Export and import product data

Product data can be exported or imported from external systems.

Once you have set up products and SKUs, as outlined in Create and work with SKUs, you can share the data.

Products are associated with Master View or standard catalogs or collections. For detailed information on the difference between these two types of catalogs, refer to Understand catalogs.

When you create a product the product is linked, by default, to the master defaultCategoryForProducts category. If you indicate that the category is null, or you set the orphaned attribute to true, the product you create is identified as orphaned. If you provide a valid a standard catalog ID, the product is linked to the defaultCategoryForProducts category of the specific catalog.

Products cannot be linked to root categories of any catalog. If you provide root categories in the parentCategories attribute, the product is linked to the defaultCategoryForProducts of that specific catalog. However, if you provide both parentCategories and a catalogId, the catalogId is ignored.

Note that the catalogId and orphaned attributes are not exported, as these properties are used only when performing an import.

Product-specific export and import fields

The following sections describe the fields that can be exported and imported for products. Note that both the product and SKU data are imported into and exported to a single file. The product and SKU fields have been separated in the following tables for the sake of clarity.

Product import issues

If you import a large number of products, you could experience some performance issues if the products are not categorized properly. To avoid these issues, consider the following:

1. A collection should not hold too many products.
2. Avoid creating too many products without any category.
3. Avoid creating too many price groups.

Field Type	Description
Product price information	Fields that contain pricing information, such as listPrice, listVolumePrice, listPrices, listVolumePrices, salePrice, saleVolumePrice, salePrices, saleVolumePrices, shippingSurcharge, shippingSurcharges and taxCode. You can upload pricing information into multiple price list groups.
Tax information	The tax code of the product.
Product Add-Ons	Add-on product associated with the product with the property addOnProducts. Add-Ons are not supported at SKU level. Only at product level.
Product description information	Fields that describe the product, such as height, weight, length, brand, type and displayName.
Product image information	The product image description field productImages that contains path, metadata, repositoryId, name, url and tags. Also describes additional information about images, such as productImagesMetadata, primaryImageTitle and primaryImageAltText. Note that you cannot import images along with the corresponding product. However, you can map images that you have already uploaded to the products that you are importing. To do this, refer to the Import image assignments.
Additional product information	Fields that contain information such as unitOfMeasure, onlineOnly, configurable, discountable, orderable, active, notForIndividualSale, orderLimit, variantValuesOrder and CountryOfOrigin.
Associated SKU descriptions	Fields that contain descriptions about associated SKUs, such as childSKUs and defaultProductListingSku.
Additional related product fields	Fields that contain additional product and related fields descriptions, such as description, longDescription, relatedProducts, relatedArticles and relatedMediaContent.
Date and time	Fields that provide dates and times, such as salePriceStartDate, salePriceEndDate, creationDate, arrivalDate, dateAvailable and daysAvailable.
Linking information	Fields that provide information on linking fields. For example, parentCategories. Note that parentCategories is imported first and during product import, it is linked to the corresponding parent categories using its repositoryId.

SKU-specific export and import fields

The following fields can be exported and imported for SKUs.

Field Type	Description
SKU price information	Fields that contain pricing information, such as listPrice, listVolumePrice, listPrices, listVolumePrices, salePrice, saleVolumePrice, salePrices, and saleVolumePrices.
SKU image information	The SKU image description field images that uses path, metadata, repositoryId, name, url and tags. Note that you cannot import images along with the corresponding SKU. However, you can map images that you have already uploaded to the SKUs that you are importing. To do this, refer to the Import image assignments.
Product related information	Fields that describe related product data, such as productFamily and productLine.
Date and time	Fields that provide dates and times, such as salePriceStartDate, salePriceEndDate, creationDate, arrivalDate, dateAvailable and daysAvailable.
Boolean fields	Fields that describe SKU properties, such as active, discountable, and configurable.
Dynamic SKU information	Fields that contain information specific to dynamic SKUs, such as color and resolution.

Product and SKU validations

The following list describes some of the validation performed when importing products:

• The product ID is valid and not null. Valid characters are alphanumeric, as well as underscore (_) and dash (-).
• The listPrices and salePrices properties are either maps or null. If it is a map, each price corresponding to a price group ID is either a number or null.
• The listVolumePrices and saleVolumePrices properties are either a map or null. If it is a map, each price corresponding to a price group ID is either a map or null.
• The listPrices and listVolumePrices properties cannot contain a non-null entry for a particular price list group ID i.e. a particular product or SKU cannot have both list and list volume prices for a particular pricelistgroup.
• The salePrices and saleVolumePrices properties cannot contain a non-null entry for a particular price list group ID i.e. a particular product or SKU cannot have both sale and sale volume prices for a particular pricelistgroup.
• The listPrice, which should be a positive number, should be available for the mandatory price list groups.
• If a site not account-enabled, the listPrice of a product cannot be null.
• The listPrice cannot be less than the salePrice.
• The shippingSurcharge should be a positive number.
• If categoryId is null the categoryItem property will not be set.
• The productImages property tags should be null or a map and if not null, each of its elements should be an instance of map or string.
• The childSKUs.configurationMetadata.name property must be a string and is a required.
• The propertychildSKUs.configurationMetadata.value property must be a string and is optional.

The following validations are also performed when importing SKUs:

• The corresponding catalog and product IDs should be valid and not null.
• The active property should be Boolean or String.
• SKU properties cannot be null, and should be unique. Additionally, the SKU ID should be valid, and a SKU with the same ID cannot pre-exist in the repository.
• Inbound SKU data should have all of the mandatory variant properties.

SKUs can be bundled together to create a new SKU. SKU bundles have the following validation:

• A SKU cannot be deleted if it is part of a SKU bundle.
• You can only bundle one level of SKUs.
• A SKU cannot be a member of multiple bundles, and you cannot have bundles referenced within bundles.
• SKUs can only be a part of the same bundle once.

For detailed information on working with products and SKUs, refer to Create and work with SKUs .

Support for hierarchical price list groups

If you have set up price groups by using base price groups, this hierarchy is supported in bulk product import. Note that the following validations are not performed in bulk import for performance reasons:

1. The validation that salePrice value is lesser than list price value is not performed when there is price hierarchy. The price list group for the sale and list prices are added and inherit the parent price list group.
2. The validation that salePrice is given but the list price is missing is not performed when there is price hierarchy. The price list group for the sale price is added and inherits the parent price list group.

For more information about setting up price groups, see Configure Price Groups.