What you need
- You provide
- A WooCommerce product CSV or an Excel workbook of it
- You get
- A problem report, a corrected copy when applicable, and a free sample
A WooCommerce product CSV from Products → Export or one you prepared, in UTF-8 with comma or semicolon separators, or an Excel workbook (.xlsx, .xlsm) read as a table; up to 50,000 records and 50 MB. Building a catalog from a supplier list belongs in Prepare supplier file; prices and stock of products already in your store belong in Update catalog.
Real example
The synthetic demo catalog of the checker has 366 fictional product records. The check finds 10 problems that it fixes by itself. No blocking findings remain in this corrected sample; a file check still cannot guarantee an import. This is what one of the fixes looks like:
| Type | SKU | Parent | What the check does |
|---|---|---|---|
| variation | 000210-S-NAV | 000210 | removes the space in front of Parent |
| variation | TEE-100-S-W | TEE-100 | listed before its parent TEE-100; moved below it |
The complete corrected demo is free to download, and the optional sample holds whole product groups of up to 50 records. The report of the same run is public: the demo report.
How to use it
- Open Check and choose your WooCommerce CSV or Excel workbook.
- Run the check, then review the findings and the list of supported safe fixes.
- Download the report and a corrected copy when available. Test a few products before importing the full file.
Limits and risks
Only parent order and spaces in Parent are fixed automatically. Review other findings and test a small import yourself; your original file stays unchanged.
- The output is for the built-in importer (Products → Import), not WP All Import or other importers.
- Product texts, images and translations are not checked or written for you; picture links are listed, not downloaded.
- A WordPress site can also run the checks inside its admin with the free WordPress plugin; the website and the plugin differ in what they can compare.
- Example files to practice with: CSV templates. Deeper technical detail: the WooCommerce import reference.
What is checked
- The columns the importer needs, and the file itself: delimiter, encoding and quotes (see encoding and delimiter issues).
- SKUs: missing, duplicated, padded with spaces, or colliding by letter case or accents (see invalid or duplicated SKU).
- Variable products: a variation whose parent is missing, listed after it, or whose Parent value carries spaces (see variations not linking).
- Prices: formats the importer cannot read, negative values, and a sale price that is not lower than the regular price.
- A filled ID column: that is an update of an existing store, outside the supported scenario, and is reported as such.
Fixed automatically
Two things, listed below. Everything else is reported, not changed.
Reported for you to decide
Every problem the check finds, with its place in your file and what to do. Scenarios the tool cannot verify are listed as unsupported, not as errors.
Needs data from your store
Whether SKUs already exist in your store, global attributes and your plugins. A passing check is not a test import: try a few products on a staging copy first.
The two safe fixes
- Order: a variation that is listed before its parent is moved after it. Only the position of the record changes.
- Spaces in Parent: spaces around the Parent value are removed. The parent’s own SKU is not changed.
Nothing else is changed automatically, and the fixes are made on a copy: the download of the corrected CSV and the list of every changed value (changes.csv) show exactly what was done. More in the WooCommerce import reference, Check.
What is free
The check and the report are free. So is a corrected result whose free sample already holds every record, and an unchanged file: its original is free to download. For a larger corrected file the free sample holds up to 50 records in whole product groups, and the complete result is one of the 3 results of a CatalogDock Pass ($19, one-time, 30 days). See Pricing.
Other tasks
Common questions
Does the check change my file?
No. It reads your file in the browser and can offer a corrected copy; the original stays as you chose it.
Is a passing check a guarantee that the import works?
No. It checks the file against the supported scenario, not your store. Test a few products on a staging copy first.
Start with a free result
Review the result before choosing a full download. You import the files into your store yourself.