What moves: products, variants, prices, stock, SKUs, images, descriptions and SEO fields where both platforms have them. What does not: customers, orders, reviews, gift card balances, blog posts, pages and URL redirects are not in a product export, so CatalogHop does not convert them.
1. Export your products from BigCommerce
- In your BigCommerce control panel, open Products, then Export.
- Export all products as CSV and download the file. Menu names can differ a little between BigCommerce versions; the file's first column must be called Item.
- An older "Bulk Edit" export (first column Item Type) is not read by this converter. Export again with the current export.
- Note your store's weight unit (in the store settings). The file does not include it, so this page asks you before you download.
What to know about the BigCommerce file
- Categories and brands are exported as ID numbers, not names, so they cannot be carried over. Recreate them in the new store. Each file with them says so.
- Weights have no unit in the file, so the page asks for your BigCommerce weight unit before you can download.
- A variant with a blank price takes the product price, as BigCommerce documents. That it also takes the product's sale price is our reading, and each file with such variants says so. A sale price lower than the price becomes the compare-at price; with no sale, a higher retail price (MSRP) is used as the compare-at price. Where BigCommerce does not say which price shoppers saw, the converter tells you which one it wrote.
- When BigCommerce tracks stock for the whole product rather than per variant, the stock cannot be split, so tracking is turned off for those variants with a note.
- Not carried over, and listed when present: custom fields, videos, download files of digital products, dimensions, shipping settings, featured flag and search keywords. Modifier options and price rules are not in the export at all, so they do not move.
- Swatch colours are carried over by name; the colour codes are dropped.
- Is Visible must be TRUE or FALSE. A product with a blank or unclear value is kept as a draft, with a note, so nothing hidden is published by mistake.
- BigCommerce's Variant and Image rows belong to the Product row above them. Do not sort the file in a spreadsheet before converting; the converter warns when the order looks changed.
- Built from BigCommerce's published sample export and field documentation. It was not tested by importing into a live store.
What the WooCommerce file gets
- The column labels of WooCommerce's built-in importer (checked against WooCommerce 11.2.2), so columns map automatically.
- Variable products with their variations, each variation linked to the parent by SKU. A parent SKU is made from the URL handle when the source has none.
- Weights converted to your WooCommerce weight unit, with the matching column label such as Weight (kg).
- Repeated SKUs left blank on the later rows, because WooCommerce rejects duplicate SKUs.
- Products hidden from the online store written with catalog visibility hidden, and products that need no shipping written as virtual.
- Attributes as product-level (not global) attributes.
2. Before and after
Before: the BigCommerce products CSV
Item,ID,Name,Type,SKU,Options,Inventory Tracking,Current Stock,Low Stock,Price,Cost Price,Retail Price,Sale Price,Brand ID,Channels,Categ... Product,77,[Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe,physical,SLCTBS,,none,0,0,49.00,0.00,0.00,0.00,,1,23;18,"<p>The perfect beach... <p>Measures 75 x 145 cm/29.5 x 57 in</p> <p>100% Linen</p>",,,/fog-linen-chambray-towel-beige-stripe/,,,,,,,,FALSE,0.00,1.00,0.00,0.00,0.00,TRUE,FALSE,,0,New,FALSE,0,,,,,,,,,, Variant,1,,,SLCTBS-A9615491,Type=Rectangle|Name=Size|Value=XSType=Swatch|Name=Color|Value=Silver[#cccccc],,0,0,,0.00,,,,,,,,,,,,,0,,,,FAL... Variant,2,,,SLCTBS-5596D19E,Type=Rectangle|Name=Size|Value=SType=Swatch|Name=Color|Value=Silver[#cccccc],,0,0,,0.00,,,,,,,,,,,,,0,,,,FALS...
After: woocommerce-products.csv
| Type | SKU | Name | Published | Is featured? | Visibility in catalog | Description | Tax status | In stock? | Backorders allowed? | Weight (kg) | Regular price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| variable | SLCTBS | [Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe | 1 | 0 | visible | <p>The perfect beach towel: thin, lightweight and highly ... | taxable | ||||
| variation | SLCTBS-A9615491 | [Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe - XS, Si... | 1 | taxable | 1 | 0 | 0.4536 | 49.00 | |||
| variation | SLCTBS-5596D19E | [Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe - S, Silver | 1 | taxable | 1 | 0 | 0.4536 | 49.00 | |||
| variation | SLCTBS-08950B35 | [Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe - M, Silver | 1 | taxable | 1 | 0 | 0.4536 | 49.00 | |||
| variation | SLCTBS-7765C099 | [Sample] Fog Linen Chambray Towel - Beige Stripe - L, Silver | 1 | taxable | 1 | 0 | 0.4536 | 49.00 | |||
| variable | SLLPJ | [Sample] 1 L Le Parfait Jar | 1 | 0 | visible | <p>When translated Le Parfait means "the perfect one" - a... | taxable |
12 of 29 columns shown (empty columns hidden, 11 more with data).
What the converter reported for this sample
5 products read, 5 written.
- Check this: BigCommerce exports categories as ID numbers (for example 23;18), not names, so categories were not carried over. Recreate them in the new store.
- Check this: BigCommerce exports brands as ID numbers, not names, so brands were not carried over as the vendor. Set the vendor or brand in the new store.
- Check this: "Wool Beanie": custom fields were not carried over (the destination file has no place for them).
- Not carried over: "Wool Beanie": the YouTube video on line 33 was not carried over.
- Check this: "Shop Gift Guide (PDF)" is a digital product. Its download files are not in the BigCommerce export, so it was converted as a product without shipping and without files. Attach the files in the new store.
- Not carried over: "[Sample] 1 L Le Parfait Jar": the retail price (MSRP) 10.00 was not carried over; the compare-at price is the regular price 9.95, because the product is on sale.
- Check this: "[Sample] 1 L Le Parfait Jar": 12 variants have no price of their own. BigCommerce documents that such a variant takes the product price (9.95); it does not say whether the product's sale price (7.00) applies too. The file carries the sale price 7.00 with 9.95 as the compare-at price, as the product itself is sold.
- Not carried over: These BigCommerce fields have no equivalent in the destination file and were not carried over: Search Keywords, Is Featured.
Sample products made up for this page, laid out exactly like a real BigCommerce export. The "after" file and the notes were produced from it by the same converter this page runs.
3. Import into WooCommerce
- In WordPress, go to Products, then All Products, and click Import.
- Choose woocommerce-products.csv and click Continue.
- On the column mapping screen, check that each column is matched. If the weight column is not matched, pick Weight for it.
- Click Run the importer. WooCommerce shows a count of imported, skipped and failed products at the end.
Before you import everything
- Vendor and barcodes are not written: core WooCommerce has no vendor column, and the barcode (GTIN) column does not map automatically in 11.2.
- Weight column labels other than Weight (lbs) are taken from WooCommerce's source code rather than a sample file. If yours is not matched on the mapping screen, match it by hand.
- Images are imported by WooCommerce downloading each link, so the links must be public.
- Import a handful of products first, open them in your store and check variants, prices, stock and images. Then import the rest.
Already have a WooCommerce CSV that fails? Use the WooCommerce CSV checker.
Questions
- Why are my BigCommerce categories and brands missing?
- The BigCommerce export lists categories and brands by ID number, not by name, so they cannot become WooCommerce categories or brands. Create them in WooCommerce after import.
- Was this tested by importing into a live WooCommerce store?
- No. It follows BigCommerce's published export layout and WooCommerce's import code. Check the file with the WooCommerce CSV checker, then import a few products first.
- Is my file uploaded anywhere?
- No. The page reads the file with your browser and converts it there. The only thing the site records is an anonymous count: which converter was used, a rough row count, and whether it worked. The privacy page lists every field.
- Will the import definitely work?
- Nobody can promise that from a file alone. The converter follows each importer's documented rules, leaves out products that would be rejected and tells you about them, and does not check the WooCommerce file before download, so run it through the WooCommerce CSV checker on this site. Import a few products first, look at them in your store, then import the rest.
- Does it move customers, orders or reviews?
- No. Only products move. Customers, orders, reviews, gift card balances, blog posts, pages and URL redirects are not in a product export, so CatalogHop does not convert them.