To see your shop version, select Help from the main menu in the administration area of your shop. At the bottom of the page you will see the version (Base or Now).
If you have an online shop of the version Base and want to switch to a version Now shop, you can export the products from your Base shop and then import them to the Now shop.
These steps are necessary for this:
- Exporting the product data from the Base shop and a template file from the Now shop
- Editing the product data
- Importing the product data in the Now shop
- Checking the products
Are there already products or categories in your Now shop that you would like to get rid of first? Then delete them under Products View products or Products Manage categories.
Step 1: Exporting data
First export the product data from your Base shop. Then you export a product file from the Now shop that you will need later for adapting the data.
You can export the following types of data one after the other:
- Products (file name: Products.csv): This file contains the products of your old shop, including data like product names, prices etc.
- Content / Categories / Pages (file name: Content__Categories__Pages.csv): This file contains the categories of your old shop. It also contains other content and pages, but these will not be imported later on.
- Category product assignment (file name: Category_product_assignment.csv): This file contains information about which products are assigned to which categories.
- Product types (file name: Product_types.csv): This file contains the product types of your old shop.
- Cross-selling (file name: Cross-selling.csv): This file contains information about which cross-selling products are assigned to which other products.
Exporting the product data of your Base shop
1. In the administration area of your Base shop, select Products from the main menu and then Import and export.
2. On this page you can specify the various export settings and then start the export process. Take note of all the settings you select as you’ll need to enter them again both when editing the file and when importing it. Select More options to see all the options that are available.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Object type | Select the type of data you would like to export - for instance "Products". |
| Formatting | Use this selection to set country-specific formats, such as decimal and thousands separators, and date or time, within the import and export file. |
| Encoding | Select “Standard (UTF-8)” if you use characters that are not contained in the standard character set. Otherwise, these will be exported as "?" characters. (Example: ™). In most cases, “Standard (UTF-8)” is a safe choice. |
| Delimiter | Here you can select the character that should be used as a delimiter within the export file. The data within the file is then separated by this character. In most cases, we recommend using the semi-colon as delimiter. Since commas are often used within the data sets (for instance in product descriptions), using commas as a delimiter can cause problems when you edit the file with an external program such as LibreOffice Calc. |
| Languages | Here you can select if you want to export all languages or only one. |
| Export Image | Here you need to select Image URL. |
3. Select Export.
4. The export process is launched. In certain cases this can take some time. Save the export file on your computer.
Exporting a product file from your Now shop
1. Within the administration area of your Now shop, select Settings from the main menu and then Export and import.
2. On this page you can specify the various export settings and then start the export process. Take a note of all the settings you select as you will need to select them again both when editing the file and when importing it.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Data export | Here "Products" needs to be selected. |
| Encoding | Select “Standard (UTF-8)” if you use characters that are not contained in the standard character set. Otherwise, these will be exported as "?" characters. (Example: ™). In most cases, “Standard (UTF-8)” is a safe choice. |
| Separator | Select the separator that you selected under "Delimiter" when you exported the product file from your Base shop. |
3. Select Export
4. The export process is launched. In certain cases this can take some time. The export file is saved on your computer.
Step 2: Editing the exported file
We recommend the freely available program LibreOffice Calc for editing CSV files. Microsoft Excel can change the formatting of the files, which can damage them.
How are CSV files structured?
CSV files always have the same structure, independently from the type of data they contain (products, orders etc.).
The first line contains the column names. Starting with the second line, the actual content starts. Each record (for example, each customer or product) is shown in a new line.
If you open a CSV file using an external application such as LibreOffice Calc, the data is automatically sorted into columns. For product export files, these are, for example, "Product name" or "List price". The rows contain the individual data records, for example individual products.
You can find more information on editing data in the article Editing exported data.
Editing the CSV file from the Base shop with LibreOffice Calc
1. Create a backup copy of the file that you previously exported from your Base shop.
2. Start LibreOffice Calc or open a new LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet.
3. Open the exported file in Calc.
4. Now you take care of some formatting settings:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Character set | Select the encoding type that you chose when you exported the file previously. The encoding Standard (UTF-8) equals the encoding Unicode (UTF-8) in Calc. |
| From row | This value needs to be 1. |
| Separator options | Select Separated by and then the separator that you chose when exporting the file in your shop’s administration area. For String delimiter, the quotation marks should remain selected. |
5. Select OK.
6. Open the import file from your Now shop as described above in steps 3 and 4.
7. Compare the columns of both files. Delete all columns of the file from your Base shop that are not part of the file from the Now shop.
8. Save the file.
9. If you want to import more than 10.000 products to your Now shop, you split the import file into several files. Select 10.000 lines at a time and insert them into a new Calc document. Insert the header line from the first import file at the top and save each file.
Step 3: Import of the products
In your Now shop, import the data from your Base shop in this order:
1. Product types (file name: Product_types.csv)
2. Products (file name: Products.csv)
3. Content / Categories / Pages (file name: Content__Categories__Pages.csv. When you import this file in your shop, only the categories are imported.)
4. Category product assignment (file name: Category_product_assignment.csv)
5. Cross-selling (file name: Cross-selling.csv)
Importing the product data
1. Within the administration area, select Settings from the main menu and then select Export and import.
2. Select Import.
3. From the Data import menu, select the type of data you want to import.
4. Next to the CSV import file field, click on the Select file... button. The maximum file size for the import file is shown underneath the field.
5. Under More Options, select the same settings you had selected when exporting the file.
6. Select Import.
7. If you would like to import several files go back to step 3.
At the top of the page there's a message letting you know if the import was successful. If it wasn't successful, please consider the information from the article Editing exported data.
You cannot import product bundles, personalised products or download products.
Product types can only contain attributes of the types Text and Text with value selection.
Step 4: Checking products
Have a look at some of the products you just imported in your shop and check if everything is displayed correctly.