New Bulk Import/Update Products For Retail POS

The Bulk Import/Update Products feature allows you to manage products in large quantities effectively. You can update products by uploading the spreadsheet provided by SHOPLINE. 

*Notes:

1. The article is specifically for merchants using Retail POS Plan only. For merchants who use e-Commerce/Social Commerce + Retail POS Plan, please refer to this article.
2. This feature currently supports importing product information in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, Vietnamese, and Thai. (More languages including Malay, Japanese, Indonesian, German and French, will be supported soon.)

 

This article covers:

• Attention before importing files
• Steps to import products 
• Data fields introduction 

 

1. Attention before importing files

1. Please use the template spreadsheet and fill in the product information. In the bulk import spreadsheet, there are three fields you must fill in: "Product Handle," "Product Name," and "Images."  The file cannot be uploaded if these fields are left blank. 
2. Besides the three fields mentioned above, it is suggested to fill in "Price," "Quantity," and "Categories." If you do not fill in the price, the system will hide the price automatically after uploading. Customers can only send messages to the store for price inquiries.
3. Please edit the spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets only. Before importing the file, please reconfirm all the content you are going to upload. If some products in the spreadsheet already exist in the store, the system will still import them and cause product duplication.
4. This feature currently allows merchants to upload at most 20,000 rows of data at a time (excluding the title row). For instance, there are two main products (A and B) in a bulk import file. Main Product A has only 1 variant, so it takes up a row on the spreadsheet. Main Product B has 3 variants, so they take up 3 data rows. When importing this bulk import file, there will be 4 data rows imported in total.
5. Fields related to price support positive integers only. 

 

2. Steps to import products

Step 1. Click [Bulk Import/Update]

In the SHOPLINE Admin Panel, go to [Products and Categories] > [Products]. Select Import > Bulk Import/Update in the drop-down menu. 

 

On the Bulk Import/Update page, click Export Product Bulk Import File to download the template spreadsheet.

*Note: If this is the first time you use this feature, you are strongly recommended to download and read the instruction file (bulkupload_instruction.xlsx).

 

Step 2. Download spreadsheet

After downloading the spreadsheet, please add product information respectively.

*Notes:

• Starting from Row 3, you can add new product data in every row.
• Please do not delete or change the columns of this spreadsheet.
• Every new product should have at least a Product Handle, Product Name, and Image.
• If your shop supports multiple languages, a bulk import template file will be generated according to your shop's default languages. You need to enter product information in at least one language for fields such as Product Name, Specification Name (if any) and Variation Name (if any). 
• If you only need to upload information in a specific language, please leave the fields of other languages blank. Do not delete any column.
• Please make sure all categories you use are already configured in the Admin Panel. Currently, the system cannot create new categories and suppliers in bulk import. Please finish setup in advance in [Products & Categories] > [Categories] and [Inventory Management] > [Supplier].
• Please do not include space or Chinese characters in your image URL.

• Names of different stores cannot be repeated. Otherwise, the system will not be able to obtain the correct data of Store-Specific Prices, and upload failure will occur ([Coming Soon]).

 

3. Spreadsheet field introduction

Here's an example of how you fill in the Bulk Import/Update spreadsheet.

*Note: The position of the following fields applies only to this example. Since each shop supports different languages, the position of column fields varies in each generated template.

i. Product Handle (Required)

Use the same product handle for a product's variations.

 

ii. Product Name (Required) & Product Summary

• Product Name (Mandatory)
   If you only have the data in English, please leave the field for Chinese blank and do not delete it.
• Product Summary
  If you only have the data in English, please leave the field for Chinese blank and do not delete it. The text limit for these fields is 300 characters.

 

iii. Retail Store Status

Enter Y to make this product published automatically after import, enter N or leave it blank to make the product unpublished.

 

iv. Images (Required)

• You can add Images (used as thumbnails and primary pictures) for your products.
• Please enter the URL of the image directly. If you have more than one image, please use a space between two URLs.
• Please do not include space or Chinese characters in your image URL.

*Note: SHOPLINE has fully upgraded the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Please change your domain URL to "https" to avoid your website from being blocked by some browsers.

 

Tip: How to Get the URL of Images

• You can upload your images to the Image Gallery on SHOPLINE and copy the URLs. Please refer to this article for more details.
• You can upload your images to other public online photo platforms that support SSL encryption (ex: Imgur, Flickr, and Facebook). After uploading, right-click on the photos and select Copy Image Address to copy URLs.
• You can search for photos directly on the search engine. After uploading, open the photos in a new tab, right-click on the photo and select Copy Image Address to copy the URL.

*Note: Merchants are advised to exercise caution for photo copyright issues. Please refer to Google FAQ for more details.

 

v. Product Categories

Before adding new categories to the spreadsheet, please make sure that you have added corresponding categories on the Admin Panel > [Products and Categories] > [Categories]. 

• To assign a product to the main category, input the category's name directly. E.g., "Soap".

Please leave the Chinese column blank if you do not have a category in Chinese and do not delete it. 

vi. POS Categories

Please use the latest bulk import file to import product categories.

If you haven't enabled the "POS Categories" column in the Bulk Import feature, please import your product categories with the "Categories" column. Once enabling this column, please import product categories with the "POS Categories" column. 

Before adding a new POS category, please make sure that you have added the corresponding categories in [Products & Categories] > [Categories]. Please note that POS Categories only support importing main categories.

*Note:

• Subcategories are currently not supported in POS categories. Therefore, ">" is not available for assigning products to subcategories in retail stores.
• Assigning one product to multiple POS categories is currently not supported. Therefore, "#" is not available for assigning products to multiple categories in retail stores.

Please leave the Chinese column blank if you do not have a category in Chinese and do not delete it.

 

vii. Price & SKU

*Notes:

• Price-related fields contain "Price", "Sale Price", [Coming Soon] "Store-specific Price", and "Cost".
  • [Coming Soon] Store-specific Price is only available for merchants using the Retail POS plan, and merchants must switch on the "Set Store-Specific Prices for products" toggle in the Product Detail Page. For more information, please refer to [Coming Soon] Store-Specific Price｜POS Admin.
• If a product has different variations, please refer to Specification & Variation and set up "Variation Price", "Variant Sale Price", and "Variation SKU" for each product variation. If you fill in "Variation Price", "Variant Sale Price" and "Variation SKU", please leave the "Price" column blank. 
• Price-related fields only support positive integers.

 

viii. Supplier & Product Tag

Supplier: Make sure you add corresponding suppliers in the Admin Panel > [Inventory Management] > [Supplier] before filling in the spreadsheet, or you cannot update suppliers via the Bulk Import/Update feature.

Product Tag: Please leave this field blank as it is not supported in Retail POS Plan.

 

ix. Specification & Variation

Set the name of each Specification field, such as "Color" and "Size".

*Note:

• If the specification name is identical to "Color" or "Size", it will be set as the default specification automatically (applicable to Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, Thai, and Vietnamese)
• Please enter the specification name in the store default language. Otherwise, the system will recognize it as a custom specification. 

 

Afterwards, fill in the corresponding variation name for each variation. 

 

x. Variation Price, Variant Sale Price & Variant Cost

• To customize Variation Price or Variant Price for different product variations, start from Variation A, Variation B, Variation Price, and from top to bottom, row to row.
• Price-related fields only support positive integers.
•  If you fill in "Variation Price", "Variant Sale Price" and "Variation SKU", please leave the "Price" column blank. 

 

xi. Variant Weight (KG) & Variation SKU

Variant Weight (KG): Please leave this field blank as it is not supported in the Retail POS Plan.

Variation SKU: Merchants can customize SKU for each product variant.

 

 xii. Barcode

Merchants can customize barcodes for each product variation.

• If you are a POS merchant, it will be synchronized to the POS app after a product barcode is imported. If the Barcode field is left blank, the system will automatically generate an 8-digit Barcode. 
• If you want to check the barcode after it is imported, you can go to the Admin Panel > [Product & Categories] > [Products] and click on the Edit button of the product. Select the Product Feed Data tab and check the barcode field. If you need to use the barcode field yet cannot access the "Product Feed Data" tab, please contact the Online Merchant Success Team. 
• The current Bulk Import/Update feature does not support checking barcode  duplication. If an imported barcode is the same as that of an existing product, or if a barcode appears twice or more on the spreadsheet, the file can still be imported.

When you scan a product to add to cart on the POS app, the system might show an alert message: "This barcode is found in multiple products. Please check if the barcode is duplicated."

In this case, please go to [Product & Categories] > [Products] and enter the barcode to locate those products. Click the Edit button, select the Product Feed Data tab, change the barcode and click Update. After updating the barcode, the product can be successfully scanned and added to cart on the POS app.

 

xiii. Upload Bulk Import/Update File

After inputting all product information, go back to the SHOPLINE Admin Panel > [Product & Categories] > [Products] and upload that file you just edited.

 

Page as below will be shown after products are successfully imported. 

 

If there is any error in the data entry, the system will import the rest of the valid product information first. Merchants can check the bulk upload progress by clicking "Take me to Bulk Import/Export Progress now!" or going to [Report & Analytics] > [Bulk Action Process]. If you have failed items when uploading, there will be a button for downloading the failure report.

 

In the upload failure report, merchants can find the part in error highlighted in red and the failure reason. Please revise the file according to the failure reason, then re-upload the file.

 

To speed up the efficiency of bulk product import, the sorting order of the new products will be in the order of the system processing sequence. Merchants can go to the Categories page to manually adjust the sorting. Other pages such as the list of products in the Admin Panel, Inventory Management page, and all product pages at the storefront, will be displayed in the order arranged in the file.

 

4. Notes

1. The following columns are not available for merchants using the Retail POS Plan: Variant Weight (KG), Product Tag, Hidden Product, Member Price, Variant Member Price. (Membership Tier Price and Variant Membership Tier Price are supported.)
2. Columns with "*", such as "Product Handle", "Product Name", "Images", are mandatory. Other columns can be left blank.
3. To edit the Supplier column in Bulk Import/Update, please make sure the supplier has been added to Admin Panel >  [Inventory Management] > [Supplier].

 

Read more

Upload Products