New Bulk Product Editing Interface - Really Bad - Please raise your voice if you feel the same way

Shopify Discussion
1

Our company has been using Shopify for many years and we love it, always have, but this new interface for bulk editing products is really bad.

There are many things wrong with it but ill just mention a few points here that are essential for us:

  1. We cannot see all the product titles they are cut-off. So what’s the point of bulk editing when we are comparing titles to visually see them and adjust them in bulk?

  2. When trying to adjust the column widths so we can see the info that is now cut-off we cannot do that anymore (we could in the old interface please at least bring that back pleaaaaase).

  3. Worst thing is with the product tags. When bulk editing or checking multiple products to see if they have the same tags, we cannot see the tags anymore to bulk edit and compare. It only shows some tags and then a +11 (or +number) sign where we have to look at each and every one separately, find them in the dropdown seperately and scroll down to all the tags. Product tags are extremely important for any Shopify user, and comparing similar products and their tags is even more important. Can you pleaaaaaase display the tags of a product in the product bulk edit.

The point of bulk editing is to especially look at similar products and visually compare them to see if there are any mistakes or faults in one out of the many and fix them, among other reasons of course. But seeing them visually is very important.

This new bulk editing interface goes against that. When contacted support, they confirmed we cannot go back to the old version thats it. At least let us adjust the column width so we can “see” all the info in front of us so we can “bulk edit” but even that they said we cannot do.

Can someone please review these points and really hope as i can see many articles in the community about this that Shopify will do something about this please.

Thanks

Mal

16 Likes
2

Not much to add here but agreement.

I do not often use the bulk editor for tags (although they are used a lot and very important) but looking at that change…it’s not good. Seems like a choice of presentation over usability, which for a bulk editor makes no sense.

The redesign looks more like a spreadsheet, which does make sense, and hopefully the points you’ve raised will be corrected (fixed column widths, not displaying all the information…)

Oh, it also forgets which columns you selected every time you open a new set of products to view/edit.

For viewing all tags: if you select the products and Export, then open that CSV file in Excel/Google Sheets etc. you’ll be able to see all the tags. It’s not very helpful or practical, but wanted to mention it.

4 Likes
3

I 100% agree with everything you wrote. I called Shopify to address the issue since the bulk edit was 1st changed on the product pages so we would do our edits from the main screen. Today the main screen has the same format and not useful for our needs. Can’t expand the columns to read the full title can’t make other columns smaller to see all info on your desktop. Shopify is adding steps and clicks to the process and increasing the time needed to enter or look for mistakes.

The other issue is the new tag field on the product page, if your typed the first letter it would show you what has been saved and could click those that apply. NOT anymore, you now have to retype the word to select the next one that started with the same letter.

There have been many other upgrades in their mind but is actually making the whole process of receiving difficult and time consuming instead of streamlining and removing clicks.

4 Likes
4

Nothing much to add but in full agreement. This has made my routine harder. I do use tags and I have a lot of tags so now if I want to use the bulk edit screen I have to scroll through a long list to find the appropriate tags for a new product. There’s also no way to remove tags except to untick them in the same long list where before if I was re-doing tags for a product I could back over them quickly.

It always eventually forgot my column changes but usually at least it remembered them in the same session.

I feel like the people who designed this did it for appearance and not usability. I do think it looks better than it did before but it’s more difficult to use…

2 Likes
5

I just wanted to say that I agree with all of the above.

In good news I just found this workaround in another thread.

It is possible to get back to the old bulk edit, but it’s a bit of a pain.

Thanks to Graden88 for this:

Here is an example URL of the new product bulk edit.

[store name].myshopify.com/admin/products/bulk?..

remove the “/products” and you get the old product bulk edit menu.

It’s still working as of 5/1/22

3 Likes
6

Thank you! I accidentally found myself in the old Bulk editor previously but forgot how.

Absolutely agree the new interface is a huge step back.

7

The new bulk editor is BEYOND FRUSTRATING and I agree with all your points. Will take a look at the workaround in getting back to the old editor. Fingers crossed someone at Shopify takes notice and fixes these issues.

1 Like
8

Today I’m trying to bulk edit tags and not able to see all of them at once on the screen. To visually see 2 tags + 10 is ridiculous. Once you click you have to scroll through all of your tags to find the 1 you need to remove has become EXTREMELY TIME CONSUMING. export and import csv files is no faster. Can’t believe they can’t leave sections alone without asking the end users for recommendations. Not to mention the bulk edit screen for products is slow to load, slow to open to view tags when you now have to do 1 at a time to make sure you’re not making a mistake. Please put it back to the way it was.

3 Likes
9

I agree with all the issues raised.
I have a few to add
Editing 100 or so products when you click save will just sit there and spin.
This last time tried saving as I progressed through the list. But once reached about 150 products it does not realize that most of them have all ready been saved.
Combined with the fact the filter and sorting that was on the product screen used to enter the bulk editor is lost when you exit the bulk editor. Makes it worthless for the tasks of bulk editing.

Larry

2 Likes
10

Larry,

Combined with the fact the filter and sorting that was on the product
screen used to enter the bulk editor is lost when you exit the bulk editor.
Makes it worthless for the tasks of bulk editing.

To keep the filtering and sorting from the product when leaving the bulk
editor use your browser’s back button and not Shopify’s Exit button.

Noah

11

This is no longer working. They seemed to have changed the URL. :sob:

12

I know!!! How frustrating is that! Why is no one in Shopify listening about this??? Any ideas about how to get things back the way they were before?

13

They even stopped this!!! Noah_D please do you have another solution?

14

It’s so frustrating! I am only editing 40 products because when I tried more it would sit and spin. I can’t even get it to save 40 products. Annoying because I changed pricing on everything. I came on here to see why it was so slow!

15

Agreed. Absolute shocker. How this got approved is beyond me. Can’t manipulate column width or order sequence. Really slowing me down and a huge step backwards in functionality.

16

Completely and wholeheartedly agree. Half the time I try to use the bulk editor, the page doesn’t even load and I have to navigate back and forth multiple times to even use it. HUGE headache and major waste of time.

17

Google Bulk editor is unbearably slow and close to useless…

EVERY TIME I edit 25 items even (which I’ve limited myself to because the screen will sit and spin for an hour if I try to edit 100 or anything over 25) when you hit “save” you should count on sitting there staring at the screen trying to save for 5 minutes. THIS IS NOT A BROWSER OR WIFI ISSUE
Half of the time the edits do not save and I have to do it over and over again anyway. Welcome to the last 3 months of hell… Seemingly- you’ve edited and finally gotten all of your products updated and listed on Google, Bing, etc… notsomuch. The next time you log onto the shopping channel a week or so later. You see nothing but errors and half of your products de-listed fro the search engines that drive customers to your products & store.

Furthermore- you cannot set the view to be consistent. So EVERY TIME I finally get it to save- you have to go

BACK into Shopify’s main platform

click back into the Google Sales Channel

direct yourself using the arrow buttons to the next group on 25 items (hoping that when you pass the ones you’ve just edited are actually saved this time)

*>*select the newest group of 25 items to edit

set your view options/categories

hand copy/paste the MPN into every single field

Rinse & Repeat
Rinse & Repeat
Rinse & Repeat

…with Microsoft sales channels etc. It’s Sales Chanel listing hell. My listings are constantly being de-listed and my business has suffered tremendously.

Why doesn’t Shopify simply apply a box to check that allows the listings to populate the required fields using a selected value (like an “if then” formula in excel) such as:

“Google, Microsoft, Meta and every other sales channel all require specific information that we aren’t prepared to deliver them- how would you like us to handle that? Populate GTIN/MPN fields with SKU or UPC data when you identify your product as a ‘Custom Item’?”

If I am missing it entirely- PLEASE help me sort it out. Otherwise, Shopify is becoming a hinderance and suppressing my traffic due to it’s inability to keep up with the data changes and required information by the sales channels it is presenting itself as being able to comply with.

1 Like
18

I can’t believe that it has been this long since first discussed, Shopify has finally addressed the Bulk Editor. My team member and I almost cried with excitement. We no longer have to double click to enter information in the box. No longer have to re-select columns you want to use every time you go back to the editor, they stay until you completely close out. What a time saver! Still could use some improvements such as being able to adjust the column width but happy with what we have now. Thank you for this fix.

19

One thing I still would like is to be able to resize the columns but yea, quite a few of the other issues have thankfully been addressed.

2 Likes
20

You are right. I had this website and I moved it from shopify to woocommerce due to the same reason.