Import your product catalog, then pick what to monitor

01Six ways to load products

Each method creates catalog rows with a title and a product URL, usually the page on your own store. Some also bring the identifiers that make competitor matching exact.

• One at a time. A title and URL, plus an optional barcode, brand and MPN. Barcodes of 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits are stored as a 14-digit GTIN; a wrong check digit is refused.
• A pasted list of URLs. Up to 1,000 product URLs, one per line. The products appear straight away with a name made from the URL, and the real names are read from each page in the background. Invalid URLs are skipped and listed.
• CSV file. Two required columns, name and url, plus optional barcode, brand, MPN and cost columns. The next section lists the header names.
• Google Merchant Center feed. Give the feed's URL, or upload the file (XML or CSV, up to 25 MB). Pricebeeper reads the id, title, link, gtin, brand, mpn, identifier_exists and cost_of_goods_sold fields.
• Shopify store. Enter the store's address. Pricebeeper reads its public product data; no app or login is needed.
• WooCommerce store. Enter the shop's address. Pricebeeper reads the public WooCommerce Store API, with the product sitemap as a fallback.

02CSV and feed columns

A CSV needs a name column and a url column. Header names match in any case, so Name, URL and url all work. Rows without a URL are skipped.

• Barcode: a column called gtin, ean, upc or barcode (checked in that order). Values are read as text, so leading zeros in the file are kept.
• Brand and mpn columns, kept as they are.
• Unit cost: a column called cost, cost_price or unit_cost. Repricing uses it for margin floors.

A barcode with the wrong length or check digit, or a cost that isn't a non-negative amount, is left out and named in the import's warning; the rest of the row still imports. Where a cell lists several barcodes, the first valid one is kept.

Merchant Center feeds work the same way. cost_of_goods_sold is read with or without its currency code ("23.00 USD" or "23.00"). Items marked identifier_exists = no, the flag Google uses for custom goods, keep their brand but drop the GTIN and MPN, so they are never matched by a barcode they don't have.

03Importing a Shopify or WooCommerce store

Store imports read the public catalog any visitor can browse, so nothing needs installing. They run as background jobs and the import page counts the products found so far. If an import stops short, its warning says why (too many products, a store that stopped answering, an incomplete sitemap) and the products that arrived are kept.

For Shopify, Pricebeeper reads the store's public product list 250 products at a time. Shopify only lists the first 25,000 products that way, so beyond that, or when a store has switched the list off, it reads the store's product sitemaps instead. The import stops at 50,000 products and says so; add the rest with a CSV. Each Shopify product is one catalog row, whatever its number of variants.

For WooCommerce, Pricebeeper reads the Store API (public since WooCommerce 6.4) 100 products at a time. It asks for every stock status, so a shop that hides sold-out items still imports them. One row per parent product; variations are never counted. The brand comes across when the shop sets one.

Some WordPress security plugins and firewalls block the Store API. Pricebeeper then reads the product sitemaps (WordPress core, Yoast, Rank Math or AIOSEO) and fills in names from the pages over the next few minutes. The warning tells the shop owner which address to allow for a fuller import.

Store imports by address don't bring barcodes in. When you attach a product without a GTIN to a region on a paid plan, Pricebeeper reads the barcode, brand and MPN from the product's own page before matching: the Shopify storefront data for the variant the page shows, or the page's structured data (JSON-LD, microdata or meta tags) for WooCommerce and other shops. The Shopify app goes further and copies barcodes and unit costs from your Shopify admin.

04Jobs, duplicates and rate limits

Every import checks your catalog before writing. Rows that already exist are counted and skipped, and the job reports attempted, created and skipped numbers.

• CSV files and URL lists skip any URL already in your catalog, and repeats inside the same file.
• Merchant Center feeds skip items whose feed id you imported before.
• Shopify and WooCommerce imports skip products by the store's own product id first, then by URL, so a product you added by hand isn't created twice.

One store import runs per account at a time. Starting a second while the first is still reading is refused with an "import already running" message that points at the running job. An import that makes no progress for 45 minutes is marked failed so you can start it again.

Each account can run 20 imports an hour. Bulk uploads of pinned competitor pages and the Shopify app's re-sync draw on the same budget, which teammates in your account share. No import calls a paid data source: prices arrive once you monitor a product.

05From catalog to monitored products

The products page filters by monitored and not monitored, with a count for each, so a 10,000-product catalog stays manageable.

1. 1

   Filter to products that aren't monitored

   Search or scroll, then select the products you want tracked.

2. 2

   Attach them to a region

   Choose a country or a state or province. One product in one region is one slot, and products already attached to that region are left alone.

3. 3

   Pricebeeper fills your remaining slots

   If the selection is bigger than the slots you have left, as many as fit are attached, oldest catalog entries first, and the page says "250 of 400 attached. Upgrade to monitor the rest". Through the API the same call answers with a 207 status and lists the skipped products.

4. 4

   Matching starts

   Each new slot is queued for matching: GTIN barcode first, then brand and title. Exact product matching explains the rest.

A region your plan has no room for is refused before anything is attached. Starter and Plus track in 2 regions, and each US state or Canadian province counts as one. Regional price tracking covers how regions and slots add up, and slot-based pricing covers packs when you need more room.

06Where importing stops

• Magento, BigCommerce and PrestaShop have no direct connection. Export a CSV or point Pricebeeper at your Merchant Center feed instead.
• Store imports by address are one-off. Run them again to pick up new products; only the Shopify app follows product changes, through Shopify's webhooks.
• One store import reads up to 50,000 products. Larger catalogs need a CSV for the rest.
• When a store import falls back to sitemaps, missing names are read from the product pages for up to 2,000 products per import; the others keep a name made from the URL until you edit it.
• Store imports by address don't bring unit costs. Use a CSV, a feed or the Shopify app if you plan to use margin floors in repricing.

07How imports feed the rest of Pricebeeper

Barcodes from an import drive competitor price monitoring on Starter and up, because a GTIN match leads to the sellers of the exact item. Unit costs let repricing on Growth, Pro, Business and Custom keep suggestions above a minimum margin.

Imports can also be scripted. API keys can upload CSV files and feeds, start store imports, poll their status and attach products to regions, as described under API and integrations.

Questions people ask