Bulk Upload

Add or update many products at once from an Excel or CSV file.

If you already keep your price list in Excel, bulk upload saves hours. You fill one row per product, upload the file, check the preview and confirm. You can also use it to change prices or collections for many products in one go.

What bulk upload can do

Upload in 3 steps

1. Upload File. On the Products page click Bulk Upload and choose a .csv or .xlsx file, up to 5 MB.
2. Review Products. Each row shows create, update or unchanged, with any errors. Untick rows you do not want.
3. Confirm Upload. Click Confirm & Upload Now.

Step 1: Upload File

Click the upload box and choose your file. ShowCato reads the first row as column headings and every row after that as one product. Empty rows are skipped.

Step 2: Review Products

The preview table shows the key columns for each row. Rows that will update an existing product are marked Already exists and Will update. Rows with a problem show ⚠️ and cannot be ticked.

• ✓ Select All and ✗ Deselect All tick or untick every valid row.
• 🗑️ Delete Selected removes the ticked rows from this upload only. Your file is not changed.
• Click Next → when the list looks right.

Step 3: Confirm Upload

The Ready to Upload! screen sums up what will happen, such as how many rows will be updated and how many invalid rows will be skipped. Click ← Back to Review to change your selection, or Confirm & Upload Now to save.

When it finishes, you see a message such as "12 products processed successfully. 9 created. 3 updated." Any row errors are listed with their row number.

Get a template

Click Select Products, pick a few existing products, then Download Template CSV. The file has the right columns, filled with those products.

In the Select products for CSV template window you can search by name or SKU and use Select All or Clear. The download button stays disabled until at least one product is picked.

Columns

The template may also include extra columns for your industry. Fill them if they apply, or leave them blank.

Friendly column names

Your own Excel headings often work too. For example, Product Name is read as name, MRP as price, Category as category_name, Collection as catalog_name, HSN as hsn_sac_code and GST as gst_rate. A trailing * is ignored.

The attributes column

Attributes are product details shown as label and value, such as Fabric: Cotton. They are not variants with prices. You can write them in any of these ways:

• color:Red|size:XL|material:Cotton
• color:Red;size:XL
• {"color":"Red","size":"XL"}

Formula price columns

For products priced from material rates, set price_type to formula and fill these columns:

Example for a jeweller's 8 g chain:

Bulk upload builds a simple formula: material plus one other cost. For making charges as a %, or more cost rows, edit the product afterwards.

How updates work

When a row's SKU matches a product, the whole product is updated from that row. This is why the confirm screen says "SKU match — full row".

• A blank description or weight cell clears the old value.
• The product's attributes are replaced by the row's attributes.
• Photos and variants on the product are kept.
• If the file has no status column, the product keeps its current status.

Common errors and fixes

Tips

• Keep SKUs unique. If two products share a SKU, an update row may change the wrong one. Products made with Duplicate keep the original SKU, so change it.
• Check show_price. Write true or false. If your file has no show_price column, products are set to show their price.
• Watch the status. An empty or misspelt status becomes draft, and draft products do not appear in links.
• Check new categories. Categories created by bulk upload use Fixed Price. Change the price type in Categories if needed.
• Unknown weight units are saved as gm.