delete field values during woocommerce product import

How to Delete Field Values While Importing WooCommerce Products?

A WooCommerce store owner may have to import products for several reasons. It may be for updating the product information, adding the products to a different marketplace, etc. But, you may not always want to import the whole set of products and product field values. You may need to delete some field values, or even update them.

For instance, consider that you want to update a set of product information in your WooCommerce store with an import file. If you have removed the field values from the import file, WooCommerce will skip the update of those particular fields. This means that WooCommerce will not delete the existing values in a field if the corresponding field in the import file is empty. You cannot rely on the bulk update via import to delete some field information in WooCommerce.

However, you can seamlessly achieve this with the help of a free import-export tool like Product Import Export for WooCommerce. In this article, let’s look at how you can delete the existing field values with WooCommerce product import.

How Can You Delete Existing WooCommerce Product Field Values on Import?

As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce, by default, does not remove existing product field values if there is no new value to replace them. So you will need to use a plugin to help you with this process.

Product Import Export for WooCommerce is a free plugin from WebToffee that enables you to delete field values while importing WooCommerce products. Let’s see how you can import empty product field values with the plugin.

This is a sample CSV of the products exported using the free product import plugin. Take a look at the article on exporting WooCommerce products to learn more about exporting.

file with WooCommerce products

The highlighted changes have been made to the file. Here we are going to change the sales price of a couple of products and delete the sales price of a single item.

the WooCommerce product file to be imported

You will now have to update the made changes in your WooCommerce store. Follow the instructions below to do so.

  1. Install and activate the plugin 

    Go to Plugins > Add New in your WooCommerce admin panel and search for the Product Import Export Plugin for WooCommerce

    install and activate the product import export file for WooCommerce

    Install the plugin and then activate it. Once it is activated you can proceed with the import process.

  2. Select a post type 

    After activating the plugin, 
    • Go to WebToffee Import Export (Basic) > Import
    • Select the post type to import as the Product

    select the import post type

  3. Select Advanced Import Method 

    Choose the method by which products have to be imported to your console. The plugin offers two options such as Quick and Advanced Import. Note that all the options support importing empty field values. So you may choose the method of your convenience. 

    Let’s go with the default import option Advanced Import.
    Now select the CSV file with the updated product values. 

    Select the delimiter used in the CSV file. By default, this is a ‘comma’. If you have used a different one, you may change the delimiter to that. 
    select the method for importing woocommerce products

  4. Choose the Import Columns 

    Choose the columns that you want to import. You may only have to configure this if you want to omit to import some columns. Else, you can skip this configuration and directly skip to the next step. 

    map the import columns to the product fields

  5. Import the updated data 

    You have the option to import the empty cell value here. When you delete a cell value, the cell will now occupy an empty string. Usually, the tool will ignore this empty cell and will keep the previous field data. However, you can change this setting here. 

    Choose Update corresponding to the field If the product exists in the store. This will help you update the products instead of adding them as new products. 

    Now choose Yes corresponding to Update even if empty values
    Now, click on Import
    update the field values even the empty ones
    Once the import process is completed, you can find that the field values that you have deleted are now empty. 

For example, the sales price of the product ‘Black trousers’ is now deleted.

the product before the update
Before Importing
product after the field value is deleted
After Importing

In a similar way, you can bulk delete different field values within WooCommerce by using the above feature.

Product Import Export for WooCommerce (Premium)

Product import export plugin for WooCommerce premium version

The Product Import Export for WooCommerce plugin is available in the premium version in addition to the free one. The premium version offers several additional features over the free version customizations. For instance, the premium version supports multiple file formats like XML, TSV, XLS, and XLSX in addition to CSV. The plugin also offers additional filters and customization options.

Some of the additional features of this premium plugin include,

  • Variable and subscription product type support
  • Import process scheduling
  • Exporting WooCommerce product images in a separate CSV file
  • Supports additional features and customizations required for advanced import and export
  • Supports the import and export of third-party plugin fields

Conclusion

The products added to a WooCommerce store are subject to changes. They have to be dynamically updated to keep up with the changing atmosphere. In some situations, instead of changing you may have to remove some fields altogether.

However, manually doing it by opening each product in your store is cumbersome. Therefore it is wise to use a plugin like Product Import Export for WooCommerce to help you with the process.

Hope this article was of interest to you. Do let us know what you think in the comments.

Article by

Content writer @ WebToffee. Fueled by caffeine and a love of sarcasm. When not writing, you can catch her binging the latest drama series.

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