Import products via CSV

You can easily import your products from a CSV file into Shoporama. In this article you can read how to do it and how it works.

The difference between CSV and JSON imports

Shoporama has two types of imports. CSV are products that come from a comma-separated file (but are actually mostly a semicolon-separated file). JSON is a different format and you can only import a file that you have previously exported in Shoporama. The rest of this post is all about CSV import.

What can you use CSV import for?

CSV import is an easy way to create or edit many products in Shoporama. Often you will use it when you move your shop to Shoporama. You can then export the products from your old shop and import them into Shoporama. It can also be used if you want to update your products.
How should the CSV file be formatted?

A CSV file is quite simple. For Shoporama to read it, it needs to be in a format like this:

own_id;price;name 334455;48.00;Brown t-shirt 667788;170;Black t-shirt

What you see above is the simplest format. We'll look at a little more detail further down. What you see here are two products. The first line indicates which fields are involved (here it's sku, price and name). You can make the file like this:

product;price;name 334455;48.00;Brown t-shirt 667788;170;Black t-shirt

But please note that we cannot map "name" to the product name ourselves. You must use the names we have given them (own_id, price etc.). So if you can enter the first line yourself, you'll make it easier for yourself.

How do you import images?

To import images, you need to enter the URL of the image. Note that you must enter an absolute URL that our server can visit. I.e. it must be preceded by https://www.ditdomæne.dk. You can't just enter /images/product533.jpg

Then our server won't know where to look for the image. Also note that the image must not be hidden behind a password, as our server cannot enter a password.

Here you can see an example of an import that also contains images:

own_id;price;name;image 334455;48.00;Brown t-shirt;http://minshop.dk/img/brun-tshirt.jpg 667788;170;Black t-shirt;http://minshop.dk/img/sort-tshirt.jpg

How to import product profile attributes?

If you have created a profile where you need to specify e.g. material and where it was produced, you can specify the product's profile attributes as parameters in a URL. It will look like this if you have two profile attributes called "material" and "madein" respectively:

material=cotton&madein=denmark material=polyester&madein=portugal

If we were to reuse our example above, the file would look like this:

own_id;price;name;attributes 334455;48.00;Brown t-shirt;material=cotton&madein=denmark 667788;170;Black t-shirt;material=polyester&madein=portugal

By the way, this is the same way you specify extra fields and staircase discounts (i.e. in URL format).

How do I import products into Shoporama in a practical way?

1. Click on "Products"
2. Click on "Import / Export"
3. Here you need to select the type of import. Select CSV import (bottom left). It says "Import products"
4. Now scroll down to the bottom and click the "Select file" button under "Upload CSV file". You now need to select the file on your computer.
5. First, select the separator (i.e. whether your values are separated by commas, semicolons or something else). You also need to specify whether your fields are surrounded by "" or something else. If you know what encoding your file is in, you can specify that too. Otherwise, leave it on "auto" and Shoporama will try to detect it.
6. Then click "Upload".
7. You now need to map the individual values to the values they should have in Shoporama. If you have specified the first line with names we can recognize (see the list further down), we will have selected this for you.
8. When all fields are selected, you need to choose which product profile the products should be created with and how many lines you want to import. By default, Shoporama will choose to import all lines. In addition, you have the option to specify whether the prices are incl. 25% VAT or not. If you specify that the products are incl. 25% VAT, Shoporama will subtract the 20% from the prices and save the prices as ex. VAT.
9. Then simply click "Import" and after a few minutes your products will be in Shoporama. Please note, however, that if the server needs to retrieve images from another server, it may take several minutes before all the images are retrieved.

Which fields can the import recognize?

Below is a list of the fields Shoporama recognizes in the mapping:

Additional fields with description:

google_category

auto_offline (automatically offline when out of stock - specify 1 or 0)

auto_online (automatically online when back in stock - enter 1 or 0)

related_products (share product IDs separated by commas)

remove (remove product - enter 1 or 0)

no_shopping (do not show in Google Shopping feed - enter 1 or 0)

google_shopping_title