The Import Products page helps you import the product catalog from a CSV file. Importing as a CSV file is a quick and convenient way to create and update the catalog.
CSV is a file format which lets you store spreadsheet data (such as the product catalog) as text, and is widely supported by editors. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values for its detailed description.
In order to create a CSV file for importing, export products from the catalog and then modify the resulting CSV file as appropriate.
Importing the product catalog from a CSV file is a three-step process as described below.
Step 1 of 3. Select a file to import.
During this step, you should select a CSV file to import from. The file can be located either on your PC or on a server where the shopping cart software is installed.
After selecting a file, click Next.
Step 2 of 3. Check file, choose actions
This purpose of step is to verify the integrity and correctness of the file specified for import. All detected errors are displayed in the Import Log section.
If the CSV file specifies names of images to be imported into the catalog, image locations are requested.
Images can be stored in a single tar archive either on your computer or on a server where the shopping cart software is installed. It's also acceptable to store uncompressed images in a server location.
If images are stored on your local computer, add them to a single tar archive before importing. Tar archives are supported by most compression software. If your compression software doesn't handle tar archives, you can download a free tar archive viewer at http://www.7-zip.org
Click Start to begin importing.
Step 3 of 3. Import.
This step includes importing text data and images (if specified) from a CSV file.
The Import Log section contains additional import-related information.
Additional import-related information
1. Importing from a CSV file can result in either updating or creating new products.
2. If the ProductID column in a CSV file specifies the correct product identifiers (i.e. a ProductID already exists in catalog), information for these products is updated accordingly.
3. If a CSV file lacks the ProductID column, then products are created in the category that you specify. If that's the case, note that ProductName is a required column in the CSV file, because it's impossible to create products without names.
4. If the ProductID column in a CSV file specifies an incorrect product identifier (ProductID doesn't exist in current catalog), the corresponding row is omitted. Therefore, it is essential to delete the ProductID column when importing from a third-party system.
5. The application analyzes the ProductCategory column while creating new products. Nonexistent categories are created automatically.
6. All columns should have correct names in order to be imported correctly. You can get column names by exporting a demo catalog to a CSV file.
