII, etc. If all your products and categories are in English, you do not need to change anything. Use the default encoding settings UTF-8 and all the information will be imported correctly. If you want to import a CSV file with non-English characters, we strongly recommend using the UTF-8 encoding for your CSV file. If you cannot use UTF-8 for your CSV file for some reason but use some other encoding, you will need to set the correct encoding in the import settings. Otherwise, the information will not be imported correctly.

Number Formatting

There are two strict requirements for number format in ShopBuilder import:

1. The decimal mark (decimal separator) must be a dot (.)
2. A number must not contain a thousand separators

Columns

ShopBuilder recognizes 14 columns in the CSV file, their descriptions are below:

Column name	Type	Description	Required	Limits
SKU	string	Product SKU	At least SKU or Name field is required	255 symbols
Name	string	Product name	At least SKU or Name field is required	255 symbols
Description	string	Product description	optional	no limits
Enabled	boolean	Product availability (enabled/disabled)	optional	“true”, “yes”, “on”, “Y”, “1” for true, any other values for false
Weight	floating number	Product weight	optional	Any valid floating number value, if column is present but empty, then product is intangible
Price	floating number	Product price	optional	Any valid floating number value (do NOT include currency symbol)
Recommended price	floating number	Product compare-to price	optional	Any valid floating number value (do NOT include currency symbol)
Quantity	integer	Product quantity in stock	optional	Any valid integer value, if column is present but empty – quantity tracking is disabled
Image	string	Product image url	optional	Only http:// and https:// links are allowed, any other values are ignored
Category 1	string	Category name or path to category (e.g.Books/Science/Biology), which product belongs to	optional	255 symbols for each name in path, “Books” – one name, “Science” – another name
Category 2	string	Path to second category, which product belongs to	optional	the same as Category 1
Category 3	string	Path to third category, which product belongs to	optional	the same as Category 1
Fixed shipping rate	floating number	Product shipping freight value	optional	Any valid floating number value
Fixed shipping rate only	boolean	If product has only fixed shipping rate	optional	“true”, “yes”, “on”, “Y”, “1” for true, any other values for false
UPC	string	Product ‘UPC’ attribute (see also: Product types and attributes)	optional	255 symbols
Brand	string	Product ‘Brand’ attribute (see also: Product types and attributes)	optional	255 symbols