ID and SKU. How to handle?

Hi there,

I want to create a CSV with all my products outside woocommerce and then import it.

It’s not possible to assign/modify Product IDs because the ID is set when the product is stored in the database. (In WordPress, every post has an ID, and in WooCommerce, products are custom posts, hence the need for an ID)

Instead, you would want to set the SKU. SKU’s can be displayed to your customers on the front end of your site and you can customize these with unique alpha-numeric labels.

SKUs are optional. You can only set the SKU for the parent if you wish.

You’ll want to take a look at the sample CSV to see how SKUs are entered:
https://docs.woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/dummy-data.csv

Hi
i already have a working CSV sample.
I created the first 5 products manully and then exported a CSV – so i got one that fits my needs.

Questions:
1: What happens if i set IDs in my CSV? Will wordpress ignore/skip them or will it throw out errors?
2: If i use a plugin for generating SKUs ….i can leave the SKU column blank but i have to set the SKU for the parent. Correct??
3: If i dont set the SKU for the parent the variations will not be created since “they dont know” to wich parent they belong. Correct?

Hi there,

1: What happens if i set IDs in my CSV? Will wordpress ignore/skip them or will it throw out errors?

If you try to manually set the product IDs, things will most likely break. As I said previously, please don’t try to set the IDs, and rely on the SKUs instead.

If i use a plugin for generating SKUs ….i can leave the SKU column blank but i have to set the SKU for the parent. Correct??

Right.

If i dont set the SKU for the parent the variations will not be created since “they dont know” to wich parent they belong. Correct?

Yes, the parents need the SKU to be set.

If i dont set the SKU for the parent the variations will not be created since “they dont know” to wich parent they belong. Correct?

Yes, the parents need the SKU to be set.

So what happens if i set the SKU for the parent and i have a plugin for auto-SKU installed??
Does the plugin takes the parent-SKU to generate the SKUs for the variations?

and for the IDs:
Shell i leave this column blank when creating my CSV?

Does the plugin takes the parent-SKU to generate the SKUs for the variations?

We wouldn’t be able to say what your plugin does, as there’s no way for us to know what plugin you are using for this or how it works. I’d recommend you contact the developer of that plugin to see how you can use their plugin.

Shell i leave this column blank when creating my CSV?

Yes. When uploading new product, always leave the “ID” column blank. As my colleague mentioned, you should not try setting your own IDs. If you are uploading a CSV of that contains items you previously exported from your site, then you can leave the ID column as it will be pre-populated with the proper IDs from when you exported the products.

Hi there,

We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved – if you have any further questions, you can start a new thread.