How to export/ import Products to BigCommerce

The most effective approach to update your product catalog is to export and import your items. Whether you’re adding new goods or changing old ones, importing is the most efficient approach to make changes in bulk. You may make changes to settings, photos, inventory, and even create new categories.

Exporting your items is also an excellent method of backing up your catalog. All export templates contain information such as the product name, but you may go more specific by creating an export template from scratch or editing a copy of one to your specifications. Therefore, this article will help you “How to export / import products to BigCommerce”

Getting Started

You’ll need a spreadsheet application that can handle CSV or XML files, such as Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. If you want to import the exported data back into BigCommerce, we suggest exporting your files in CSV format. Other file types will not be imported.

When importing data into BigCommerce, some fields will be needed. When establishing new goods, for example, the CSV must have the Product Name and Price columns. When importing product photos, their file names are limited to a particular number of characters and are case-sensitive. Image files must also be JPEG/JPG, GIF, or PNG. They can’t be in TIFF, BMP, or PDF format. When importing SKUs, the Product SKU and Stock Level fields must be included in the CSV file.

How to Exporting Products to BigCommerce

Step 1: Choosing an Export Template

An export template specifies what product information is exported. All export templates contain information such as the product name, but you may also include extra information such as the price and measurements.

BigCommerce has a few product export templates:

• Bulk Edit (recommended) – The bulk edit template was designed to allow you to update your product information in bulk. It comprises the majority of exportable fields as well as columns with special names that allow you to skip stages in the importing procedure.
• Default — The default template contains simply the most basic product information, such as name, weight, description, and price.

You may also make your own export templates and include just the product fields you desire.

Step 2: Go to Products, choose export

Step 3: Select export settings

• If you are not utilizing a custom template, BigCommerce suggests utilizing Bulk Edit.
• File Format – You may save your file as a CSV or an XML file. Any other file format will not import, thus BigCommerce prefers CSV.
• Should I save the export to the server for subsequent download? — Choose this option to store the file to your WebDAV exports folder (recommended for exporting 1000+ goods).

Step 4: Export my Products to a CSV file

In the pop-up box, click Continue, then select Export my Products to a CSV file. The export will start processing.

Step 5: Download my Products file

When the export is finished, click the Download my Products file button. The file will be downloaded to your computer and placed in your Downloads folder.

After exporting the CSV, you may change the spreadsheet to suit your requirements, such as adding categories, choices, altering product photos, or adding new fields.

Create a backup! It’s a good idea to produce a backup copy of your original export after exporting your items. If anything goes wrong during the import, you’ll be able to swiftly restore your items to their original form.

How to Import Products to BigCommerce

When importing things, use caution. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t activate the Delete existing photos and Delete existing downloads choices. These options have the potential to erase your current product photos and digital product data. These files cannot be recovered from BigCommerce. BigCommerce suggests that you retain a local copy of your data or use a backup-and-restore program like Rewind to do automatic backups.

Step 1: Go to Products, choose Import

Step 2: Settings under Import Options

• File was exported using the ‘Bulk Edit’ template — Check this box if you exported your file using the Bulk Edit template, our example CSV, or the column names provided in the table of supported fields below. This will pre-select the remaining Import Details parameters and enable you to skip the Matching Fields stage. Overwrite existing items – If this option is selected, your items will be modified upon import. You should choose this since this is the most common reason for importing your items.
• Remove current photos and Remove existing downloads – These will remove all of your product photos and digital product data. There is no way to retrieve them from BigCommerce after they have been erased. It is not advised to enable this option in most import instances.
• Find product categories from CSV file — Check this box if you want the import to automatically detect category names. However, if you forgot to fill out the Category column in your CSV, you may choose to have all of your goods placed to a category in this list.
• Ignore blank values during import — Unchecking this box deletes the data associated with any blank fields in your import file. As a result, we highly advise you to keep this option enabled. For example, if you leave a product’s description blank and uncheck this option, the product’s description will be erased from your shop with no warning.
• Default Option Type — This is utilized if you’re attempting to generate options through import but haven’t appropriately defined the option type in the file. It will enable you to utilize a single kind of option, however we prefer that you define the option type in your CSV file.

Generally, you may leave the following settings alone. They are used when uploading a spreadsheet and specifying the import options.

• File contains headers — Does the file have column headings?
• Field Separator – which character is used to divide the fields?
• Field Enclosure – what character is used to connect sentences (for example, “Socks and Shoes”)?

Step 3: Import Products via CSV

Upload your CSV file straight from your PC under the Import Products using CSV area by looking for it.

Step 4: Click Next when done

Step 5: Data matching

Check that all of the data you’re importing has been matched to its BigCommerce corresponding option. You may skip this step if you choose Bulk Edit Re-import. See Table of Supported Fields for a list of accessible fields.

Take precautions to avoid data loss! “Ignore” indicates that the data was not matched. It is used in conjunction with the ‘Ignore blank values during import’ option. If you uncheck this option, the data associated with any blank fields in your import file will be deleted. We suggest keeping this option enabled.

Step 6: Click Next when done

Step 7: Click Start Import

To begin importing your items, click Start Import. When the import is finished, an import summary will be shown.

To see any warnings issued during the import, click More Information.

Final thought

When it comes to updating your product catalog, BigCommerce importing and exporting are the most effective methods. Adding new items or making changes to existing ones should be done via importing rather than trying to modify one item at a time. To change options, photos, inventory, and categories, just update options, pictures, inventory, and categories. We hope that you all know “How to export / import products to BigCommerce”