If you own a PrestaShop online store, you know how important it is to offer your customers a regularly updated catalog. If you have a large number of products online, adding each new product manually can quickly become tedious. Bulk product import can be an effective solution to this problem. PrestaShop offers a number of efficient methods for managing your store and its products, which are described in this article.
Import products manually
You're probably familiar with the method of adding a product manually from the "Catalog" tab of your administration interface. In the product parameters, you enter the name, description, price and image, then repeat the same process for each new product to be added. This manual addition method only works for the creation of a few items, but when it comes to creating hundreds, the task becomes complicated.
Import products with a CSV file
If you have a lot of products to add to your PrestaShop, a bulk import with a CSV file (Comma-Separated-Value) can meet your needs. You can add product information such as name, description, price, etc. to this file. You can also add product variations to this file.
Once the CSV file is ready, go to Advanced Settings, then Import. Select the "Product" type from the drop-down list, then import your CSV file. Enter the field separator type, then click on "Next step". Then simply match the columns in your file to those required by PrestaShop and click on "Import".
Import products via modules
If you don't want to import manually, there are a number of PrestaShop modules dedicated to bulk product import. These simplify the process by offering a specific interface and supporting different file formats.
Importing products with a third-party solution
The final option is to use a third-party solution. Some of these offer advanced mass import functions with additional customization options.
Check module operation
Once your module is configured and activated, go through several pages of your online store and make sure that the functionality added via the module is operational. Run some tests, and place a dummy order to ensure that the module has had no impact on your site, either graphically or functionally.
Conclusion
Importing products en masse into PrestaShop therefore saves you time and effort. This process can be easy, as long as you choose the method that best suits your needs.
Whether you opt to use CSV files, install a module or use a third-party solution, it's important to plan your bulk product import carefully to avoid errors and ensure the consistency of your product data. This is especially true when you have products with variations, a multi-boutique version or a multilingual version.
In addition, we recommend that you carry out a mass import of your products on your test environment and check that it works properly, to avoid errors on your production environment. Would you like to delegate this task? Contact us today: the teams at our PrestaShop agency can import your products en masse in the best possible way!
