Prepare CSV file

Important:

The file should follow our formatting rules - read the last section of this article.
It is possible to use file with any international encoding - read the last section.

You can re-format existing CSV file with your products to meet our requirements or download CSV file from Catalog Machine the in right format:

Use product export to get CSV file for existing products that you can re-import after editing in an external spreadsheet program. You can include variants and collections in this CSV

Edit your CSV file with product information in Excel, Google docs , OpenOffice or other spreadsheet programs.

Uploading Images

While you cannot directly put image file in CSV, you can import them from any public web address, file-sharing service or using direct upload.

Some services require link modification (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox). Read more about importing from websites, Google Drive, Dropbox.
Import images on you local computer drive with Image Manager bulk upload first and link them in CSV to products. Read more how to upload images from local drive for CSV import.

Import Products

Navigate to Product import page or click CSV submenu under Import
Select target import product category (if you don't have Category field in CSV)
Upload prepared CSV file to start import or paste CSV text from your spreadsheet program
Ensure that the import is successful and start using your products

The system will check for errors or data changes for confirmation.
If the system detects new categories, fields or collections it will confirm adding them (by clicking checkbox) or they will be skipped.

A. Headers

The mandatory first row contains special and product category / variants fields names for each column.

The fields should match category field names or they will be considered as new.
Columns for Rich Text fields ( Rich Text type in product category field) can contain plain text or basic html (css is not supported).
You can change field types later on the category page (e.g. Rich Text, Number, Money, etc.). Read more about product categories.

B. Special Fields

Code (optional) - a product ID column to help matching it with existing products or to create a new product if Code doesn't exist in your product database. The system will generate a new code if it is not present.
Category (optional) - a category for the product, existing products will change to the selected category if different
Collections (optional) - comma-delimited, list of product collections in the hierarchical format (e.g. Cars / Ford / Mustang, Best Sellers / Sport)
- The product will be added to the listed collections and removed if existing collections it belongs are not listed.
- It is possible to have multiple collections fields for convenience that should start from Collections (e.g. Collections 1, Collections Car)
Name, Rank (used for ordering products in Showroom) and Showcase (status in Showroom: 1 - show, 0 - hide) are reserved fields for any product category.

C. Image fields (Image type in product category field) support three source formats:

Relative path - for already uploaded images (folder / image name) in Catalog Machine storage - e.g. Products/123.png
Absolute url - any public web address of the image (starting with http:// or https://) - e.g. http://mysite/com/images/product.png. Catalog Machine will download and add these images to the storage.
Data url - encoded image content in the string (starting from data:image/jpeg;base64,/) - e.g. data:image/png; base64,/9j/4AAQSkZ... You can use Catalog Machine export or tools like https://dopiaza.org/tools/datauri to generate Data url

Alternatively, you can copy cells from your spreadsheet program and paste as a text on the import step.