What you need
- You provide
- Supplier price list as CSV or Excel
- You get
- A new-products CSV, free sample and import instructions
A supplier CSV or an Excel workbook (.xlsx / .xlsm), with a title, retail price and a product key for rows that form variants. Choose SKU and barcode columns as text, and public photo URLs if needed. Already-existing products belong in Update.
Real example
These rows are from the built-in Prepare demo. Purchase price is mapped to cost, never to the selling price. The complete demo produces 2 products, 4 variants and 5 output rows, including one extra photo row.
Before: supplier columns
| Article | Name | Group | Size | Retail price | Purchase price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDOCK-MUG-01 | Demo mug | mug | 9.99 | 4.00 | |
| CDOCK-TEE-S | Demo tee | tee | S | 19.00 | 8.50 |
| CDOCK-TEE-M | Demo tee | tee | M | 19.00 | 8.50 |
After: selected Shopify columns
| Title | URL handle | Option1 name | Option1 value | SKU | Price | Cost per item |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demo mug | mug | Title | Default Title | CDOCK-MUG-01 | 9.99 | 4.00 |
| Demo tee | tee | Size | S | CDOCK-TEE-S | 19.00 | 8.50 |
| tee | M | CDOCK-TEE-M | 19.00 | 8.50 |
This is an excerpt of the generated CSV. Nothing has been imported by CatalogDock, and example photo links are not fetched.
How to use it
- Open Prepare and choose the supplier file. For Excel, review the sheet, range and header row.
- Choose grouping, URL handles, title and retail price. Map up to two variant options and any additional fields you need.
- Build the file, review held-back products and fields or photos not carried, then download a small sample.
- In Shopify open Products → Import. Keep Overwrite switched off; Prepare creates new products. Verify a test import first.
Limits and risks
Keep Overwrite off, review held-back products and test a small import yourself. Initial stock is a separate workflow.
Each input file: up to 50,000 records and 50 MB. Packages keep whole product groups together in parts of at most 15,000,000 bytes. A single oversized group is reported and excluded, never cut silently.
Creates new products only. Check handles against your store export and leave Overwrite off. Held-back products, excluded rows and photo links that were not carried remain visible in the result.
No initial stock or product status is written by Prepare; without a Status column Shopify creates active products. Stock is a separate inventory workflow. At most two variant options are offered in this beta. Images embedded in Excel are not extracted for Shopify; only public photo URLs are written, and their availability is not checked.
Shopify support is in beta. Selected native Prepare and Update scenarios were tested in our test store, including a two-part import of new single-variant products. You import the downloads yourself. Test a small file first.
What is free
Prepare, its report and demos are free. A result of up to 50 variants is free in full. Above that, the free sample keeps whole products within 50 variants; photo-only rows do not count and no product is split to fit.
A larger prepared result uses one result of a CatalogDock Pass ($19, one-time): up to 3 different full results within 30 days across both platforms. Results with held-back products or file errors are not offered as finished paid results.
Downloading the same result again uses no new result.
Other tasks
Common questions
Does Prepare update existing products?
No. It prepares new products. Keep Overwrite off when importing and check handles against your store.
What does the free sample include?
Whole products up to 50 variants. Photo-only rows do not count. A product is never split to fit the sample.
Start with a free result
Review the result before choosing a full download. You import the files into your store yourself.