Linking several files

Nominate a base file and join the others on a shared key, including attribute-per-row exports and columns that produce several values per product.

Most catalog exports are relational whether they admit it or not: products in one file, images in another, attributes in a third. Rather than making you flatten them in a spreadsheet first, nominate one file as the base and link the others to it.

Base and linked files

The base file is the one with one row per product — that is what a listing gets built from. Every other file is linked to it by naming a column on each side that should match:

• A column in the base file — usually SKU or a product id.
• The column in the linked file that holds the same value.

You can link as many files as you need. A sample of joined rows is shown before you go further, so a mismatched key is something you catch in seconds rather than after a full run.

Attribute-per-row files

The awkward shape where each row is one SKU, one attribute name and one value — common in ERP dumps:

sku,attribute,value
VAS-JCK-SS,Colour,Blue
VAS-JCK-SS,Material,Cotton
VAS-JCK-SS,Sleeve,Short

Mark the file as attribute-per-row and name the column holding the attribute name and the one holding its value. Those rows are pivoted into real columns — Colour, Material, Sleeve — which you then map like any other.

Multi-value columns

A linked file can produce several values for one product — the common case being one image URL per row. Map that column to the main image slot once and the values spill across the gallery slots in order, rather than needing 24 separate mapped columns.

Cost

During setup only a sample is staged, so configuring a join over a large catalog stays quick. The full files are staged and joined at import time.