Import

Description

The HikaShop import system allows you to:

• Move your shop to HikaShop from VirtueMart, WooCommerce, J2Store / J2Commerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Shopware, Sylius, EC-CUBE or another HikaShop: catalog, customers, addresses, coupons and orders.
• Import products and categories from CSV files or by pasting data directly into a text area.
• Import orders from the backend orders listing.
• Import shipping and payment methods from CSV files.
• Generate products automatically from a folder of images or files (Business edition).
• Automatically import/update products via a cron-triggered CSV import (Essential and Business editions).

You can access the import screen from the HikaShop backend via Products > Import.

Import from another shop

HikaShop reads the database of another shop (or the files it exports) and creates its catalog, customers and orders in HikaShop, on Joomla or on WordPress. Choose the shop you are leaving to see its page: what is imported, the settings, screenshots and what to check afterwards.

On the import page, open the Import from another shop tab, pick the shop in the list, tick what to import (taxes, catalog, customers, coupons, orders, downloads: orders also need the customers and the catalog), fill in the settings and start. The import runs on the page with its progress; a step which fails stops there and can be tried again or skipped. You can run it again later: what was already imported is recognised and left as it is.

The payment and shipping methods of the other shops are not moved (only the "HikaShop to HikaShop" import brings them): set them up in HikaShop. Developers can add a shop to the list with the onHikashopImportSources event, see the developer documentation.

Import from a CSV or from the text area

Each way to import is a tab of the import page, with its options and its own Import button below them. You can import data in two ways:

• Import from CSV file: upload a CSV or text file containing your data.
• Import from text area: copy and paste your data directly into the input box.

General information about the CSV format

The first line of your CSV file must contain the column names. These correspond to the database column names of the #__hikashop_product and #__hikashop_price tables (always in English). For example:

product_name,product_code,price_value
My Product,PROD001,29.99

Key points:

• HikaShop auto-detects the CSV separator (comma, semicolon, tab, pipe). No specific format is imposed.
• Multi-line field values (e.g. product descriptions) are supported when enclosed in double quotes.
• You only need one line per product. Do not split a product across multiple lines.
• For price_currency_id, you can use the currency code (e.g. "EUR") instead of the numeric ID. If omitted, the store's main currency is used.
• If product_code is not specified, it will be generated from product_name.
• Specify your file's character encoding so HikaShop can convert it to UTF-8. If unsure, leave it as "Unknown".

Updating existing products: set the option "Update products information if the product_code already exists" to "Yes". HikaShop will match products by their product_code and update the fields present in your CSV.

Tip: if you are unsure about column names, upload a file with only the header line or enter random text in the text area and click Import. HikaShop will display the list of valid column names.

Column Mapping

If the columns in your CSV file do not match HikaShop's column names, a mapping interface will appear. This allows you to visually map your CSV headers to HikaShop fields, eliminating the need to rename columns in your file manually.

Importing images and files

To import images or files along with your products, first place them in the upload folder configured in System > Configuration > Files. Then add an images or files column to your CSV with the filenames separated by a secondary separator (different from your main CSV separator).

Examples:

product_name,images
My product,"image_front.jpg,image_back.jpg"

or:

product_name,images
My product,image_front.jpg;image_back.jpg

Related products

Add a related column with the product_code values of related products (they must already exist or appear earlier in the same CSV file):

product_code,product_name,related
my_product_1,My first product,""
my_product_2,My second product,""
my_product_3,My third product,"my_product_1,my_product_2"

Product categories

Use a categories column with category IDs or category namekeys:

product_code,product_name,categories
my_product_1,My first product,"2,13"

You can find category IDs in the category listing under the ID column.

To create a category tree automatically, enable "Create automatically missing categories" and use a parent_category column:

parent_category,categories
product category,main category 1;main category 2;main category 3
main category 1,sub category 1;sub category 2

You can also mix products and categories in the same CSV:

product_code,parent_category,categories
,main category 1,sub category 2
my_product_1,main category 1,sub category 2

Products with variants

To import variants, use the product_parent_id column with the product_code of the main product (which must appear before the variants in the file). The main product line must include the default characteristic value. Characteristics and their values must be created beforehand via Products > Characteristics.

Example with a "size" characteristic:

product_code,product_parent_id,size,price_value
main_product,,big,
first_variant,main_product,big,15
second_variant,main_product,small,10

The default price will be 15 (for "big"). When the customer selects "small", the price changes to 10.

Products with translations

To import translations, append the language code after a pipe (|) to the column name. You must first have the corresponding languages set up in Joomla.

Example with English (main), French and Japanese translations:

product_code,product_name,product_name|fr-FR,product_name|ja-JP
my_product_1,My first product,Mon premier produit,私の初めての商品

This works for all translatable fields: product_name, product_description, and custom fields.

Other import options

If you have an Excel file, add a header row with the column names and save the file as CSV (Save As > CSV). You can open the file with a text editor to verify the format before importing.

File Charset: we recommend importing UTF-8 files. If your file uses a different encoding, select it so HikaShop can convert it properly.

Store images locally: if set to "No", only the URL of the image is stored. If set to "Yes", the image is downloaded and stored on your server.

Store files locally: same as above, but for downloadable files.

Keep other variants: when updating a product that already has variants:

• "Yes": existing variants not in the CSV are kept (new variants are added).
• "No": existing variants not in the CSV are removed (only the variants in the CSV remain).

Template product (Business edition): select a product to use as a template. All fields not specified in the CSV will be automatically filled from the template product. This is useful when importing many products with the same price, tax category, or images.

You can also use the text area option to import CSV-compatible data directly without uploading a file.

Import orders

HikaShop supports importing orders from the backend. You can find the Import button on the Orders listing page in the toolbar.

The order import accepts a CSV file with columns corresponding to the #__hikashop_order and #__hikashop_order_product tables. Common columns include:

• order_number: the order reference number.
• order_user_id or user_email: identifies the customer. If user_email is used, HikaShop will look up or create the user.
• order_status: the order status (e.g. "confirmed", "shipped").
• order_created: the order date (Unix timestamp or date string).
• product_code: the product code for each order line.
• order_product_quantity: quantity for each order line.
• order_product_price: unit price for each order line.
• order_full_price: total order amount.
• order_currency_id: currency code (e.g. "EUR").

This is particularly useful when migrating from another system where you want to preserve order history, or when bulk-loading historical orders.

Import automatically from a CSV file

HikaShop Essential and Business editions include a plugin called "HikaShop Products Cron Update Plugin" that you can configure via the Joomla plugins manager. It allows you to import or update products automatically from a CSV file on a schedule.

To use it:

1. Configure your HikaShop cron task.
2. Go to the Joomla plugins manager, find and enable "HikaShop Products Cron Update".
3. Configure the plugin settings:

• File: enter a local file path or a URL to the CSV. If a URL is provided, the plugin downloads the file each time before importing.
• Column names: map your CSV column names to HikaShop column names. For example, if your CSV uses "name" and "code" instead of "product_name" and "product_code", enter: name:product_name;code:product_code
• Charset: select the character encoding of your file.
• Frequency: the import interval in seconds (e.g. 3600 for once per hour). Note that the actual frequency depends on your cron trigger interval.
• Delete products not in CSV: removes products not present in the CSV. Use this option with extreme caution and only after the import works correctly without it.

Import shipping and payment methods

You can import shipping and payment methods from CSV files. On the System > Shipping methods or System > Payment methods listing page, click the Import button in the toolbar.

This opens an import dialog where you can upload a CSV file or paste CSV data. The import uses a column mapping interface (similar to the product import) that lets you map your CSV columns to HikaShop's shipping or payment method fields.

Common columns for shipping methods include: shipping_name, shipping_type, shipping_price, shipping_published, shipping_currency_id, and zone/weight restrictions. The shipping_type value corresponds to the plugin's folder name under plugins/hikashopshipping/ (e.g. manual for the manual shipping plugin).

Common columns for payment methods include: payment_name, payment_type, payment_price, payment_published, payment_currency_id, and zone/amount restrictions. The payment_type value corresponds to the plugin's folder name under plugins/hikashoppayment/ (e.g. banktransfer for the bank transfer plugin, paypalcheckout for PayPal Checkout).

This is useful when setting up a new store with many shipping zones or payment options, or when migrating method configurations from one site to another via CSV export/import.

Third party migration services

In addition to the built-in migration tools, several third-party services support HikaShop:

• LitExtension: migration services supporting many shopping carts. They also offer a CSV import tool for HikaShop.
• Cart2Cart: automated migration from various shopping carts.
• RO CSVI: a Joomla extension specialized in CSV import and export with HikaShop integration.

Generate products from a folder

This feature is available in the Business edition of HikaShop.

You can generate one product per file or image in a folder using the "Import products from folder" option. This is useful for shops selling images, music, or downloadable files.

Enter the path to the folder (relative to your site root or absolute). Each file in the folder will become a product, with the filename used as product_code and product_name. A copy of each file is placed in the appropriate upload folder.

You can optionally select a template product to fill in default values (price, tax category, description, etc.) for all generated products.

You can choose whether to delete the original files from the source folder after generation.