Bringing your products in with the import page

Adding forty products one at a time means forty trips through the same form. If your catalogue already sits in a spreadsheet, or in another system you can export from, you do not need to retype it. The import page takes the whole list in one file.

Where the page is

Open Products. Beside New Product there is an Import products button. Only the store owner sees it. A staff login that opens the page is told "Only the store owner can import products."

The Products page header with the Import products button beside New Product — Import products sits next to New Product.

The page shows four steps along the top: Template, Upload, Preview, Import. This article follows them in order.

1. Template

Press Download template (.xlsx), or or .csv if you prefer. The .xlsx has a second sheet called Instructions that lists every column, whether it is required, and what it takes. The .csv has the columns and example rows only.

The template comes with example rows, a mug and a t-shirt with three variants. Delete them or write over them before you upload.

The rule to learn is this: one row is one variant. Rows that share a Product Handle are grouped into one product. The handle is a short code you choose, like ceramic-mug. It is never shown to a buyer. It only ties rows together.

The columns that matter

Column	What it needs
Product Handle	Required on every row. The same handle in different capitalisation counts as an error.
Name	Required. Fill it on the product's first row.
Price	Required. In MYR, above 0. Variant Price overrides it for one variant, and blank uses Price.
Variant Quantity	Required. A whole number. Use 0 for out of stock.
Image 1	Required. A public link starting with https. Image 2 to Image 5 are optional.
Weight (kg)	Treat it as required. Every variant needs a weight, and a variant with no Variant Weight (kg) takes this one.
Category	A name. If it does not exist yet, it is created.
Option 1 Name, Option 1 Value	Up to three options. Put the name on the first row and a value on every row of that product.

Name, Description, Category, Price, the size columns, option names and images all go on the product's first row. On later rows leave them blank or repeat the same value. A different value is flagged as a conflict. A product without options is a single row. Description lines become paragraphs, and nothing fancier.

Only physical products can be imported. Your 500 product limit counts what is already in the shop, so a file that would go past it is refused as a whole.

2. Upload

Press Choose file and pick the .xlsx or .csv. It must be 5 MB or smaller. The button reads Checking file... while the page reads it. A different file type gives "Upload an .xlsx or .csv file." and a large one gives "The file is larger than 5 MB."

The first state of the import page with the template download and the Choose file button — Steps 1 and 2 are on one screen.

3. Preview: what happens to rows that fail

Nothing is created yet. The preview checks every product against the same rules as the Add Product form and marks each problem on its own row and column. The header reads something like "2 products need fixes". The switch Only show products with errors hides the clean ones so you can work through the rest.

The preview with two products flagged and the import buttons disabled — Flagged cells are marked in the table. Both import buttons stay off until they are fixed.

You fix them right there. Click a cell and change it. Every edit is checked again. For pictures, press Add image, then either Upload from device (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 10 MB) or Paste URL. You can reorder images, and remove a whole product or a single row.

The Add image panel open on a product with no image — A missing photo is fixed on the page, without going back to the spreadsheet.

If you would rather fix the spreadsheet, press Download errors, correct the file, and use Upload a different file. If the file cannot be read at all, the page says "There is a problem with this file" and lists the reasons.

This is the safety. Import as draft and Import and publish stay disabled until every product is clean, so a bad row cannot slip through half done.

The preview with no errors and both import buttons enabled — When the header says the products and variants are ready, both buttons turn on.

4. Import

Choose one.

Import and publish makes every product in the file live straight away.
Import as draft creates them unpublished, so you can look at them first.

The button you press decides this for the whole file. You do not need to fill in the Status column.

A progress bar shows how many products are processed. It runs in the background. When it ends, the Summary reads like "3 created, 1 failed". Each created product links to its edit page. A Failed list gives the product name and the reason, and the usual reason is an image link that could not be fetched. Press Download failed rows to get just those rows back, fix them, and import again. Import another file and View products are beside it.

The summary showing created and failed products with the download failed rows button — A failed product does not stop the others.

After the import: three things to check

Weight. The import accepts a weight of 0. The Add Product form does not. A product at 0 kg quotes the buyer the wrong shipping, so open a few products and check it.

Images. Image 1 becomes the main photo. Check the order, and that each photo belongs to the right product.

Category. Categories are matched by name, so "Kitchen" and "Kitchenware" become two categories. Look at your category list after the first import.

The import also leaves the product summary empty, and descriptions arrive as plain paragraphs. Anything richer is added on the product's edit page.

If you only have a few products, adding them by hand with New Product may be quicker. Our guides on adding your first product and on setting up variants cover that.

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