Two tools to move product data out of Shopify

By Martin Bay

I am regularly surprised at how difficult it is to extract data from the various webshop platforms. This applies not only to Shopify, but to virtually all webshop systems I have looked into.

Simple options such as CSV exports or product feeds should be part of any CMS if you ask me. It's just good service.

Yes, I understand it's a pain to spend resources helping a customer (potentially) move away. But just consider:

  1. If the webshop wants to move, will they change their mind because exporting data is made difficult or expensive?
  2. Will the webshop recommend that platform afterwards if the move is made unnecessarily frustrating?

(with us, we've always offered free CSV export and product feed tools in all plans. So maybe I'm biased :-)

Anyhow, to the solutions

We move a number of webshops, for example from Shopify, to our platform. And it obviously becomes much easier if you can export product data from the old webshop. Therefore I've done some research and found/created two tools to extract product data from a Shopify webshop (even though they try to make it difficult).

1. Product feed

Kenneth Bon from puretime.dk has been so kind as to share his solution for a product feed. You can find the guide and script here.

2. CSV

Based on Kenneth's guide I have built a script myself that generates CSV data. You can save this data as a spreadsheet and use it as you wish.

The advantage of the CSV method is that you can include data that is not part of Google's product feed specification. For example variants, stock levels, etc. (you can add these extra pieces of information to the product feed export, but note that most import tools will not accept them)

The format of the CSV file is made to match our own product import. Depending on your needs you can adapt the script yourself.

  1. Go to "Online Store > Themes" in the left menu
  2. On the white "Actions" button, choose "Edit code"
  3. Under "Templates", add a new template named "collection.yourchosenname.liquid"
  4. Add the code from this script
  5. Go to "Products > Collections", create a new collection. Choose conditions so all products are selected, Theme template choose the collection that was just created (screenshot)
  6. Click "View" to retrieve the export