Preparing your data to sync to Shopify
You can sync your stock from Swim to Shopify by ensuring the required stock fields contain valid data. There are additional optional fields which can also be synced.
Required stock fields:
Title - The name for your product that you want to display to your customers.
Web Description - The description for your product. This area uses the rich text editor so that you can format your text. Describe your products in detail to inform and persuade your potential customers. If you're a reseller, then don't use a manufacturer's exact description, because you want your products to be unique to search engines.
Category - A category for the product that you can use to manage your products. For example, you can use the category as a condition for an automated collection in Shopify, or to help you filter your products in the Shopify admin. A product can have only one Category.
Web Price - The price that you're charging for the product.
Web Item - Determines whether an item should be synced to Shopify.
Optional stock fields:
Collection - The collection that a product is included in. You can use this field to add the product directly to a manual collection in Shopify. Automated collections include the product when it matches the collection conditions.
Variant Of - You add variants to a product that comes in more than one option, such as size or color. Each combination of option values for a product can be a variant for that product.
Variant Options - Allows you to set a list of variant choices for a product on its product details page.
Tags - You can add tags to group, search, filter, and identify your products.
Swim stock fields will sync across to existing Shopify fields, the mappings are listed below.
Swim > Shopify
Title > Title
Web Description > Description
Category > Product Type
Web Price > Price
Collection > Collections
Variant Of > Variants
Variant Options > Options
Store Name OR Supplier Name > Vendor
Stock Number > Barcode
Supplier Code > SKU
Tags > Tags
Note: The Stock Number and Supplier code mappings are reversed when using the Supplier sync method.
Additional guides and tips:
The Bulk Update tool will allow you to update stock data in bulk and avoid the need to individually edit each item in some cases. You can learn how to use the Bulk Update tool by following this guide.
Data can also be updated in bulk via CSV imports if the new data lives outside of Swim. CSV imports should follow the stock file format listed here.
Existing stock descriptions can be copied into the web description field by clicking the COPY DESCRIPTION button from within each items web description page. Alternatively you can bulk update every web description field with all current stock descriptions in Swim by navigating to Utilities > System > Maintenance > Copy all stock descriptions to web descriptions.
Swim has traditionally used Department and Categories to identify, search and report on groups of stock in Swim. Shopify utilises Categories and Collections and ignores Departments. It is important when planning what Categories and Collections you assign to a product in Swim, that you consider how those values will work in conjunction with existing Departments and whether a clean up of Departments and Categories would benefit your business before you begin syncing to Shopify.
Duplicate Categories and Collections can be merged together which will update all existing stock during the merge. Categories can be merged by navigating to Utilities > Lists > Categories and Collections can be merged by navigating to Utilities > Lists > Collections. A guide on how to merge these lists can be found here.
New stock items entered into Swim can be automatically assigned a web item status of YES or NO based on a default utilities setting. You can review how newly created stock items are assigned a web item status by navigating to Utilities > Stock > Web Items. Enabling the default will ensure newly entered stock items are automatically marked as web item status YES, disabling this option will assign the web item status of NO.
If your product pricing needs to be updated before you begin syncing products to Shopify, this action can be completed in bulk by using the Price Update tool. A guide on how to use the Price Update tool can be found here.