Shopify product CSV template

Shopify product CSV columns and what each one accepts

Shopify reads the header row to decide what each column is, so the spelling must match. The current headers use plain English ('URL handle', 'Product image URL') rather than the older 'Handle' and 'Image Src'; exports from a current store use the names below. Unless marked required, a blank cell gets a default.

Variant rows, image rows and the five import errors

A product with three sizes is four rows at minimum: the first row carries Title, Description, Vendor and Tags; the following rows repeat only the URL handle and the variant-specific columns (Option values, SKU, Price, Inventory quantity, Variant image URL). Extra images get their own rows with just the handle, Product image URL and Image position. Option combinations must be unique within a product, and changing an Option value later deletes and recreates the variant, which breaks anything keyed on the variant ID.

The five errors that reject most files: a header Shopify does not recognize (usually an old spelling or a trailing space); curly quotes or a non-UTF-8 save from Excel; a row with a handle but no title on the first row of a product; two variant rows with the same option combination; and a blank Fulfillment service when a value is expected (use manual). Save from Google Sheets or Numbers as CSV UTF-8 and the second error disappears.

From the Shopify product CSV to a channel feed

Once products are in Shopify, you do not need this CSV again to advertise them. Textfinity connects to the store directly and pulls products, variants, metafields, markets and locales; it never writes back to Shopify. The columns above become attributes you map to each channel's spelling: Vendor to brand, Product category to google_product_category, Option1 value to size or color, Barcodes to gtin, Inventory quantity to availability through a rule. The mapping is set once per feed and reapplied on every scheduled sync.

Vendor                      → brand          (rename)
Product category            → google_product_category (rename)
Barcodes                    → gtin           (remove from regexp: ^gtin:)
Option1 value               → size           (rename)
Inventory quantity          → availability   (advanced: if calc{[variant_inventoryQuantity]} > 0
                                               then "in_stock" else "out_of_stock")
Vendor + Title + Option1    → title          (combine, delimiter " ")

Why the Google Shopping metafield columns matter

Shopify stores Google-specific attributes as metafields and exports them as 'Google Shopping / Gender', 'Google Shopping / Age Group', 'Google Shopping / MPN', 'Google Shopping / Condition' and 'Google Shopping / Custom Label 0' through 4. Filling them in the CSV means every feed tool, including the native Google & YouTube app, has the values. If you leave them blank, a feed tool can still derive them: gender from the product type, condition as a static 'new', custom labels from price or margin rules. Textfinity reads these metafields through the Shopify connection, so values entered once in the import carry into Google, Meta and Pinterest feeds without re-entry.

Keep in mind that the CSV cannot carry variant metafields, videos or 3D models; those are set in the admin. If your channel feed needs a variant-level attribute the CSV cannot hold, a merged source in Textfinity (a second CSV or Google Sheet joined on SKU) adds the column at feed time without touching Shopify.