In addition to importing new and existing products to your store, you can export your products to a CSV file. You can export your entire catalog for bulk editing or backup purposes, or you can select a subset of your products to reduce the amount of data being managed.
Use Cases for Product Export
Exporting your products to a CSV file can assist you with a variety of store management tasks. We’ve outlined some of the common use cases for exporting products below:
- Bulk edit — Whether you’re adjusting attributes on a subset of products or updating stock levels for your entire catalog, creating a CSV file and re-importing it in your store is the quickest way to edit multiple products.
- Product backup — When you make sizable updates to your catalog, such as changing product images in bulk, deleting products or categories, or creating new product variants via import, creating a backup copy of your products beforehand makes it easy to revert any changes.
- Bulk edit — Exporting your catalog to a CSV file is the most efficient way to transfer your products from one BigCommerce store to another. To learn more, see Transferring Products from One Modern Import Store to Another.
Requirements
In order to export products from your store, you must have the following permissions enabled in your user account:
- Manage Products
- Export Catalog Entities
Note that not all product fields are exportable. See Table of Supported Fields for more information. All exportable fields are included in the default product CSV file; custom export templates are not supported.
Selecting Products for Export
By default, the CSV export file includes all products in your catalog. However, this can add unnecessary data if you only plan on editing certain products. There are several methods you can use to export a subset of your store’s products:
Filtering from the Product List
The control panel product list in Products › View displays all products in your catalog. From here, you can check the box next to each product you want to export, and then select Export from the top menu.
If you need to narrow down the products in your list, you can search for keywords in product names or filter the product list by using one of the built-in Preset Views. See Product List for more information.
The product list automatically sorts products from newest to oldest. You can change the sort order by clicking one of the column headers in the list. The following columns are sortable:
- Name
- SKU
- Stock
- Price
- Visibility
Products do not remain selected when moving to the next page of results. If you have multiple pages of products in your list, take one of the following actions:
- Increase the products per page from the drop-down menu at the top right of the list before checking boxes next to products.
- Create individual exports for each page of products and combine the files into a single file when you're ready to import.
- Click Select all products in the top menu to include all products from your search or filter results.
Using Advanced Search
Advanced Search provides more robust tools for locating specific products in your catalog. To access Advanced Search, navigate to Products › Search, or click Add filters in the product list.
In addition to the sorting and filtering options available in the product list, Advanced Search allows you to:
- Search only within a specific channel or brand
- Find products with a specific price range, sales history, or inventory level
- Filter by purchasability or visibility status
After finalizing your search criteria, click Search to view the list of relevant products and select them for export.
Viewing Products by Category
If you want to export products from a particular category, you can view them from Products › Product Categories. Click the Action menu next to the desired category and select View products to view all assigned products.
In the product list, select the products you wish to export. Note that you can only view products in one category at a time by using this method.
Exporting Products to a CSV File
Now that you’re familiar with how to select a subset of products for export, you’re ready to start the export process. Click Export in the top menu of the product list if you’re exporting specific products, or navigate to Products › Export if you plan on exporting your entire catalog.
On the Export product page, click Start export. You will see a progress bar, showing the number of products. Click Cancel export if you need to stop the process at any time, then click Yes, cancel export to confirm.
When the export is complete, click on the CSV file name to download the file to your computer. You can download your most recent CSV export file at any time from Products › Export until you begin a new export by clicking Start new export.
If an export fails to complete successfully, you will see an error message. Click Start new export to begin the process again.
Note: The CSV export file sorts products by ID in ascending order (oldest to newest), even if you used another sorting option in the product list.
