StoresOnline Day 23: Setting up Products and Pages
May 24th 2007 10:26 pm
My product has about 100 variations in style. The way I’m setting it up, I’m putting them in as 100 different products, which is how other sites selling the same product are doing it.
I was happy to use their import products function which lets you import from a csv, tab, or xml file. However, it isn’t 100% perfect. One of the fields didn’t import correctly (the meta description was blank in the product). Also, it doesn’t let you import all the fields you need to. For example, you can import a URL to the product image, but not to the thumbnail image, so I still had to go in by hand and edit 100 products to add the thumbnail. Also you can only import the parent product fields, but not any of the child fields (such as different sizes that are available, etc).
I guess I’m 85% satisifed with the product import.
I had another instance of the online chat rep telling me the wrong thing. I registered a domain with GoDaddy and added it to my site. I asked the rep how I get email working so that someone can send me an email to mydomain.com. She told me they don’t have any email capabilities and I would have to arrange that with GoDaddy. But later as I was poking around, I found that they do have email alias capabilities. You can set up a particular email address within the domain to forward somewhere else. So…I ask you, why didn’t the rep mention that?
Arrrg.
Addendum: there are two different ways to import: via comma- or tab-separated file or via xml. Turns out that if you use the xml feature, you can import child fields such as variation (sizes, colors, etc). In fact you can import just about any product field except for the thumbnail url. I think this is a bug.
So here are two tips for anyone wanting to import products.
Tip 1
If you don’t have any child data (specifications or variations), then using a tab- or comma-separated file is fine. However if you’re like me and have very similar if not identical variations for all your products, do this so that you can upload the variations instead of adding them by hand:
1. Set up one product manually exactly the way you want it as far as colors, size, specs, etc. goes.
2. Export the product, specifying XML
3. Edit the exported xml file. Copy/paste the xml code to account for other products (the code will be in between (and including) PRODUCT and /PRODUCT tags. )
4. Import this tweaked xml.
Tip 2 (Important!)
When you import, if you don’t check “Update Products” it will overwrite your products. If you do check this, it will update your products with whatever fields you have in your upload file.
I stupidly thought that since I had just exported the xml file, that file contained everything. So when I added some products to the xml and uploaded, I did not check Update Products. But then I remembered that I had gone in by hand and updated all 142 thumbnail image urls. D’oh! Sure enough, after import, all 142 of that field were blank.
I was happy to use their import products function which lets you import from a csv, tab, or xml file. However, it isn’t 100% perfect. One of the fields didn’t import correctly (the meta description was blank in the product). Also, it doesn’t let you import all the fields you need to. For example, you can import a URL to the product image, but not to the thumbnail image, so I still had to go in by hand and edit 100 products to add the thumbnail. Also you can only import the parent product fields, but not any of the child fields (such as different sizes that are available, etc).
I guess I’m 85% satisifed with the product import.
I had another instance of the online chat rep telling me the wrong thing. I registered a domain with GoDaddy and added it to my site. I asked the rep how I get email working so that someone can send me an email to mydomain.com. She told me they don’t have any email capabilities and I would have to arrange that with GoDaddy. But later as I was poking around, I found that they do have email alias capabilities. You can set up a particular email address within the domain to forward somewhere else. So…I ask you, why didn’t the rep mention that?
Arrrg.
Addendum: there are two different ways to import: via comma- or tab-separated file or via xml. Turns out that if you use the xml feature, you can import child fields such as variation (sizes, colors, etc). In fact you can import just about any product field except for the thumbnail url. I think this is a bug.
So here are two tips for anyone wanting to import products.
Tip 1
If you don’t have any child data (specifications or variations), then using a tab- or comma-separated file is fine. However if you’re like me and have very similar if not identical variations for all your products, do this so that you can upload the variations instead of adding them by hand:
1. Set up one product manually exactly the way you want it as far as colors, size, specs, etc. goes.
2. Export the product, specifying XML
3. Edit the exported xml file. Copy/paste the xml code to account for other products (the code will be in between (and including) PRODUCT and /PRODUCT tags. )
4. Import this tweaked xml.
Tip 2 (Important!)
When you import, if you don’t check “Update Products” it will overwrite your products. If you do check this, it will update your products with whatever fields you have in your upload file.
I stupidly thought that since I had just exported the xml file, that file contained everything. So when I added some products to the xml and uploaded, I did not check Update Products. But then I remembered that I had gone in by hand and updated all 142 thumbnail image urls. D’oh! Sure enough, after import, all 142 of that field were blank.
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