WooCommerce: Import Variable Products and Variations

Are you looking for the best way to bulk import WooCommerce variable products and variations? Do you want to create new variable products and variations? Or want to update existing variable products and variations? You’re in the right place because we will guide you step by step on how to import WooCommerce variable products and variations.

We will use the WP Sheet Editor – WooCommerce Products plugin. It allows you to view and manage WooCommerce products in a spreadsheet.

WP Sheet Editor has many features that simplify variations management:

• Display variations in the spreadsheet and manage both products and variations in one place
• Create variations in bulk for every combination of attributes
• Copy variations from one product to multiple products
• Search for products and/or variations by keyword, category, attribute, price, stock, SKU, etc.
• Bulk edit products and variations with a few clicks
• Duplicate variable products with their variations
• Bulk export variations to a CSV file
• Bulk import variations from a CSV file

Keep reading and follow the steps in the sections below to bulk import variations.

1- Open the products spreadsheet

After installing and activating WP Sheet Editor, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit products.

You’ll view all your WooCommerce products and variations displayed on the spreadsheet.

2- Bulk export variable products and variations (optional)

The first thing you need to do to be able to import data of your variable products and their variations is to prepare a CSV file containing that data.

For this you can manually create the CSV file, or you can export variable products data from WP Sheet Editor to a CSV file.

You need to have a spreadsheet like this containing the data of your WooCommerce variable products and variations:

3- Important: Managing variations in a CSV file

There are some things you need to take into account when preparing your CSV to import variations.

a) When importing variations to another site

If you are migrating the variable products with their variations from one site to another, you will most likely have to create the variations as new in the second site.

Therefore, you need to apply some changes in the CSV file.

Note: This is useful whether you are importing a CSV that you previously exported from WooCommerce, or if you are creating the variations manually from scratch in the CSV.

For example, when you export products with variations from WooCommerce, the “Parent” column contains the ID of the parent product in the variations cells.

However, since each database uses different IDs, we cannot import variations from one site to another using the ID, because the relationship between the parent product and the variations will not be possible.

Therefore, what we recommend is that, instead of the ID of the parent product, you enter the SKU of the parent product in the “Parent” column.

Notes:

• Please note that the variations can have their own SKUs in the “SKU” column, but the “Parent” column must have the parent’s SKU for each variation.
• Make sure parent products have the “variable” value in the Type column, while the product variations have the “variation” value in the Type column.

b) Editing variation attributes in the CSV

WP Sheet Editor uses the same system as WooCommerce to export and import products and variations.

Although WP Sheet Editor allows you to manage attributes and other fields in a user-friendly interface on WordPress, the CSV file will use WooCommerce’s system for naming columns and recognizing values.

This means, for example, that for each attribute you use for your variations, there will be a set of columns.

As you can see in the screenshot below, for our “color” attribute, we have these columns:

• Attribute 1 Name
• Attribute 1 value(s)
• Attribute 1 global
• Attribute 1 visible

The same applies for our “size” attribute; we have these columns:

• Attribute 1 Name
• Attribute 1 value(s)
• Attribute 1 global
• Attribute 1 visible

So if you’re creating variations in a CSV file or editing the variations in an exported CSV, you must make sure the attribute columns have these names.

Pro tip: Create variations for every combination of attributes with WP Sheet Editor

If you want to avoid the hassle of having to create/edit variations in the CSV file, we recommend creating the variations directly in WP Sheet Editor.

Here is a tutorial: How to create WooCommerce variations in bulk.

4- Bulk import WooCommerce variable products and variations

Bulk importing variable products and variations from a CSV file has many benefits:Saves time and effort:

• You save time and effort by updating variations from a CSV file instead of editing the variable products on WooCommerce.
• You can bulk update existing variable products from the CSV file.
• You can easily migrate variable products and variations from one store to another.

In order to upload variable products data from a CSV file, you need to open the Import tool.

Next, you need to select the variations CSV file you will import:

• Source: CSV file from my computer
• Click on Choose File and select the CSV on your computer.
• Click on Next.

After selecting the CSV file you will import to update your variable products and their variations, you need to select which columns you’ll import.

You can Import all the columns or you can Select individual columns to import.

Now you need to select how you will import the data:

• Do you want to update or create items: You have some options here:
  • Create new items and update existing items
  • Import all rows as new
  • Only create new items, ignore existing items
  • Update existing items, ignore new items
• CSV Field: Select an identifier here. We’ll select the record_id column.
• WordPress Field: Select an identifier here. We’ll select the ID field.
• Click on Next.

Finally, you’ll see a preview of what the data will look like once it’s imported into WordPress. If everything is OK, you can click on The preview is fine, start import.

Once you do that, you’ll start importing WooCommerce variable products and variations data.

If you need to import WooCommerce products and variations, you can use the WP Sheet Editor plugin. It allows you to export variable products with or without variations to a CSV file. Once you’ve edited your variable products data in the CSV, you can bulk import the data into WordPress.