PrestaShop CSV Product Import: build the right file before you click Import

The difficult part of a product import is usually not the Import button. It is the file before it gets there.

A CSV may look fine in Excel or Google Sheets and still contain duplicate SKUs, wrong decimal separators, inconsistent categories, invalid image URLs, encoding problems or rows that should really be combinations.

1. Start with the identifier

reference / SKU

2. Profile the source file

TOTAL ROWS:          4,218
EMPTY SKU:              12
DUPLICATE SKU:           8
EMPTY NAME:              3
INVALID PRICE:           5
MISSING IMAGE URL:     214

3. Build a working dataset

4. Clean numeric values

Bad:

€19.90
20 EUR
17,50
Call us

Machine-friendly:

19.90
20.00
17.50

5. Decimal separators and encoding

Do not leave locale assumptions to the import step. Normalize decimal values and verify the file encoding during preflight.

6. Categories need mapping

SOURCE CATEGORY
        ↓
NORMALIZE
        ↓
CATEGORY MAPPING
        ↓
PRESTASHOP CATEGORY

7. An image URL is not automatically a valid image

Check reachability, authentication, temporary URLs and SKU association.

8. Simple products or combinations?

This probably describes one product with three combinations, not three unrelated products.

9. Do not transform during import

SUPPLIER FILE
      ↓
RAW DATA
      ↓
CLEAN
      ↓
NORMALIZE
      ↓
VALIDATE
      ↓
PRESTASHOP-READY DATA
      ↓
IMPORT
      ↓
VERIFY

10. Minimum preflight checklist

• reference
• name
• duplicate references
• numeric values
• categories
• manufacturers
• tax rules
• attributes
• images
• encoding

11. Test first

Use a deliberately small sample: one simple product, one product with an image, one mapped category, multilingual text and one product with combinations.

12. Verify after import

Compare expected versus actual products, SKUs, stock, combinations and images.

13. SQL as a verification layer

CSV IMPORT
    ↓
PRESTASHOP
    ↓
SQL AUDIT

14. Reusable import pipeline

Supplier CSV
      ↓
Google Sheets / Script
      ↓
Normalize
      ↓
Validate
      ↓
Category Mapping
      ↓
PrestaShop-ready CSV
      ↓
Import
      ↓
Audit

Next step

Before importing, normalize supplier labels through a reusable category-mapping layer and validate every remote asset with the product-image workflow. Test both mappings on a small batch before the full catalogue run.