Back to Blog
Preventing Duplicate Products During Spreadsheet Imports
A short note on why product imports need an identity rule before they need a prettier progress bar.
A spreadsheet import should not decide that every row is a new product.
The first question is: what uniquely identifies a product in this store? That may be an SKU, barcode, external ID, or a controlled combination of fields.
Without that rule, importing the same sheet twice can create duplicate products, duplicated stock and confusing order data.
A safer import flow
- Normalize the identifier before comparing it
- Match existing records before inserting new ones
- Update only the fields the import is allowed to control
- Keep a clear result: created, updated, skipped, failed
- Make repeated imports idempotent where possible
Imports are data operations first and interface features second. A progress bar cannot fix an unclear identity rule.