Can I manage my products with an Excel or CSV file?

You do have the ability to create new products and update your existing products with a CSV file. If you aren't familiar with CSV files, it is basically an Excel file in a specific format. CSV stands for "comma separated value" or "comma delimited". No need to worry about that too much, though. Just make sure that whenever you save the file you are working on you do a "save as" and select the CSV format option. You might get some warnings from Excel when you do this. Just click yes or okay to the warnings to allow the file to finish saving and it should be fine.

If you are updating existing products you will need to login to your Storenvy admin page and go to the Products menu. Then click the link at the top for "Export Products". This will export a CSV file of all of your existing products. You can just make changes to the products and upload those changes back into Storenvy. Make sure you remember to save the changed file in CSV format or your updates will fail.

If you are creating new products you can add them to an export file of your existing products, or you can use the template that is attached to this help document (named "ProductsTemplate.csv"). Please also see the attached example file "ProductsExample.csv". In the example file there is one product with three different sizes (variations) followed by one product that does not have variations.

Let's take a look at the various fields and what goes in each one.

Product ID: This is a number that is set by Storenvy. If you are creating a new product then you will need to enter "NEW" into this field. Each product has its own row.

Variant ID: This is a number that is set by Storenvy. Variants are different types of the same product. For example, if you sell a t-shirt in different sizes then each size of the same t-shirt will have its own variant. Each variant of an item has its own row. In the t-shirt example you will enter "NEW" into both the Product ID field and the Variant ID field for the main item. The different variants (sizes, in this example) will have "NEW" in the Variant ID fields and the Product ID fields will be left blank. All of your variants for one item must be added below the main item and before any other items in your import file.

Category ID: This is the ID number for the category where you want the product to appear in the Storenvy marketplace. Please reference the document named "Storenvy Category Paths.xlsx" that is attached to this help document to find the category ID numbers for the various categories.

Product Name: This is the title of your product. The Product Name can contain numbers and letters and has a limit of 150 characters.

Product Description: This is the detailed description of your product.

Variant Name: The names of your variants can be different from the name of the main item that is associated with them. This is where you enter your variant name. If you are not using variants, or if the row you are working on is for the main item, then leave this field blank.

Price: This is how much you are charging your customers to buy the product. The price should be a number and two decimals.

Variant SKU: This is where you enter your variant SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). If you are not using variants, or if the row you are working on is for the main item, then leave this field blank.

Variant GTIN: This is where you enter the GTIN (Global Trade Identification Number) for the product variant.

Variant MPN: This is where you enter the MPN (Manufacturer's Product Number) for the product variant.

Variant In Stock: The number of items in this variant that you have available. When this number hits zero your item will be marked as "Sold Out". If you are not using variants then you will still enter the number of items that you have in stock for the product.

Variant Full Stock: The number of available variants at which the stock bar should display as full. You may list a number higher than the quantity available if you always want it full. If you are not using variants then you will still need to enter in a full stock number for the product.

Shipping Notes: These are the notes that will be displayed on the packing slip for the item when it sells and you ship it. The Shipping Notes field can contain numbers and letters and has a limit of 300 characters. If you are not using this field then you can just leave it blank. For variant rows leave this field blank (the Shipping Notes are set at the main product level).

Tags: Tags are used when customers search for your item. The Tags field can contain numbers and letters and has a limit of 255 characters. Each tag should be separated by a comma. If you are not using this field then you can just leave it blank. For variant rows leave this field blank (the tags are set at the main product level).

Status: This field should either contain the word active (if you want the product available for sale), hidden (if you do not want the product available for sale), or coming soon (if you want the product to show as coming soon). For variant rows leave this field blank (the status is set at the main product level).

Show In Marketplace: If you want the product to appear in the Storenvy Marketplace then this field should say TRUE. If you do not want it to show in the Storenvy Marketplace then it should say FALSE. For variant rows leave this field blank (Marketplace visibility is set at the main product level). Note that you will need to be opted in to the Storenvy Marketplace for items set as TRUE to appear there.

Retired On: If you have previously selected to retire the product then it will tell you when you made that selection in this field.

Image 1, Image 2, etc.: These are your product images. If you are creating a new product or adding a new image to an existing product then you will need to specify a link to where the image is available online. The image will need to have a file extension (like .jpg) as part of the URL for this to work. Only one image URL can be entered into each field. For variant rows leave this field blank (the status is set at the main product level).

There are a few additional things to keep in mind when you are updating existing products with a CSV file:

• Some fields in the file will have the text N/A. This means you can't make any changes to that field. Even if you just delete that text it will cause your changes to fail when you upload your file. So just leave those fields as they are.
• Be sure that you don't change or delete any of the product or variant IDs in the file. This will cause your updates to fail.
• It isn't possible to delete an image from the file. If you delete the image URL and upload the changes the old image will still be there in your product. However you can upload a new image if you want.
• If you make some changes to an exported file and then import it, you'll need to export a new file (and make changes to that new file - the old file will no longer work properly) before you can upload more changes.