Are you looking to move to Gelato and have hundreds or thousands of products in your store? Then this article is for you. In the dashboard, you are able to connect variants one by one. This is a great way when you have a couple of products and variants that you want to connect. When you have hundreds or more than another approach is needed.
This guide is for customers who want to have their Shopify products fulfilled via Gelato.
To bulk migrate the products and variants we will leverage the Bulk Import Products functionality. There is no limit to how many products and variants that can be imported and connected with it in one go.
What you will need:
- Contact your account manager or Gelato representative to confirm your interest, they will provide you the export file
- A link to the print file for each variant
We are going to make a spreadsheet that in the end will have 6 columns:
- Shopify product title
- Shopify product id
- Shopify variant title
- Shopify variant id
- Product UID (i.e. the Gelato product that should be printed)
- File URL (i.e. the link to the print file you want to have printed on the product)
Exporting a list of products and variants including variant id
In the regular product export in Shopify, variant ID is not included. Therefore you need to use an app to export a list of all variant ids. There are several in the app store. Here are 2 apps that are able to export the necessary data: Excelify, EZ Exporter.
Note: You may be charged for using these apps.
The 3 columns that are mandatory to export are: Title, Product ID and Variant ID. However, you will want to export a number of additional columns to be able to know what variant it is.
For example, the default export settings for Products in Excelify returns all necessary fields to be able to identify what each variant is.
Use your selected app to create a list of all of your products and variants that include the variant ids.
Adding product UID and the print file
Use a spreadsheet software to modify the file you exported in the previous step. Add 2 columns to the sheet:
- Product UID
- File URL
Picking the right product_uid
The Product UID represents the product that should be fulfilled when the variant is ordered. To get the Product UID find the product in the catalog that you want to use. Select the right size, color, orientation (or any other dimension) needed. Then scroll down and click on the blue copy icon highlighted in the below screenshot.
Paste it in your spreadsheet in the cell for product_uid for that specific variant. Repeat until all variants are done.
Adding a link to the print file
In the column for File URL add a link to your print file even if you are connecting a product without design, e.g. a frame or a hanger.
Important: It is important that the link can be accessed without any login or credentials.
- If you are using Dropbox: Here is how you make a Dropbox link downloadable.
Paste the link into the cell of the spreadsheet. The print file can be in PNG, JPEG, or PDF format. Repeat until all variants are done.
Note: We can't process links from Google Drive (Google Cloud storage is ok).
Finalizing the import file
Now you are done with adding all data. The final step is to remove all columns that are not needed so it only has 6 columns left: Product Title, Product ID, Variant Title, Variant ID, Product UID and File URL.
Make a copy of your file before you do this so you can easily go back and make further updates.
Example final structure
|
Product Title |
Product ID |
Variant Title |
Variant ID |
Product UID |
File URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sunset Poster |
5307198341280 |
50x70 cm |
34729267101856 |
flat_product_pf_500x700-mm_pt_200-gsm-uncoated_cl_4-0_ct_none_prt_none_sft_none_set_none_ver |
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1b2c3d4ef5gh6/example.png?dl=1 |
|
Aurora |
5314279080096 |
30x40 cm |
34855319732384 |
flat_product_pf_300x400-mm_pt_200-gsm-uncoated_cl_4-0_ct_none_prt_none_sft_none_set_none_ver |
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1b2c3d4ef5gh6/example-2.png?dl=1 |
Importing the file
Currently, the import is run by Gelato on request. Share the file with your account manager or Gelato representative. We will check that the file looks structurally ok but we will not make any specific verifications on that you have mapped each product and file correctly.
The import will then be run and all the variants in the sheet will be connected and start to be automatically fulfilled by Gelato.