Wix product import template: shaping a supplier spreadsheet for either of Wix’s two catalogs

What the Wix product import template is, and which one you need

A supplier’s spreadsheet for a range of glazed plant pots arrives as one row per pot. Each row has a code, a name in capitals with the size inside it, a weight typed as 1100g on one row, 1,100 grams on the next and 1.1 kg on a third, the box size in one cell and a cell of image file names.

The Wix product import template is the CSV file Wix gives you under Store Products, More Actions, Import, and there are two of them: one for Wix’s new product catalog and one for the previous catalog.¹² Their columns differ, so first find out which your store reads. Start creating a product. If the first field is Images and videos, the store is on the previous catalog, and if it is Name, it is on the new one.¹³

This is not a setting to change before an import. Wix’s feature-request page for moving to the new catalog says “it is not possible to migrate an existing Wix Stores site to the new product catalog”, and that new sites come with it built in.⁴

The rest is spreadsheet work: one platform’s version of product data enrichment.

Getting the template, and what each file allows

Both catalogs take a bulk upload through that one screen. On the new catalog the button is Download Template, and the file “includes three sample products, two of which have variants”; Export Products, on the same screen, gives you your own products as a file to update.¹⁵ On the previous catalog, Download CSV File offers a Blank Wix CSV template, also with three sample products, two with variants, or Wix CSV with your products.²

Both pages set the same two rules: “Do not add or delete columns. Do not edit column names.”⁵² On the new catalog a longer file stops at “only the first 10K rows”, and every size and every photo counts as a row.⁵ Wix’s store limits sit above the file limits: 50,000 products, six options per product, 100 choices per option and 1,000 variants per product.⁹

The columns that matter in each template

The new catalog’s column names are as Wix’s help article writes them. Check them against your own download, since that template sits behind your login.⁵¹

The bigger difference is the layout. On the new catalog, a pot in three sizes is a PRODUCT row, a VARIANT row per size and a MEDIA row per image, all with one handle. The PRODUCT row holds the name and lists every choice, and each VARIANT row names one.⁵ Once a product has options, price, stock and weight belong to the variants, and the PRODUCT row’s box size cells stay empty.⁶¹¹⁵ Variants: size and colour covers what counts as a variant.

On the previous catalog, the Product row carries the name, the price and the image links, and each Variant row leaves the price blank and gives any difference as a surcharge.² There is no barcode column and no box size column, and Wix’s rules forbid adding one.¹⁰²

Where supplier files break a Wix import

Each of these arrives in the supplier’s spreadsheet, and some do damage without stopping the import.

Blank stock cells. A supplier file often has no stock column, and when it has one, it describes the supplier’s warehouse. On the new catalog, “Fields left blank are automatically marked OUT_OF_STOCK”; on the previous catalog, “If field is left blank, it is marked InStock”.⁵² The codes differ too, IN_STOCK against InStock, and the new catalog’s column is case sensitive.⁵² Stock is yours to set, so set it on every row.

Weights and box sizes with the unit in the cell. 1100g, 1,100 grams, 1.1 kg. Both templates take a weight as a bare number with up to three decimal places, and Wix’s help says “it is not possible to enter the product’s weight in grams or ounces”: grams become kilograms, and ounces pounds.⁵²¹² In a store that weighs in kilograms all three are 1.1, and 1100 with only the g stripped off would mean 1,100 kg.

On the new catalog, a box of 19x19x18cm goes into packageLength, packageWidth and packageHeight, all three or none, and three blanks clear the dimensions. packageUnit “Must match the store’s measurement unit setting”.⁵ Wix sets metric or imperial measurements under Language & region.¹³

Sizes spelt three ways. 13 cm, 17CM, 21cm. Each variant row names one choice from the product row’s list. On the previous catalog a mismatch is an error: the choice “must correspond to the information entered in the product row”, and the list cannot repeat a choice.⁵²⁸ On the new catalog, where options drive the shop’s filters, Wix’s help says you can make filtering simpler “by grouping similar option choices together”.¹¹

Grouping matters wherever a column feeds a filter. At a bathroom retailer, 329 baths came with 12 spellings of 8 bath types, and shoppers were offered all 12. Normalising attribute values sets out the fix.

Image file names instead of links. FP-SG-17_1.jpg is a file name, not a link. The new catalog wants a MEDIA row per image holding “either 1 media URL or 1 media ID”, in display order, and allows up to 50 images, videos and GIFs per product. The previous catalog takes up to 15 links in productImageUrl, separated by semicolons with no space after each, as .jpg, png or gif.⁵⁶² The previous catalog’s page adds that image URLs stored on another platform “won’t load if that store (hosted on the other platform) has been deleted”.² Google Shopping image requirements covers checking links and finding the full-size original.

Barcodes Excel has rewritten. Excel “converts large numbers to scientific notation”, so three sizes with three different EANs can all arrive reading 5.06123E+12.¹⁴ The new catalog’s barcode column “Must be unique”, so they cannot go in as they stand, and the previous catalog’s template has no barcode column at all.⁵¹⁰ GTIN, EAN, UPC and MPN explained covers getting the digits back.

Names in capitals, with the size inside. FENWALD GLAZED CERAMIC PLANT POT SAGE 17CM. A name takes 80 characters, on product rows only, and in both catalogs trademark and registered symbols “display incorrectly when imported”.⁵² By default Wix also builds the product page’s title tag and URL slug from the name.¹⁵ Take the size out, since it becomes a choice.

One supplier row, before and after

Here is the 17 cm pot as the supplier sent it. Its one row feeds a PRODUCT row shared with the other sizes, a VARIANT row of its own and two MEDIA rows.

The 13 cm and 21 cm pots get VARIANT rows of their own, and every further photo a MEDIA row, all under the same handle.⁵ On the previous catalog the pot is a Product row with the name, price and both image links, plus a Variant row per size with its choice in productOptionDescription1. The barcode and box size have nowhere to go.²¹⁰

Shaping the file, step by step

1. Check the catalog by the first field on the product creation page, then download that catalog’s template, or export a few of your own products.¹³⁵
2. Keep Wix’s header row exactly, map each supplier column to one Wix column, and leave out anything with no home.⁵²
3. Decide what is a product and what is a variant. Use one handle per product, on every row, and a variant row per size or colour, within six options and 1,000 variants.⁵⁹
4. Fold every choice onto one spelling, listed once on the product row and written the same way on each variant row.⁵
5. Convert values to Wix’s units and codes. Weights go into kilograms or pounds, box sizes into three columns in the store’s unit, and every code exactly as Wix writes it. Prices go in your store’s currency, because Wix keeps the number: 50 euros imported into a dollar store shows as $50.¹²⁵
6. Set stock on every row, with a number or IN_STOCK (InStock on the previous catalog).⁵²
7. Keep barcodes as text. Format the column as Text before the codes go in, since the format “will only affect numbers that are entered after the format is applied”.¹⁴
8. Give images as links to full-size files and open every one. Then save in CSV (Comma delimited) format and import a few products before the rest.⁵

Reading the errors, and what is not obvious

After an import, the new catalog offers Generate Error CSV, and the previous catalog shows an import review with an Error column.⁵² Only the previous catalog’s messages are published: the new catalog’s error page explains the report but lists none.⁷⁸

Categories that arrive as a path. On the new catalog, Garden > Pots & Planters > Indoor will not come in as a tree: the categorySlugs column takes “The names of the categories the product is in”, and the import can create categories “but cannot nest them”.⁵ Build the tree first, in the dashboard or, if your Categories page offers Export and Import, with a categories CSV whose parentPath column takes “the exact name of the parent”, up to five levels, counting the All Products category.¹⁶

A price on a PRODUCT row with variants. Wix marks price mandatory, the price “of the product or variant”, without saying whether a PRODUCT row with variants needs one. The template’s sample products are there “to help illustrate the proper formatting”, so copy their layout.⁵¹

Before you click Import

All of this happens in the spreadsheet, before Wix sees a row, and it is the work we do on supplier spreadsheets for Wix. The file comes back laid out for Wix’s own importer, in the format your store uses. RefynData’s product data enrichment service matches each SKU or barcode to the real product, fills gaps with a link to each value’s source, converts measures to one unit, folds spelling variants onto one value and finds the full-size original behind each thumbnail. You get a Google Sheet or Excel file, one tab per category, and nothing goes live without your sign-off.

However the file is built, check the catalog first, start from your own dashboard’s template, and import five products before five hundred. Then keep the map from the supplier’s columns to Wix’s, because the next delivery will bring the same grams and the same file names.