Import products to Shopify in bulk

Mixtable’s Excel-like interface is the perfect way to quickly add products to your Shopify store in bulk. Whether you are adding a few new products to your existing set, or importing a ton of new products. Whether your new products have variants or not. You can also add variants to existing products.

There are two ways to add products in bulk to Shopify with Mixtable. You can use a Products - Complete (with Variants) worksheet, which displays all your products and their variants, or you can use a Products - Basic (without Variants) worksheet, which only displays product-level information. In this article we’ll cover both approaches. Keep in mind that in your workbook you are free to have a Products - Complete (with Variants) and a Products - Basic (without Variants) worksheets side by side, and use them both as you see fit. They’ll both accomplish the same tasks, and Mixtable will keep both updates with changes we receive from Shopify.

Use a “Products - Complete (with Variants)” worksheet

Here are the steps to add such a worksheet in your Mixtable app, if you don’t have one already.

• Click on the + button in the worksheet toolbar.
• In the window that opens, select the Products - Complete (with Variants) option.
• You’ll see the new worksheet show up in your workbook, and it will automatically start to populate with your existing Shopify products, along with their variants.

Each row in this worksheet represents a variant, for products that have them, or a product for products that don’t use variants. You can modify either product or variant fields by editing this worksheet.

Now that our Products - Complete (with Variants) worksheet is set up, it’s time to add some data. This worksheet works exactly like the Shopify CSV import template - each row can be used to add/update a variant, or the product associated with it. The worksheet has columns showing the fields most requested by our users, but you are welcome to remove columns you don’t need or map blank columns to fields that you do.

To add data to this worksheet, do exactly what you’d be doing in Excel (e.g., if you were editing the Shopify CSV import). Either type in the data manually, or copy & paste it. Let’s run through a few common use cases:

Create a product with multiple variants

Here we want to add a product to Shopify, and the product has multiple variants. So we want to create the product and the variants at the same time.

1. Go to the first empty row at the bottom of the worksheet
2. Now, in this example, we are going to populate three rows with data, because we want to create three variants. We are going to add both product and variant information to our rows, so that Mixtable can create the product and variants at the same time.
3. In the first row set the Product Title and Product Handle values to the name of your product, and the URL handle that you want to use for it, respectively. You only need to specify the Product Title on the row for the first variant for the product, the other variants will get that value populated in their cells after you sync and create the product in Shopify.
4. Set the Product Handle of the other two rows to the same value as the one on the first row. This signals to Mixtable that all three variants belong to the same product.
5. Add your product level data, such as the product description or tags. To add product-level data ensure that you have the fields you need mapped to columns. Similar to the Shopify CSV import template you only need to specify the data for the product fields on the row that represents the first variant for the product. Mixtable will set the data when it creates the product, and will automatically populate the same data into the remaining variant rows.
6. Add your variant data for all three variants. At the very least you need to enter Option values for all the Options that the product has (e.g., size, color). This is sufficient to create the variant in Shopify. You can, of course, also add other information - such as price, cost, or inventory at a location.
7. In our example we’ll be creating two options for the product - size and color - and so will have to specify the variant option values for both options.
8. When you are done entering your data, click on the Sync sheet to Shopify button and Mixtable will create the product with its variants for you.

Create a product with no variants

The steps to create a product with no variants is the exact same as when adding a product with variants, with one difference - omit the Option data.

1. In your Mixtable app, go to the first empty row at the bottom of the worksheet
2. Set the Product Handle and Product Title for the product we are adding. This is all the information you need to create a barebones product, but you are welcome to add any other data you need - description, price, cost, inventory, etc. Just map any fields you need to columns in the spreadsheet, and populate their cells.
3. When you are done entering your data, click on the Sync sheet to Shopify button and Mixtable will create the new product for you.
4. If you have Option Name and Option Value columns you’ll see that after the product is created these columns will populate with Title and Default Title respectively. In Shopify a product always has at least one variant as it is on the variant that Shopify stores pricing and inventory information. So if you don’t provide variant information (the Options data), Shopify auto-creates a variant for you with an Option Name of Title and an Option Value of Default Title.

Add variants to an existing product

Here we want to add a variant to an existing product:

1. In your Mixtable app, go to the first empty row at the bottom of the worksheet
2. Set the Product Handle cell to the handle of the product that we want to add a variant to. You can either type in this value (or paste it), or you can click on the 🔍 icon that Mixtable automatically adds to cells in this column. Clicking on the 🔍 icon will bring up the Select Product dialog, showing you a list of your existing products. Select the product you want to add the variant to, and Mixtable will automatically populate the handle into the cell for you.
3. Add your variant data. At the very least you need to enter Option values for all the Options that the product has (e.g., size, color). This is sufficient to create the variant in Shopify. You can, of course, also add other information - such as price, cost, or inventory at a location.
4. When you are done entering your data, click on the Sync sheet to Shopify button and Mixtable will create the new variants for you.

Add a new Option to an existing product and its variants

Here we have an existing product, and some variants, and we want to add a new Option into the mix. In our example the product already has an Option 1, and we’ll be adding an Option 2.

1. Find the first row that contains a variant for our product. In this row find the column displaying the Option 2 Name. Set the cell value in this row for this column to the new option we are adding. In our example video we’ll be adding the “Loaf size” option to our product and its variants.
2. Now find the column displaying the Option 2 Value. Set the cell value in this column for every variant row to the option value that each variant should have (e.g., small)
3. When you are done entering your data, click on the Sync sheet to Shopify button and Mixtable will add the new option to your product and its variants.