csv file for updating products

[gldneagles]

I was wondering if someone can link an example of what a csv file for update products information would look like. I have tried following the instructions in the documentation section for it and when I go to import the file it says nothing is marked for update and skips the items.

[abantecart]

If you do update, you need to export the same table first, edit and import back. This is the easiest process actuality. Import of new data is more tedious.

Maybe this video will help

&feature=plcp

[gldneagles]

so there is no way to easily convert the csv file I get from my vendor to update the items in my list? I currently have 9200 products between 2 different vendors and would be very time consuming to go through line by line to check for differences. As it is it takes me about 30 minutes to convert their csv file to the format required to import into abantecart.

[Nimitz1061]

The short answer to your last question is no.

The longer but more accurate answer is yes, but not without consequences, and not in any way which is likely to please anything like a majority of any community.

Speaking to this as a developer who has worked closely with store owners on this issue in the past, a few of the issues involved include:

1. Need for unique indexing id's per product which are next to impossible to supply across multiple systems such as your store and your suppliers stores.
2. Impossibility of guaranteeing that two suppliers won't use the same 'model number' for different products.
3. Need to avoid creation of duplicate entries for the same product with consequent duplicate URL"s.
4. Need to assure proper generations of relationships between media files and various products.

These are just a few of the many issues involved here.  30 minutes is a significant improvement over the time required to manually enter 9200 products...

David

[gldneagles]

yes 30 min to convert their file is a major improvement, how ever there are only two options left for updating my products information from what you have said. one will be to delete my entire stores product listing and re-import them which would take probably about an hour but then will loose all product images that i have uploaded already, or to do the export and manually go through each item line by line and make the changes that I need to make which will take me at least 4 to 5 hours. and if I go with deleting my products it will take me even longer to attach all the images again, as it is I only have maybe 100 products with images and that has taken me about 4 days to do. Hopefully in the future someone can create a better way of updating products because this is kind of ridiculous to do, seeing every time I get an update csv file from my vendors, which is almost every day, I will be spending half my day if not more redoing everything. And it will not let me download the csv product file because it says it is too large and errors out every time. Thank you for the help.

[Nimitz1061]

Sounds like you get no incremental updates from your provider at all, and perhaps use their content and pricing without modification.

Have you considered using a Diff tool like WinMerge to compare their latest update file with the previous update to cut the data processing down to smaller chunks??

David

[gldneagles]

I get an update everyday with all the new products, stock qty, discontinued items, specials they are having and so on. as it is i cut the file down from over 11000 products to just over 8000. I appreciate all the help you have given me and your program is great for certain types of products unfortunately it doesnt have the functionality that I need. And have found another program that I can upload all my products and images at the same time so my whole process just went from taking over 2 hours to modify items to under 10 min.