What's the best tool to import and update XML or CSV products on my online store?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Selecting a tool to import a supplier product feed and automate frequent updates (3–4 times/day) to price and inventory in a new Shopify store. Supplier can provide XML or CSV with a custom structure.

Options proposed:

  • Shopify’s built‑in CSV import (help guide linked). Useful for initial import; automation details not provided.
  • CED Importer (CSV only). Claims flexible mapping without a pre‑defined format and supports updating inventory multiple times/day via repeated CSV imports.
  • MyShop – Product XML Import. Reported issue: images do not import for one user.
  • Stockeo. Reported as handling automatic XML imports.

Key points:

  • CSV (comma-separated values) and XML (extensible markup language) are common formats for product feeds.
  • The ability to schedule automated updates (3–4 times/day) is central; confirmation on built‑in Shopify scheduling is absent, while app-based automation varies.
  • No sample XML/CSV files were shared.

Status: No definitive solution chosen by the original poster. Viable paths include CSV via CED Importer or XML via Stockeo; MyShop’s image import problems remain unresolved. Discussion appears open.

Summarized with AI on December 13. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi,

I have just started building my online store using shopify. So this is my first time on shopify dont know much about the tools and apps. I have a XML feed from a supplier ,I want to import all the products into my store also I would like to update inventory 3-4 times a day. The supllier is very flexiable he is willing to provide XML or CSV feed with a file structure thats I will define.

I was wondering what is the best tool that I can use for this purpose also if I can get some sort of sample file for XML and CSV.

Thanks

2

Hey,

Welcome to Shopify!

Check out this help guide by Shopify: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/import-export/import-products

Good luck!

3

Hi,

Thanks for pointer about CSV import, I was wondering how to automate the process of price and inevtory. I would like it to update 3-4 times a day. Can this be achieved using CSV import ?

Thanks

4

Hello fragranzaUk,

You can use this tool: https://apps.shopify.com/ced-importer to import the supplier feed to Shopify. No pre-defined format is required to use this tool. There is only one condition that the file should be in CSV format. Also, you can update the inventory 3-4 times a day by just importing the CSV file.

Hope this answer helps!!

Thanks and Regards

5

Did you find a solution to your problem? I’m looking for the same thing. I want to import products based on a product feed in XML format, but I can’t find anything. I found an app called MyShop - Product XML Import, but it doesn’t manage to import my images, I don’t know why. It’s annoying that there isn’t a solution like this on Shopify. There’s integrated artificial intelligence and lots of product import solutions for dropshipping, but a simple automation process seems hard for them to develop…

6

we work with stockeo for automatic import of our XML

7

Product XML Import By ProXI can handle this. It has AI-powered parsing, so you don’t need to define a specific file structure - just provide the feed URL and it auto-detects the fields. You can schedule syncs to run 3-4 times daily for inventory updates.

I’m the developer, happy to help with the initial setup.