Importing from a file is the quickest and most convenient method of filling and mass editing the catalog, allowing you to add or update tens of thousands of products in just a few hours.
If you switch to Cartum from other website or platform, it likely has an option for exporting all products to a file. But even if you want to fill the catalog manually, we recommend that you first collect all the data into a file and then import it into the site.
Preparing the catalog
Before you import new items, conduct a few preparatory steps:
Create catalog categories;
Create product templates;
Make sure your file contains required product attributes.
Creating catalog categories
If you are importing products from another website, simply create a similar category structure on the new website. Category names must be identical (all lowercase and uppercase letters match), with no extra spaces or other characters.
If you are filling out the import file manually, first form a convenient category structure in the admin panel. In the file create a Category column with category names for each item in the following format:
Category/2nd level subcategory/3rd level subcategory/…
Read more on how to create and customize categories in this tutorial:
Creating product templates
A product template is a set of unique properties of a certain group of products. For successful import, the product properties in the file must match the properties of the product template for the category into which you will be importing products. You can find more information about templates in these articles:
Required attributes
The file must contain these mandatory fields to successfully import a new product item:
SKU — the unique identifier of a product
Title — the title of a product
Category — the name of the category.
Not required but recommended fields:
Price — the current price of an item
Quantity — quantity of the items in stock (if the stock balance is enabled)
Availability — [In stock, Out of stock] the status of the item’s availability (if the stock balance is not enabled)
Show on storefront — [Yes, No] whether to show or hide an item for a purchaser on the website; if this field is empty, the item will be hidden
Image — links to the item photos.
File for import
How to import
The import consists of the next stages:
Selecting and uploading the file
Preview and adjustment of columns
Import procedure
Results report
Selecting and uploading file
In the admin panel, go to the Products section and click Import.
Drag and drop the file into the modal window or press Select on disk to open the file window for selection.
If the import file is available via a link, paste it into the File URL field.
Wait for the file to be downloaded and analyzed. If the file is correct, you will see a preview screen.
Previewing and column matching
On the preview page, you must specify which properties of the product match each file column. The system will automatically select the value if the column name matches the field name in the product template.
If the column name in the import file is specified as [Template Name] Attribute Name, it will automatically match the required property in this template.
If no match is found, the column header will display Do not import. To import data, select the required value manually. The attributes are grouped by template in the drop-down menu for easy selection.
Attention! Columns containing links to photos (Image, Gallery, 360-degree view) are never imported by default. You must match them manually if you need to upload photos.
Attention! If the Import button is not active, then one product property is selected simultaneously for two or more columns. Select different values to correct this error.
Clearing column matching
You can clear all matching columns with a single click. To do this, click the drop-down menu and select Clean up columns matching.
To cancel the import of an individual column, click the cross on the matching field.
Updating product details
To update the information, it is enough to specify the item and the field to be updated. For example, you should import the SKU column (to identify all the product items clearly) and the price column to update the prices. All other product properties will remain unchanged.
Import procedure
To start the import procedure, click the Import button. It will open a small modal window for Actions with products. There, you have to choose actions with groups of new and/or existing products on the site.
The following actions with goods groups are possible:
New products (present in the file, not on the site) — Import/Do not import.
Existing products (available in the file and already available at the site) — Update/Do not update.
Products out of stock (absent in the file, but already present at the site) — No actions/Hide products/Change availability status (if stock update function is disabled).
Attention! The products out of stock action will apply to all items on the site that are not in the current import file. The default setting is No action. Do not change it if you do not plan to update all products.
Actions with photos during the import
Using import, you can replace and add new photos to products. If you have made a matching column with links to photos (Image, Gallery, 360-degree view), then in the action step in the modal window, a new additional Photos field will appear where you can choose:
Rewrite — delete all existing product and/or gallery photos and replace them with images from the import file.
Add — images from the file will be added to the existing images.
Attention! The import will take considerably longer if you choose to upload photos. If there is no need to update or add pictures, we recommend excluding them from the import process to speed it up.
Stopping the import
To pause the import process, click the Pause button.
To resume the paused process, click Reopen button. To stop and exit, click the Pause button.
Import results
When all the products are processed, you will see the result page with the filter by the import status at the top.
Successfully — the item was added or updated successfully, and all fields were added.
Remark — the item was added or updated successfully, but some fields were not successfully imported.
Error — the item is not imported.
Missed — the item was excluded from import and missed.
Detailed information about the product status is displayed when you hover the cursor over the line.
Downloading the import result report
It is possible to download the import report in .xlsx format. To do this, after the import is complete, click Download Report.
The report file contains mandatory information about the item: article, name, category, and these columns:
Product import result — Imported/Imported with notes/Error.
Report — explanation of the import result, cause explanation in case of an error.
Examples of errors in the report
Category ### not found, or an invalid template was specified for the category
Parent product with article ### does not exists
The file ### not loaded
Using the report
You can quickly filter items in the report having errors or comments during import. Then you can find out what prevented these elements from being added to the site correctly and fix it.
You can use the report file to import new items if the category structure on your site does not match the category structure in the supplier files. To do this, download the report file, select the items not imported because you specified the wrong category, and indicate their correct types. You can import new elements from this file and then update their properties with the original import file.