How to Avoid Duplication of WooCommerce Products on Import?

The risk of product duplication when importing products to a new or existing store is high. In this article, we’ll explore how to effectively avoid duplication of products during imports by using a plugin. 

Importing products is essential to managing an eCommerce business, whether small or large. You may need to import products to your store at some point, which can always be hectic.

One of the hurdles you may face during import is product duplication. It can happen if the same product data is imported repeatedly without adequately managing existing records.

This can occur in instances where the products lack unique identifiers such as SKU, Product ID, Post ID, etc., causing duplicate entries. It could also happen when the import columns are incorrectly mapped. You can also import products without enabling the update option, causing each new product to be treated as a new product rather than updating existing ones.

The best way to avoid such duplication is to use a plugin for import purposes. Most import plugins, like WebToffee’s Product Import Export plugin, have the option to update existing products instead of creating new ones. This way, you can import products efficiently and avoid duplication.

So, in this article, we will show how to avoid duplication when importing products to WooCommerce.

Let’s get started.

The Product Import Export Plugin for WooCommerce allows you to avoid duplication of products on import in three ways.

1. Skip Import of existing products.
2. Skip Import of New Products when product ID conflicts with an existing post ID.
3. Delete non-matching products from the store.

Here, we’ll discuss all three methods one by one. Before that, you will need to install and activate the plugin successfully on your store. After purchasing the plugin, you will receive an email to download the plugin zip file. 

You can also download the plugin file from the My Account page.

Step 1: Install & Activate WooCommerce Product Import Plugin

Once you have downloaded the plugin file,

• Go to Plugins > Add New from your WordPress dashboard.
• Click on Upload Plugin and then upload the plugin zip file. 
• Then, Install and Activate the plugin.

Step 2: Select Product as Post Type for Import

Now that you have installed the plugin,

• Navigate to WebToffee Import Export (Pro) > Import from the left sidebar. 
• Choose Product as the post type to import and proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Choose Advanced Import Option

You get two methods to import products: Quick import and Advanced import.

• Select the Advanced import method and upload the import file. 
• Then, proceed to the next step.

Step 4: Map Product Import Columns

Here, you can select the fields you want to import. By default, all fields are selected. After making the necessary changes, proceed to the final step.

In the next step, you have advanced options for importing the product data. These options will allow you to avoid duplication of products during import.

Now, we will look into the three different ways to avoid duplication of products during import. 

Step 5: Skip Import of Existing Products

Using this option, you can skip the import of existing products. This way, you can avoid duplicating existing products, as it allows only the import of new ones.

You can choose to skip importing products if they already exist in the store. Then, select ID or SKU to identify the products in the CSV file. The plugin will match the products in the store with those in the import file based on their SKU or ID.

This will only work if the duplicate products have the same SKU or product ID.

Step 6: Skip Import of New Products When Product ID Conflicts With an Existing Post ID

You can skip importing new products if their product ID conflicts with an existing post ID to avoid importing duplicate products with different product IDs.

WordPress considers everything a post and assigns each one a unique ID. So, for every product, order, media, or page, there will be a unique post ID associated with it.

If the product ID in the import file conflicts with such a post ID, you may choose to skip the import. This will prevent you from importing duplicate products to your store.

Step 7: Delete Non-matching Products From the Store to Avoid Duplication of Products

This method isn’t a proactive method to avoid duplication of existing products. Instead, it is a remedial action if your store already has duplicate products. It only works if you have identified the duplicate products in your store and have a file with all the required product details (without duplicate products) that you want in your store.

You may import the file, match it via ID/SKU, and enable the Delete non-matching products from store option.

This will delete all products except those in the file from the site. So, you should ensure that you have all the necessary products in your input file.

Having duplicate products on your WooCommerce store can be annoying and negatively impact your sales. When importing products to your WooCommerce store, there is a high chance of having the same products with multiple Product IDs.

The Product Import Export Plugin offers automatic column mapping and advanced import options to avoid product duplication during import.

To learn more about the other features of the plugin, read the documentation.

This WooCommerce product import export plugin has a free version available with basic features in the WordPress plugin library.