Column Header Reference

This documentation is for the premium Product CSV Import Suite extension. If you’re looking for documentation about the default product importer built-in in WooCommerce, see that documentation here.

Here is an extensive list of column headers you can use in your CSV for all default product types in WooCommerce. You can download a sample CSV file here.

Please note column names are case sensitive and should be lower case to match exactly.

Default Column Headers

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Column	Description	Accepted values	Example
id	Assigned by WordPress.	N/A	N/A
tax:product_type	Required. Whether your product is Simple, Grouped, External, or Variable.	simple / variable / grouped / external	simple
post_id	Assigned by WordPress.	N/A	N/A
post_type	By default, this is product.	product	product
menu_order	Use this to sort your products.	Numerical	5
post_status	Choose whether your post should be published or not.	draft / publish / pending / private / trash	draft
post_title	Required. Name of the product.	Text	Killer Heels
post_name	Use this to update the product slug, which forms part of the product’s permalink.	Text	hoodie_with_logo
post_date	Date/time from your WordPress admin. You only need to add a date if you don’t want to use the current date. If you’re updating products, leave this as the exported value unless you want to make the product appear more/less recent.	mm/dd/yyyy dd-mm-yyyy More accepted date formats	01/02/2015 02-01-2015*Both of these are January 2, 2015
post_content	Post content, normally a description of the product.	Text	Super high heels are all the rage. Look beautiful this season with a gorgeous pair of killer heels. Available in 5 colors!
post_excerpt	Short description of the product.	Text	This season’s latest heels!
post_parent	Use for variations. Enter the ID of the parent product. Note: Variables should be imported in a separate spreadsheet.	Post ID	234
post_password	If your post is private, include the password.	Text	!MyAwesomePassw!
visibility	Choose visibility for your product. Learn more about product visibility.	visible / catalog / search / hidden	visible
sku	Recommended. SKU of the product. Must be unique.	Text	SH99786
upsell_skus	SKU(s) of the product to which you wish to upsell.	Text – multiple skus separated by a “|” character.	SKU1|SKU2
upsell_ids	ID of the product to which you wish to upsell.	post ID – multiple IDs separated by a “|” character.	236|569
crosssell_skus	SKU(s) of the product with which you wish to crosssell.	Text – multiple skus separated by a “|” character.	SKU1|SKU2
crosssell_ids	ID of the product that can be purchased with this product.	post ID – multiple IDs separated by a “|” character.	236|569
featured	Whether this product should be featured or not.	yes/no	yes
downloadable	Whether your product is downloadable or not.	yes/no	no
virtual	Whether your item is a non-physical object or not.	yes/no	no
regular_price	Required for all products except variable products. Normal price of your product.	Float (Decimal number)	99.99
sale_price	Sale price of your product, if on sale.	Float (Decimal number)	69.99
manage_stock	Whether or not you are managing stock for the product.	yes/no	no
stock	Number of this item you have in stock. Can be relative to the value currently configured in the product.	Numerical	3 (+)10 (-)3
stock_status	Whether you have any in stock or not.	instock / outofstock	instock
backorders	Whether you’re accepting backorders.	yes/no/ notify	yes
weight	Weight of your product. Complete if you’re using weight-based shipping rules or a shipping method that pulls rates from an external service. Use the same measurement unit set for your site.	Numerical	0.73
length	Length of your product. Use if you pull rates from an external service, such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit set for your site.	Numerical	10.5
width	Width of your product. Use if you pull rates from an external service, such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit set for your site.	Numerical	15
height	Height of your product. Use if you pull rates from an external service, such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit setted in your site.	Numerical	8
tax_status	Use to determine whether your product is taxable or not.	taxable / shipping / none	taxable
tax_class	Tax class of your product.	zero-rate, reduced-rate Notice that you have to use the slug of the tax class. Leave blank if the value should be Standard Rate.	reduced-rate
tax:product_shipping_class	Product’s shipping class	Allows you to set the Shipping Class when uploading a product to your store.	Class 1
sale_price_dates_from	Date from when your sale price is used.	MM DD YYdd MM YY MM” / “DD” / “YYDD” / “MM” / “YY” More accepted date formats	01/02/2013
sale_price_dates_to	Date when your sale ends for this product.	MM DD YYdd MM YY MM” / “DD” / “YYDD” / “MM” / “YY” More accepted date formats	01/04/2013
images	Import images. Use a pipe (“|”) to separate multiple images. You can use public facing URLs for images, however, this may cause images to be duplicated in your media library when using the same image for multiple products. When importing an image that is already uploaded to your site, enter the image’s file name as shown in the example When only using an image’s file name, the importer will look in wp-content/uploads/year/month where year/month are the year and month in which the import is run. This means that the images should be uploaded to your media library in the same month you are running the import. The first image listed is the main product image and will be used as the featured image.	Text	image1.jpg | image2.jpg | image3.jpg
product_url	Use if the product is sold on another site. Used by External/Affiliate products only.	URL	http://amazon.com/etc
button_text	Text that will appear on your “Add to cart” button. Used by External/Affiliate products only.	Text	Buy on Amazon!
meta:_sold_individually	Can the product only be sold on its own?	yes/no	no
meta:total_sales	Total sales for this product.	Numerical	56
meta:_children	Product ID’s of a grouped product’s children	post ID’s in brackets – multiple IDs separated by a “,” character.	[123, 124]

Downloadable & Digital Products

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Downloadable products are products that can be downloaded by customers after purchase. To learn more, see: Digital/Downloadable Product Handling.

You can also import them. Be sure to import the files previously (if needed) and use these columns in the CSV to import:

Column	Description	Accepted values	Example
downloadable_files	File name(s) and file path(s) for your product. Use a pipe “|” to separate values.	Filename::File-Path	New::http://domain.com/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/Issue45.pdf | Issue 45::http://domain.com/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/Issue45.pdf
download_limit	Maximum number of downloads for a product.	Numerical	2
download_expiry	Date on which the download expires.	MM DD YYdd MM YY MM” / “DD” / “YYDD” / “MM” / “YY” More accepted date formats	01/04/2013

Attributes Columns

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These columns are used on Variable Products, but it’s possible to use some for other product types.

View the differences between the attributes in the table below.

• Global attributes use pa_ before the attribute name and do NOT use spaces. They’ll be formatted automatically by the importer. Use dashes or underscores instead.
• Local attributes are not held to the same naming conventions.

Column	Columns Header Example	Description	Accepted values	Example
attribute:ATTRIBUTE NAME	attribute: Hoodie Sizes	Import local product attributes.	Attribute 1 | Attribute 2 | Attribute 3	Small|Medium|Large
attribute_default:ATTRIBUTE NAME	attribute_default: Hoodie Sizes	Set the default value of the local attribute. Used only by variable products.	Text	Medium
attribute_data:ATTRIBUTE NAME	attribute_data: Hoodie Sizes	Used to order (numerical value) and display local attributes (1 for display, 0 for not display), and for variations (1 for used for variations, 0 for not used for variations). The third value is used only by variable products and ignored by other product types.	position | visible | variation	3|0|1
attribute:pa_ATTRIBUTE_NAME	attribute: pa_color	Import global product attributes.	Attribute 1 | Attribute 2 | Attribute 3	Red|Blue|Yellow
attribute_default:pa_ATTRIBUTE_NAME	attribute_default: pa_color	Set the default value of the global attribute for the product. Used only by variable products.	Text	Red
attribute_data:pa_ATTRIBUTE_NAME	attribute_data: pa_color	Used to order (numerical value) and display global attributes (1 for display, 0 for not display), and for variations (1 for used for variations, 0 for not used for variations). The third value is used only by variable products and ignored by other product types.	position | visible | variation	3|0|1

Creating New Columns

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You may add as many columns as you like to add custom fields or taxonomies to products.

To do this, use the column headers meta: and tax:

Column	Columns Header Example	Description	Accepted values	Example
meta:CUSTOM FIELD NAME	meta: Product Brand	Import a custom field.	Text	Jimmy Choo
tax:TAXONOMY_NAME	tax:product_cat	Import a taxonomy or custom taxonomy (e.g., product category). Terms are separated by a “|”. Hierarchical category terms are separated with a “>”.	Text	Women|Women>Shoes
	tax:product_tag	Import a tag. Terms are separated by a “|”.	Text	Shoes|High Heels

Columns For Variations

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When importing variable products, you need to create a separate CSV for all variations.

Column	Description	Accepted values	Example
post_parent	Parent product of the variation. This should be that product’s ID.	Numerical	273
parent_sku	Parent product of the variation. This should be that product’s SKU.	Text	SH9988

One of two columns is required for each variation in the CSV, or the importer cannot create the variations correctly.

In addition, you can use these columns:

Column	Description	Accepted values	Example
post_status	Choose whether the variation should be published or not.	draft / publish / pending / private	draft
sku	Recommended. The SKU of the variation. Must be unique.	Text	SH99786
downloadable	Whether the variation is a downloadable item or not.	yes/no	no
virtual	Whether your item’s variation is a non-physical object or not.	yes/no	no
regular_price	Required for all variations. Normal price of your variation.	Float (Decimal number)	99.99
sale_price	Sale price of your variation, if it’s on sale.	Float (Decimal number)	69.99
stock	Number of this item’s variation you have in stock.	Numerical	3
weight	Weight of your variation. Complete if you are using weight based shipping rules, or a shipping method that pulls rates from an external service. Use the same measurement unit set for your site.	Numerical	0.73
length	Length of your variation. Use if you pull rates from an external service, such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit set for your site.	Numerical	10.5
width	Width of your variation. Use if you get rates from an external service such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit setted in your site.	Numerical	15
height	Height of your variation. Use if you get rates from an external service such as USPS. Use the same measurement unit setted in your site.	Numerical	8
tax_status	Use to determine whether your variation is taxable or not.	taxable/ shipping/none	taxable

Columns for the Subscriptions Extension

Do you need Subscriptions?

Column Header	Description	Accepted values	Example
tax:product_type	Required. Denotes whether a product is a simple or variable subscription.	subscription / variable-subscription	variable-subscription
meta:_subscription_price	Required. The price of each subscription renewal.	Numerical	50
meta:_subscription_period	Required. The time interval of the subscription product.	day / week / month / year	week
meta:_subscription_period_interval	Required. The number of intervals between each renewal payment.	Numerical	2
meta:_subscription_length	The number of times the subscription will renew. For subscriptions that do not expire, specify “0”.	Numerical	0
meta:_subscription_limit	Limit customers to only one subscription of a certain product. Can be limited to one active subscription, any subscription or not limited.	active / any / no	no
meta:_subscription_one_time_shipping	Only charge shipping once on the initial order.	yes/no	no
meta:_subscription_payment_sync_date	Day of the week (Sun = 0, Mon = 1, Tue = 2, etc.), of the month (1 – 28), or a specific calendar day each year (e.g. Dec 8 = {“day”:”8″,”month”:”12″}). Note: synchronized subscriptions for day of the month can only be renewed on days 1 – 27, or on the last day of the month (28).	Numerical / Array	3
meta:_subscription_sign_up_fee	The cost of the sign up fee for the subscription.	Numerical	10
meta:_subscription_trial_length	The number of time intervals of the subscription trial.	Numerical	5
meta:_subscription_trial_period	The time interval of the subscription trial.	day / week / month / year	day

Column for the Product Vendor Extension

Do you need Product Vendors?

Column Header	Description	Accepted values	Example
tax:wcpv_product_vendors	Import a vendor for a product	Text	Bob Smith

Columns for the Google Product Feed Extension

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Do you need Google Product Feed?

Column Header	Description	Accepted Values
gpf:availability	Availability	in stock, available for order, preorder
gpf:condition	Condition	new, used, refurbished
gpf:brand	Brand	Text
gpf:product_type	Product Type	Text
gpf:google_product_category	Product category	Text
gpf:gtin	GTIN (Global Trade Item Number)	Text
gpf:mpn	MPN (Manufacturer Part Number)	Text
gpf:gender	Gender	male, female, unisex
gpf:age_group	Age group	adult, kids
gpf:color	Color	Text
gpf:size	Size	Text

FAQ

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How do I figure out what column header to use?

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If you need to know how to name a specific column, or you’re not sure about how to format it, we suggest creating a product that includes everything you need for your products, then exporting it in a CSV and see what column it uses.