Making a move to Big Cartel from Etsy, Squarespace, or Shopify? 🚚 We’ve got you covered with our product import feature. You can export your products from an existing shop on any of those platforms and import them into your Big Cartel shop to get up and running in no time. Neat, right?
🚧 A few things to keep in mind
Every ecommerce platform treats product listings a bit differently, so there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind as you prepare to import products to your new Big Cartel shop.
First, it’s essential that you keep your existing shop on your current platform open so we can get your products’ images. So don’t close your Etsy, Squarespace, or Shopify store just yet. All Big Cartel paid plans support up to five product images for each product listing - any images beyond five will not be imported to your Big Cartel products (our free Gold store supports one image per product).
You’ll also want to make sure that the Big Cartel plan you’ve chosen allows for as many products as you’ll be importing. Any listings beyond that plan limit won’t be imported.
📧 📈 Import status email
After importing your products, you’ll receive an email report letting you know how your import went. If you get your email report, and you’re not sure what the heck it means, we’ve got more info below:
You hit the limit of products allowed.
You’ve exceeded your plan’s product limit. Our free Gold plan supports up to 5 products, our Platinum plan supports 50 products, our Diamond plan supports up to 500 products.
Your product names exceeded 100 characters.
We limit product names to 100 characters. You’ll get this error if you imported a product with a name that exceeds that limit.
Your products had invalid formatting.
This can occur if your descriptions are too long or have product listings with a $0.00 price (we don’t support free products).
Your product had the same name as an existing product.
All products in your shop need unique names. You’ll get this error if an existing product in your shop and an imported product, or two products being imported, have the same product name.
Didn’t import all images.
You’ll see this error if you’ve exceeded your plan’s product image limit (five images for paid plans, and one for our free plan), if your image files are too large, or if your images are an unsupported file type.
Didn’t import product options.
Our product options feature supports 150 unique product options for each individual product in your shop. You’ll get this error if an imported product exceeded that limit.
Converted option groups to individual options.
We support up to three product option groups (size, color, length, etc.) per product. If your imported product has more than three option groups, the option groups will not be imported. Your product options will still be imported with a forward slash separating individual options instead, for example, Red / Small / Crew.
Imported quantities but inventory tracking disabled.
Your products’ stock quantities were imported, but your shop does not have inventory tracking enabled currently. You can enable inventory tracking in your admin on the Account page in the Preferences section. Once inventory tracking is enabled, your products’ quantities will appear.
Imported quantities but plan doesn’t support inventory tracking.
You’re on our free Gold plan, which does not support inventory tracking. You’ll need to upgrade your plan to enable inventory tracking in your shop. Once you upgrade your imported quantities will appear.
Quantity set to 1000.
Some of your imported products were set to unlimited inventory. We don’t have an unlimited inventory setting for individual products, so these products’ quantities were set to 1000 instead.
Heads up! This steps below are for stores without any existing products. If you already have exisiting products in your shop you can head to the Products page in your admin and click the three-dot action menu in the upper right hand corner to begin your product import.
