Exporting and importing your products is the most efficient way to update your product catalog. Whether you're adding new products or making changes to existing ones, importing is the best way to make those changes in BULK. You can update options, images, inventory, and even create categories. Exporting your products is also a great way to backup your catalog. All export templates include details of each product.
VIDEO: How to Import & Export Products
Getting StartedYou'll need access to a spreadsheet program that supports either CSV or XML files such as Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. We recommend using the CSV format when exporting your files if you plan on importing the exported data back into HBCommerce. Any other file type will not import.
Specific fields will be required when importing data into HBCommerce. For example, when creating new products, the CSV will need to include the Product Name, Price fields, Categories, Weight and UPC Numbers. If you do not have UPC numbers, our system will randomly assign a UPC number to the product. This random number is only for the web store and is not a real UPC number. When TRACKING INVENTORY, it is REQUIRED to import the column labeled the following AS WELL AS Product Name, Price fields, Categories, Weight and UPC Numbers:
Allow Purchases?
Product Visible?
Track Inventory
Current Stock Level
Low Stock Level
When importing product images, their file names are restricted to certain characters and are case-sensitive. Additionally, image files must be JPEG/JPG, GIF or PNG. They cannot be TIFF, BMP, or PDF file formats. When importing SKUs, the CSV file must have the Product SKU and Stock Level fields.
These are just a few examples of the requirements you'll need to be aware of before importing and exporting.
Choosing an Export Template
An export template determines what product information you are exporting. All export templat
es will include details like the product name, but you can include additional details like price and dimensions.
HBCommerce comes with a few product export templates built in:
- Bulk Edit (recommended) — the bulk edit template was made for updating your product information. It includes the majority of exportable fields and has specifically named columns that let you skip steps in the importing process.
- Weighted Goods — the default template includes basic product details such as name, weight, description, price and QUANTITY in Weighted Goods format to sell product by weight such as KG.
- Default — the default template includes only basic product details such as name, weight, description, and price.
Exporting Products
1. Go to Products › Export.
2. Select your export settings.
- Template — We recommend Bulk Edit if you are not using a custom template.
- File Format — You can export your file as a CSV or XML. We recommend CSV as any other file type will not import.
3. Click Continue, then click Export my Products to a CSV file in the pop-up window. The export will begin to process.
4. When the export is complete, select Download my Products file. The file will be saved to your computer, usually in your Downloads folder.
Once you've exported the CSV, you can then edit the spreadsheet to fit your needs, such as creating categories, adding options, updating product images or adding additional fields.
Make a backup! After exporting your products, it's a good idea to make a copy of the original export as a backup. This way, if something goes wrong during an import, you can quickly restore your products to their previous state.Importing Products
Be careful when importing products. The options for Delete existing images and Delete existing downloads should not be enabled unless you know what you are doing. These settings can delete your existing product images and digital product files. There is no way to recover these files from HBCommerce. We recommend keeping a local backup of your files.
1. Go to Products › Import.
2. Fill out your preferred settings under Import Options. We recommend the following:
- File was exported using the 'Bulk Edit' template — Select this if you exported your file using the Bulk Edit template, or are using the same column names as listed in the table of supported fields below. This will preselect the rest of the Import Details settings and allow you to bypass the Matching Fields step.
- Overwrite existing products — If checked, your products will be updated upon import. Since this is generally why you're importing your products, you should select this.
- Delete existing images and Delete existing downloads — These will delete all of your product images and digital product files. Once they are deleted, there is no way to recover them from HBCommerce. Enabling this setting is not recommended for most import cases.
- Detect product categories from CSV file — Enable this if you want the import to auto-detect category names. If you neglected to fill in the Category field in your CSV, however, you can opt to have all of your products get added to a category in this list.
- Ignore blank values during import — Unchecking this setting will delete the data associated with any blank field in your import file. Because of this, we strongly recommend keeping this setting enabled. For example, if you left a product’s description blank and unchecked this setting, the product’s description would be deleted from your store without any alert.
You can typically leave the following settings alone. They are used if you are uploading a spreadsheet and need to specify the import settings.
- File contains headers — Does the file contain column headings?
- Field Separator — what character is used to separate the fields?
- Field Enclosure — what character is used to tie phrases together (such as "Socks and Shoes")?
3. Under the Import Products via CSV section, upload your CSV file directly from your computer by browsing for it.
4. Click Next when done.
5. Make sure all of the data you're importing has been matched to its equivalent setting in HBCommerce. If you selected Bulk Edit Re-import, you can skip this step. For a list of available fields, see Table of Supported Fields. YOU MUST CHOOSE THE FOLLOWING TO IMPORT SUCCESSFULLY. THe other fields are OPTIONAL and you can choose to IGNORE them.
REQUIRED: Product Name, Categories, Price, Weight and UPC Numbers.
When TRACKING INVENTORY, it is REQUIRED to import the column labeled the following AS WELL AS Product Name, Price fields, Categories, Weight and UPC Numbers:Allow Purchases?
Product Visible?
Track Inventory
Current Stock Level
Low Stock Level
Be careful of data loss! "Ignore" means that the data hasn't been matched. It is used with the 'Ignore blank values during import' setting. Unchecking this setting will delete the data associated with any blank field in your import file. We recommend leaving the setting checked.6. Click Next when done.
7. Click Start Import to begin importing your products. When the import is complete, you will see an import summary.
Click More Information to see any warnings generated during the import.
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