Updating product stock while importing CSV file – WooCommerce Product Import Export

When you are moving your store and importing products, updating product stocks can be troublesome. A major worry is when you have to update stock of hundreds or even thousands of products. Our Product Import Export Plugin For WooCommerce provides a simple and effective process for updating product stocks in the CSV file before it is imported.

What are the steps to update products stocks before importing a CSV file?

1) Enable Inventory Management at the Product level: 

The first step is to know the current stock of products. To do this, check the Manage stock? option in the product data meta-box of all the products which you need to update stock. Further settings will reveal current product stock and backorder option.
A screenshot of the settings is shown below:

2) Update stocks in the CSV file:

The next step is to update the stock in the CSV file. In the CSV column header for product stock, update the stock value for products that are to be updated. If you do not have a column header for product stock in the CSV file, create one and name it as stock, and update the product stock values.

Our Product Import Export Plugin for WooCommerce facilitates three types of values that will help you update the product stock:

1. Replacing stock value: If the existing product stock value is 10, and you replace the stock value with 20, then the updated product stock after importing will result in 20.
2. Adding value to existing stock: You can use (+) sign prefix to the stock value to update the product stock.
   If the existing product stock value is 10, replace the value with (+)5, then the updated product stock after importing will result in 15.
3. Reducing value of existing stock: You can use (-) sign prefix to the stock value to update the product stock.
   If the existing product stock value is 10, replace the value with (-)5, then the updated product stock after importing will result in 5.

The following is a screenshot of the updated product stock values in a sample CSV file:

Once the product stock values are updated, save the CSV file.

Note: For updating product stock, three column headers are necessary: Parent SKU (or Parent ID), Product SKU (or Product ID) and stock header.

3) Import the CSV or XML file:

Move to the Import tab of our Product Import Export Plugin For WooCommerce. Check the Update Existing Products option to update stocks of existing products on your store.

Note: You can even import new products with stock, provided the product name (post title) is included in the CSV/XML file.

Next, click Import Products to start importing the products. Further settings appear as shown below:

• You can choose any of the methods for uploading the CSV/XML file. In this article, we are selecting the first method. That is, uploading a CSV file from our computer.
• Click Choose File to browse a required CSV file from your computer.
• Select a mapping file, or click Upload file and import to move ahead and create a new one.
• Enter a mapping filename and map the required WooCommerce Product Fields with column headers of the CSV file. Use Evaluation Field to fix/update the required value for a particular field.
  Make sure Inventory: Stock field is properly mapped to your CSV column header stock: stock value.

• Click Submit to start importing products into your WooCommerce store.  

Based on the CSV file imported, the product is merged (or updated) as shown in the screenshot below:

You can check the updated stock in the product data meta-box of the product edit settings of the updated product. A screenshot of the updated stock of a product is as shown below:

These settings will help you update product stocks while importing the CSV file.

To know more about other features, check the product page.

For more information on importing and exporting of products, read this documentation.

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