How to Import Many Products in WooCommerce for 2019

If you have a lot of products to import from a previous shopping cart that you used to use this can be a big time saver!

I was a little disappointed that WooCommerce did not have a sample .csv file that you could download and use as a template, but here is a workaround for that. Just create one product manually then go to Products > All Products then click on the ‘Export’ button along the top of the page.

After you do this you will come to a screen where you are given the options on how to export your products.

Just leave all of the options to ‘Export all categories’ and you do not have to check the box ‘Export custom meta?’. It is not needed for inputting your products. After you have done this a .csv file is generated that you can download. After you downloaded the .csv file you can open it in your spreadsheet editor, whether it be Google Sheets, Excel, Open Office, etc.

NOTE: When you manually create a product to export to create a template try to fill in as much information as possible!

These are the column headings that show up when you do this and are displayed below along with a brief description of each in parenthesis. If the export column is blank it is safe to leave them blank for the next import.

• ID (Tracking ID number created by WooCommerce. You can leave this blank.)
• Type (Type of product.)
• SKU (The SKU number you use for inventory. Okay to leave blank if you do not have one.)
• Name (Name of the product.)
• Published (Published to your website. 1 means yes, 0 means no.)
• Is featured? (Main product to display on your website. 1 means yes, 0 means no.)
• Visibility in catalog (Viewable to the public.)
• Short description (Short description of the product shown on multiple products page.)
• Description (Detailed description of the product shown on the single product page.)
• Date sale price starts (Beginning sale date.)
• Date sale price ends (Ending sale date.)
• Tax status (Whether the product is taxable or not.)
• Tax class (Type of tax class.)
• In stock? (1 means yes. 0 means no.)
• Stock (How many you have in stock.)
• Low stock amount (How many you have in stock before you get the ‘low stock’ warning.)
• Backorders allowed? (1 means yes, 0 means no.)
• Sold individually? (1 means yes, 0 means no.)
• Weight (oz) (Weight of Product with the shipping container.)
• Length (in) (Length of the shipping container with the product.)
• Width (in) (Width of the shipping container with the product.)
• Height (in) (Height of the shipping container with the product.)
• Allow customer reviews? (1 means yes, 0 means no.)
• Purchase note (Whether to allow people to leave a purchase note on the product.)
• Sale price (Price of the product when it is on sale.)
• Regular price (Normal price of the product.)
• Categories (Category that the product fits into.)
• Tags (Tags used to help find the product on your website separated by commas.)
• Shipping class (Type of shipping class.)
• Images (URL address of where the image is stored. NOTE: If you enter in the URL address where it is on your old shopping cart and the image URL is still is active then when you import the products into your new shopping cart WooCommerce will add the images to your new shopping cart and update the URL address of the product images to match! This is a great time saver!)
• Download limit (A limit to downloading a non-physical product such as e-books, software, etc.)
• Download expiry days (How long the website visitor is allowed to download a non-physical product.)
• Parent (If your product is under a parent product it is displayed here.)
• Grouped products (If your product is part of grouped products then it is displayed here.)
• Upsells (Upsells that are added for your product.)
• Cross-sells (Cross-sells related to your product.)
• External URL (External URLs that talk about your product. It is normally not recommended to have one of these because we do not want people to leave your site. Instead, add any external information on your own web site!)
• Button text (Custom text that you want on the product button.)
• Position (Position your product is displayed. This can be blank.)

You can now compare the data from the spreadsheet where your old shopping cart is and copy and paste the info into the corresponding column of the exported test template that you created.

If after you do this you find a mistake that you made after you imported hundreds of products there is a great free plug-in that you can use that will delete all of the products at once that comes in handy! Warning though it WILL delete all of your products! WooCommerce Remove All Products

After you fill out the spreadsheet you can browse for your file and import it into WooCommerce where you will be asked to double check that the categories of what you are importing match the categories of WooCommerce.

If you want to do a bulk edit of your products in your spreadsheet then upload them without editing or replacing all of your products you can check the checkbox, ‘Existing products that match by ID or SKU will be updated. Products that do not exist will be skipped.’. Just make sure that you export your latest products before doing a bulk edit on your spreadsheet so that the ID and SKU numbers match so no mistakes are made.

When you see this you will realize that you could have just uploaded your old shopping cart .csv file and pick and choose which WooCommerce category it would match too without having to create a template I just described above. But I have found that by creating a template and importing it that way leaves the chance of making a mistake much smaller.

Plus, it is a good idea to have a more accurate spreadsheet on your products for referring back to on later. After you verify that all of the categories match click ‘Run the Importer’ button at the bottom to import your products.

And there you have it. That is how you upload many products at once using the 2019 WooCommerce Importer.