Variants template

Create and update BigCommerce variants using Shift.

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Check out our step-by-step guides for how to import & export.

Quick start

The best way to get started is to run an export and use the file as a guide to the format required.

You can also download the variants template.

Supported variant actions

Shift supports:

• Updating variant fields, e.g. inventory, price, purchasability, etc.

Shift does not currently support:

• Create a product with variants
• Updating an option label
• Adding a variant option (and related variants)
• Adding a variant option value (and related variants)
• Updating variant option type
• Updating variant option value
• Deleting a variant option (and related variants)
• Deleting a variant option value (and related variants)
• Updating the default variant or options

Import & export columns

Basic columns

Fields	Description
Mode	The import mode for this row. See import modes for more information.
Product ID	This is the unique identifier provided by BigCommerce for existing products. It's unique per BigCommerce store. 🔑 This field is required.
Product Name	The associated product's name. 🔒 This field is read-only.
Product SKU	The associated product's SKU. 🔒 This field is read-only.
Variant ID	BigCommerce's unique identifier for the variant. This field is required to update existing variants.
Variant Label	This is a combination of all of the option labels and can be used to help identify variants. 🔒 This field is read-only.
Variant SKU	The variant's SKU. This cannot currently be used to identify products on import. Only the Variant ID can be used to identify existing variants.
Price	The price of the variant. This might include or exclude tax, depending on your tax settings.
Calculated Price	This is the price that will be used for this variant. It considers the product and variant's price and sale price. 🔒 This field is read-only.
Cost Price	The cost price of the product. This is used for internal reporting only.
Retail Price	The recommended retail product of the product (MSRP). Displayed on the storefront.
Sale Price	When provided, this price will be used for calculating the variant's price instead of the Price field.
Map Price	The minimum advertised price
Bin Picking Number	The BIN picking number for this variant.
Calculated Weight	The weight to be used for this variant. It considers the product weight if no weight is set on the variant.
Depth	The depth of the variant. The unit is defined in Physical and Dimensional Settings.
Fixed Cost Shipping Price	Set a specific shipping price for this variant.
GTIN	The Global Trade Item Number for the variant
Height	The height of the variant. The unit is defined in Physical and Dimensional Settings
Image URL	The URL of the image for this variant. Displayed on the storefront when this variant's options are selected. ❌ Variant images cannot be imported due to an open BigCommerce issue.
Inventory Level	The available stock for this variant. This is used when the product's Inventory Tracking is set to variant. The inventory level only returns to the stock available on the default location.
Inventory Warning Level	When the available stock for a variant is at the warning level, or lower, it is considered low stock.
Free Shipping	When a product has free shipping, the shipping costs will be zero.
MPN	The Manufacturer Part Number for the variant.
Purchasing Disabled	When enabled, this variant will not be available to purchasable on the storefront.
Purchasing Disabled Message	The message to show on the storefront when this variant is set to Purchasing Disabled.
SKU ID	🔒 This field is read-only.
UPC	The UPC code used in feeds for this variant
Weight	The weight of the variant. The unit is defined in Physical and Dimensional Settings.

Variant options columns

A variant will have one or more options. These are the selections that are made on a product page that identify the variant to add to cart.

Fields	Description
Option 1 Name	The name of the first option on the first variant, e.g. Colour, Size. 🔒 This field is read-only.
Option 1 Value	The value of the first 🔒 This field is read-only.

Metafield columns

Fields	Description
Metafields Mode	The import mode for metafields. See import modes for more information.
{namespace}.{key}	You can create and update variant metafields by adding a column named after the metafield namespace and metafield key separated by a .. If the metafield already exists for the product, it will be updated, otherwise, it will be created. The metafield namespace and key each must be fewer than 65 characters Metafield values can be up to 65,535 characters long. An empty string or a string with only whitespace is not a valid metafield value. All metafields will be created with write and storefront access permissions so they can be queried via the storefront GraphQL API.

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As we don't know the names of metafields in advance, you can only select all metafields when exporting.

Import modes

Use Import modes to control the import behaviour.

The Mode column on import is used to determine what kind of update action is performed for each row.

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Create and Replace modes are not supported on variants. Merge, Update, Delete, and Skip modes are supported.

Mode	Action
Merge	Existing items are updated. New items are created. Missing columns or empty column values are ignored. This is the default mode.
Update	Existing items are updated. New items are ignored. Missing columns or empty column values are ignored
Create	New items are created. Existing items are ignored.
Replace	Existing items are deleted and recreated. New items are created. This is the same as a Delete followed by a Merge.
Delete	Existing items are deleted.
Skip	This item is ignored

Then, within each row, you can control the update behaviour for specific sets of fields.

Column name	Notes
Metafields Mode

Export filters

You can filter variants that are exported, by choosing to export variants for products that match one of the following filters:

• Product ID Range
• Brands
• Categories
• Purchasability
• Condition
• Date updated
• Visibility
• Keyword
• Name

tip

As you reduce the number of items in your export, or change what data should be included, the estimate of the number of records and duration of the export will be updated.

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An accurate estimate for variants cannot be provided so only an indication is given.