HowtoStart: Migrate existing products information to Valigara

Migration of existing product information into Valigara is an extremely important part of the setup, especially for the business with existing operations. In some cases, there is just one data source, and in other cases - can include multiple sources, such as marketplaces, websites, ERP systems etc. 

In this article:

• Migration Flow
• Migration Example
• Best Practices
• Tools for  effective migration

Migration Flow

There are 2 source types for importing the products information into Valigara: 

• Online: Import the information from listing on Marketplaces and sources
• Offline: Import the products from external data-sheets (such as Excel), feeds or by API

1. select the Main channel to import the information

• Some sources/marketplaces handle the data better than others => Select the channel with the richest product data. 
• Not always, all collection fully exists on all sales channels => Select the channel with the most products presented. 
• During the import, Valigara fetches the maximum information, in most cases including the variation structure => Select the channel with the most complicated variation structure. 

2. Import listings from the Main channel

• Each channel's import in Valigara is built according to the specific channel's requirements and specifications.
• Start by running the import process with several products. See what information can be fetched, and prepare your Valigara data structure for effective data intake. 
• To test the import for a few times on the same listings, remember to remove the products created in Valigara by the previous import process. Then run the import again. 
  

3. Import listings information from the rest of the channels

• to combine listings under one Valigara product, marketplaces listings have to use the same SKU
• If this is not the case, it's better to link the listings, to avoid duplicate products creation. 
• In some cases, there is a need to import the products data from additional channel listings (f.i. if there is no products export option in the channel). If the SKUs are not identical, this will create duplicate products in Valigara. You will be able to move all the data and to move the listing into one Valigara product of your choice. 

4. Link additional listings to already existing products in Valigara

• The Link Products to Listings allows Valigara to create the relation between the local product and the channel listings

5. Add missing data

• Use import from Excel or any other sources, to complete the data in the products. 
• This can also be done using Valigara's content management tools (Copy Data, Calculate Prices, Generators etc.)
• in some cases, different type of data can be exported into Excel using the listings Fetch procedure by Valigara. In this case, it's good to both import the products directly into Valigara, and export the data from the marketplace into Excel. 

Migration Example

• import initial data from the eBay account 
• add more data by importing Amazon listings information
• link your products on Shopify to Valigara
• Import missing data from an Excel datasheet

Best practices

• Run the import process with small number of products first
• Consider the differences between the product based and field-based variations
• Consider the channel-related values for the selection-typefields, for example
  • Size 5.5 - Valigara can translate it to "5 1/2" for Etsy, "5-5.75" for Amazon, "5.5" for eBay, "51" for UK website etc...
• Verify the import results for different types of products, marketplace categories
• Use the less important listings for testing, so that you won't loose the valuable listings in case of an mistake. 
• Run the import process several times. 
• To run the import process again, delete the created products from Valigara, while keeping them on the marketplace

Valigara Tools for effective migration

• Plan and adjust the product fields structure by using Additional fields 
• Use Copy Data and Generators, in combination with Valigara Search engine to quickly complete the missing data
• Assign Product Tags such as "To Improve" , "From eBay", "Complete from Excel" can be useful for working with products

Running the import process from the channel does not mean that Valigara immediately starts to control the listing. Import fetches the data from the channel and creates the link for further operations.  Remember to complete the migration process after importing / linking the existing listings