Importing products is the one-off step that brings your existing WooCommerce catalog into Qoblex. Qoblex reads the products in your store page by page, then creates a new product in your Qoblex catalog for each one, or links it to a product you already have. You run it once per store, right after you connect the store and save your sync settings. This article explains where to start the import, exactly which fields Qoblex reads from WooCommerce, how records are matched to your existing catalog, and what happens while the import runs in the background. After reading it you will know how to prepare for a clean import, start it from either the WooCommerce settings page or the Products page, and how to tell when it has finished.
Before you import
The import uses the settings you have already saved for the store, so get those right first. Prices land according to the price lists you chose, stock lands at your configured location, and whether product details are written into Qoblex depends on your product information sync direction. Matching depends on your product matching strategy. Fixing settings after the catalog is in Qoblex is far more work than getting them right up front. Work through this checklist before you start: – Finish your settings first. Set your product matching strategy, product information sync, inventory sync, and pricing sync on the WooCommerce settings page. See Product sync settings, Pricing sync settings, and Inventory sync settings. – Set a default location. Qoblex imports each variant’s stock into the store’s default location. If the integration has no default location configured, the import cannot convert your products and will report an error. Set the default location before importing. – Check your price lists. The Price list and the Compare At price list must be two different price lists. If they point to the same list, the import stops. Currency is enforced separately, when you save the settings page: you cannot save if the Price and Compare At price lists have different currencies, or if either differs from the store’s currency. See Pricing sync settings. – Clean up SKUs or barcodes if you match on them. If your matching strategy is by SKU or by barcode, blank or duplicated values in either WooCommerce or Qoblex will cause products to fail matching. Tidy these up first. – Plan to spot-check afterwards. After the import completes, open a handful of imported products in Qoblex and compare their SKUs, barcodes, variant options, images, prices, and stock against WooCommerce.
Only Simple and Variable WooCommerce products are imported. Qoblex reads Simple and Variable products from your store and silently skips every other product type (such as grouped or external/affiliate products). Skipped types are filtered out before conversion, so they do not appear in your catalog and do not produce a warning. If a product is missing after the import, check its type in WooCommerce.
Where to start the import
You can launch the same product import from two places. Both send the same request to Qoblex and run the same background import.
From the WooCommerce settings page
When you have just connected a store and setup is still pending, the settings page shows a Finish Setting Up Your store button. This is the normal path for a first import. 1. Go to Integrations and open your WooCommerce store’s settings. 2. Confirm your product matching, product, inventory, and pricing settings are correct. 3. Click Finish Setting Up Your store. Qoblex saves your settings first, then opens the Import Products window. 4. In the window, click Import Products. The Import Products window explains what to expect:
To finish your store setup, we need to import your products. This might take a few minutes depending on the number of products to import. We will send you an email when the import operation is complete. After you submit the request, the button changes to Done. The button turns to Done once the request has been sent, whether or not it succeeded, so treat Done as “request submitted,” not “import confirmed.” Clicking Done takes you to your Activity feed and refreshes the app.
Use Save instead of Finish Setting Up Your store when you want to keep your settings without importing yet. Saving stores your settings but does not start a product import.
From the Products page
You can also start a WooCommerce import from the product import wizard. 1. Go to Inventory > Products and open the Import products wizard. 2. Choose the Import products from your WooCommerce store option. 3. Under “Which store do you want us to import your products from?”, select the store you want to import from. 4. Click Import my products. The wizard confirms: “Select a WooCommerce store from where you would like to import your products. The import operation might take some time depending on the number of products you have on your store.”
Do not start the import again before the completion email arrives. A product import runs as a background job and can span several minutes and many pages of your catalog. Starting a second import for the same store while one is still running can collide with the first and produce warnings. Wait for the email (or for the window to show Done) before you re-run.
What Qoblex imports
During a WooCommerce product import, Qoblex reads your catalog page by page, keeps only the Simple and Variable products, and for each one creates a new Qoblex product or updates the matching one. Every other WooCommerce product type is silently dropped before conversion and produces no warning. A Simple product becomes a single-variant product in Qoblex; a Variable product becomes a product with one variant per WooCommerce variation, plus its option attributes. The table below shows what Qoblex reads from WooCommerce and where it lands. The import always records the link between the WooCommerce product and its Qoblex product (and between each variation and its Qoblex variant) so that ongoing sync knows which records belong together.
Product-level fields
| Qoblex field | WooCommerce field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Product name | Product name | Imported as-is. |
| Description | Description | Imported as-is. |
| Handle | Slug (permalink) | Used as the Qoblex product handle. |
| Categories | Product tags | WooCommerce tags are joined into the Qoblex categories field, separated by commas. |
| Product type | Type | Stored as simple or variable. Any other type is not imported. |
| Archived | Status | A product whose WooCommerce status is draft is imported as archived in Qoblex. |
| Images | Product and variation images | Images are downloaded and attached to the product; duplicate image URLs are collapsed. A variation’s own image is attached to that variant. |
| Barcode (single-variant products only) | GTIN / UPC / EAN / ISBN (global unique ID) | For a Simple product, the store’s global unique ID becomes the single variant’s barcode. |
| ### Variant-level fields | ||
| SKU | Variation SKU | Also copied into the Qoblex supplier SKU field. |
| Barcode | GTIN / UPC / EAN / ISBN (global unique ID) | Imported per variation. |
| Option values | Variation attributes | The variation’s attribute values become the Qoblex variant’s options; the product’s variation attributes become its option list. |
| Stock quantity | Stock quantity | Imported into the store’s default location. A variation with no quantity is imported as 0. |
| Tracked / untracked | Manage stock | If WooCommerce manages stock for the variation, the Qoblex variant is tracked; if not, it is untracked. |
| Allow overselling | Backorders | Set on when WooCommerce backorders are yes, off otherwise. |
| Weight | Weight | The weight unit follows the store’s configured weight unit. |
| Position | Menu order | Controls the order variants appear in. |
| Price | Regular price / Sale price | See the pricing note below. Written to the price list you selected as your Price list. |
| Compare At price | Regular price / Sale price | Written to the price list you selected as your Compare At list. |
How WooCommerce prices map to Qoblex. When a variation has a sale price, Qoblex uses the sale price as the variant’s Price and the regular price as its Compare At price. When there is no sale price, the regular price becomes the Price and the Compare At price is left empty. Prices are written into the Price list and Compare At price list you selected for the store, so pick those correctly before importing.
The stock, prices, and locations that land in Qoblex follow the settings you saved for the store. If those settings were not correct when you imported, the imported values will reflect the wrong settings, which is why the checklist above matters.
How products are matched to your catalog
For each product read from WooCommerce, Qoblex first checks whether it already imported that exact WooCommerce product before (by its stored WooCommerce reference). If so, it updates that Qoblex product. Otherwise it looks for a match in your existing catalog using your product matching strategy: – Match by name (the default) links a WooCommerce product to a Qoblex product with the same name. – Match by SKU links on the variant SKU. – Match by barcode links on the variant barcode. If a match is found, Qoblex links the two and updates the Qoblex product according to your product and pricing sync directions. If no match is found, Qoblex creates a new product. If the same SKU, barcode, or name appears on more than one product, Qoblex cannot decide which to link and reports that product as a warning rather than guessing.
A product is only updated in Qoblex when your sync directions allow it. Product details (name, description, images, variant structure) are written into Qoblex only when your product information sync has WooCommerce as a source. Prices are written only when your pricing sync has WooCommerce as a source. If a sync direction is set the other way, the import will link the products but leave those fields in Qoblex unchanged. See Product sync settings and Pricing sync settings.
The import also tidies up links: if a product or variant you previously imported no longer exists in WooCommerce, Qoblex removes the stale link (it does not delete your Qoblex product).
While the import runs
The import runs in the background and can take a while on a large catalog. The Import Products window or the wizard shows a busy state, then Done, as soon as the request has been submitted. The actual catalog is still being read and written after that. – The WooCommerce import does not pause your store’s live updates. Ongoing WooCommerce order and stock updates continue to be processed while the initial product import runs, so avoid making large catalog edits in WooCommerce during the import to keep results predictable. – The import does not automatically pull in your WooCommerce orders. It imports your product catalog only. To bring in orders, use the order import once your products are in place. See Sales order sync settings.
When the import finishes
When the last page of your catalog has been processed, Qoblex: – Emails the person who started the import. The email confirms the import is complete and includes the number of products imported. It is sent to the email address of the user who launched the import, so make sure that account has a valid email. – Records that the store has started processing. From this point the store is treated as set up and ongoing sync operates according to your settings. If the window shows Done but your products are not visible yet, the catalog is still being written in the background for a large store. Wait for the completion email, then open Inventory > Products. If anything looks off, open your Activity feed to review the import warnings. After the import, spot-check the products you actively sell first. Confirm Qoblex and WooCommerce agree on SKU, variant options, barcode, price, and stock before you rely on the connection for day-to-day trading.