A:
From your Bigcommerce admin dashboard, go to product and then select products. From here you will be able to export the set of data you want. You are able to export products, a customer list, orders, and discounts.
You are then able to select whether you want the export to be formatted to Mircosoft Excel (CSV file) or to an XML file (advanced). We recommend choosing to export as a CSV file. If you were exporting a product list, this is what the CSV export would look like:
Now you have the ability to edit any of the contents in the columns of the spreadsheet. BigCommerce comes with a few built-in product templates, or you can create a custom export template.
Super easy, right?
For the most part, this is a fairly simple process. But things can go wrong with your CSV file causing unwanted changes or even remove important data from your store. The most common problems we see:
- Missing or incorrect data – if any of the content in your columns are missing, or in the wrong order, it would be reflected in your store.
- Stuck imports – the CSV file being used is larger than 512MB, an unusually high number of blank image columns, or contains base64 encoded images in the Product Description column.
- Invalid track inventory value – occurs when this field is left blank.
- Excel converts SKU into scientific notation and removes special characters – BigCommerce provides steps on how to prevent future conversions, as it cannot fix an export that Excel has already converted.
Unfortunately, this was the case for one of our customers, Andrew Saunders:
“Do yourself a favour and download this plugin. Even though I have not used it – I wish I had downloaded it on my other store when 60% of my product images were deleted after importing a CSV file and costing me weeks of work locating and uploading the images again. Don’t take the risk.”
To ensure that export does not result in a data disaster in your store, we recommend that you backup your store data with Rewind BEFORE importing a CSV file. Rewind runs automatic backups of your entire store on a daily basis, but you can also run a backup yourself right before importing your CSV file, to make sure that your site stays undamaged. If something were to go wrong with your site after importing your CSV file, you can simply go into your Rewind vault, and rewind your store to the moment it was in before you made the CSV import.