If you’re a WooCommerce store owner, there are many reasons why you may want to import or export your store’s data.
For example, you may need to import or update supplier product information.
You may want to export order information to external shipping, accounting, or reporting systems.
Or you may need to export your customer list to your favorite marketing platforms.
In this article, we’re going to identify your best options to import/export data for these three core data types of WooCommerce.
Options to Import and Export WooCommerce Products
Built-in Capabilities
The good news is that WooCommerce provides a built-in capacity to import and export products.
For imports, this includes the ability to update existing products (based on matching product IDs or SKUs) as well as import new ones.
The fact that you can update existing products also means that you can bulk edit product data by:
- Exporting product information to a CSV file
- Editing the exported file in a spreadsheet
- Using the imported file to update existing products
On the export side, you can choose which data fields you want to export and filter your exports based on product categories and/or product types.
The bad news is that these tools are quite limited by today’s standards. For example:
- You can only work with CSV files. External partners may require other file formats.
- This tool insists that import files follow strict layout and formatting rules. Again, external partners may not adhere to these rules.
- The export filter capabilities are far too limited to be used for most real-life situations. In particular, they do not allow you to apply date filters, which are essential for most integrations with external systems.
- There is no ability to schedule imports or exports automatically or synchronize with external applications.
Put another way, these built-in tools can address basic import/export requirements only.
3rd-Party Plugins
Numerous 3rd-party plugins have been built to address the shortcomings of the built-in WooCommerce product import/export tools.
In our opinion, the best of these are:
- WP All Import / Export
- Product Import Export for WooCommerce
WP All Import / Export
This is the leading plugin for all WordPress and WooCommerce data imports/exports.
It allows you to import and export WooCommerce product data and every type of data stored on a WooCommerce or WordPress site, including data added by 3rd-party themes or plugins.
You can perform simple imports/exports in seconds using an intuitive drag & drop interface or use a combination of advanced filters, field transformations, and other power tools to solve more complex import/export tasks.
The most important product-specific features are:
- Powerful tools to help automatically synchronize your product data with supplier updates.
- A Google Shopping wizard to help you easily generate and update product feeds to the Google Merchant Center.
- A high level of integration between WP All Export and WP All Import enables you to perform bulk edits or product data migrations with only a few clicks.
Product Import Export for WooCommerce
Part of a family of plugins from Webtoffee that helps you import/export all types of WooCommerce data. Like WP All Import/Export, it allows you to perform simple imports/exports quickly or to utilize various options to solve more complex data challenges.
However, this plugin doesn’t offer quite as many advanced features as WP All Import/Export. For example, it doesn’t allow you to apply conditional logic using embedded (i.e., passthrough) PHP when defining custom fields. It doesn’t provide any support for the Google Merchant Center or other sophisticated custom XML feeds. And the integration between the import and export functionality isn’t quite as comprehensive, meaning that you might have to do a little more work when bulk editing or when migrating products from one site to another.
However, if you don’t need these advanced features, the two plugins are basically a wash for basic product import/export functionality. But they do have significantly different pricing policies. Webtoffee charges per site per year. WP All Import/Export charges a one-lifetime fee that includes perpetual updates and support for an unlimited number of sites.
Options to Import and Export WooCommerce Orders
Built-in Capabilities
Unfortunately, WooCommerce does not provide any built-in tools to import or export orders. Your only option is to use 3rd-party plugins.
3rd-Party Plugins
Your two best plugin options to import and export WooCommerce orders are:
- WP All Import / Export
- Advanced Order Export for WooCommerce
WP All Import / Export
Everything we said about WP All Import/Export in the products section applies to WooCommerce orders. The only exception is that the Google Merchant Center functionality is strictly for products.
The main advantage of WP All Import/Export over its competitors for importing and exporting orders has to do with its ability to integrate with external systems. This is especially important when exporting orders because the export target is usually an external dropshipping, accounting, or reporting system.
WP All Import/Export is ideal for such integrations because:
- If the external partner wants an XML feed, this plugin allows you to interactively build a custom feed to match that requirement regardless of complexity.
- If the target system doesn’t use XML, the Zapier integration allows you to connect with 1000+ external apps, many of which, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, can be used to synchronize two systems.
Order, Coupon Import Export for WooCommerce
Everything we said about Webtoffee’s product import/export plugin applies here. This solid plugin will get the job done for average order imports/exports.
Compared to WP All Import/Export, its shortcomings have to do with advanced features. In this case, it lacks Zapier integration and doesn’t allow you to build truly custom XML feeds via the interface. This means you won’t be able to integrate easily with some external partners.
Otherwise, this plugin should meet most order import and export needs.
Options to Import and Export WooCommerce Customers
Built-in Capabilities
Unfortunately, WooCommerce does not provide any built-in tools to import or export customers. Again, your only option is to use 3rd-party plugins.
3rd-Party Plugins
Your two best plugin options to import and export WooCommerce orders are:
- WP All Import / Export
- Import and Export Users and Customers
WP All Import / Export
Everything we said about WP All Import/Export in the previous sections applies here, which is one of the benefits of using this family of plugins (i.e., all imports and exports follow the same model).
Importing and exporting customers doesn’t have as many integration scenarios as WooCommerce products and/or orders, so you might need less this plugin’s advanced XML and Zapier integration features. But if you need to migrate customers to another site or send customer information to a marketing platform, it is still good to know that those features are available.
Import and Export Users and Customers
This plugin won’t address all your WooCommerce customer import/export needs. In fact, there are a couple of other premium plugins with more features than we could have put in this slot.
However, this free plugin does a good job of handling basic customer imports and exports that it deserves mention.
On the plus side, it is quite efficient and can handle large numbers of customers. It can be used to update customer information as well as import it. You can apply limited filters on the export side and assign roles on the import side.
It is also compatible with many customer-related plugins involving subscriptions and memberships.
Best of all, did we mention that it is free?
Wrapping Up
When your primary software needs a little help to perform specialized tasks, it is always daunting to search for 3rd-party plugins, especially when there are so many of them.
This article covers the best options for importing and exporting WooCommerce products, orders, and customers.
Although the approaches used by the plugins in this article differ from one other, they all have two things in common:
- Very high user satisfaction ratings.
- A longstanding reputation for excellent customer service.
Those traits usually ensure that you’re on the right track.