A user seeks to import products with a “Draft” status by default, allowing them to edit descriptions, pricing, categories, and other details before making products publicly visible. This prevents incomplete or unready products from appearing to customers during bulk imports.
Current Workarounds Discussed:
User’s Concern:
The “Unpublished” status still risks products becoming visible before they’re ready, especially when importing multiple items simultaneously.
Desired Solution:
A native Shopify admin option allowing store owners to choose whether new products default to “Active” or “Draft” status upon import.
The discussion remains open, with the user acknowledging workarounds but emphasizing the need for a more robust default draft import feature to prevent premature product visibility.
Hi, Everyone.
When I import products, I need to change the description text, categories, etc… Is there a way to import items so they are in Draft, rather than Active? I’d like to import a bunch of products, make the necessary alterations to the product details, then make it active. I don’t see a way of doing that though.
Any ideas?
Hi @Dalebert ,
May I know if you upload products manually or use a third-party app for importing? If you use a third-party app like Zopi, you can set the product status to ‘Unpublished.’ This means the product won’t be visible to customers on your online store but will still be accessible on the back end, allowing you to edit or manage it before making it publicly available.
Yep. I know I can do that. But I want the products to default to a Draft
status. That way I can make sure the product description, pricing,
categories, tags, collections, etc are all correct BEFORE it is set to
Active status. Otherwise, I stand to have a product visible to the general
public that is not ready to be viewed, creating other problems. Sometimes I
am importing several things at, or near, the same time and some products
can be visible when they shouldn’t be.
Having an option in the Shopify admin portal to let the store owners decide
if new products should have an Active or Draft status would be helpful for
many.
Thanks,
Dalebert
Thanks for reaching me back, @Dalebert
Actually, you can import products as Draft in Shopify using an alternative method. When you import products using a CSV file or API, you can set the product status to “Draft” by default. This way, the products won’t be visible to customers on your online store, but you can still access and edit them on the back end before making them Active.
Hope this helps 