Goal: Update prices, inventory levels, or any other product data in bulk using the variant SKU to match rows in your spreadsheet to products in your store. This is the fastest way to apply a supplier price list or stock update to Shopify without editing products one by one.

Prerequisites:

Suppose we have the following file from a supplier. This format is just an example - your supplier's file will have its own column names, and the same approach works for any of them.

Open the file in Excel or Google Sheets and rename the column headers to the column names Altera recognizes. The same file now looks like this:

The [ID] suffix on Variant SKU [ID] tells Altera to find the matching product and variant using the SKU, even if other identifier columns are present in the file. It also makes the import faster on larger stores.

Replace "East Coast Warehouse" with the name of your own location as it appears in Shopify under Settings > Locations.

In Shopify, inventory is stocked at locations - a store can have one location or several warehouses around the world.

If your store has a single location, you can use the simpler Variant Inventory Qty column to set the stock level.

If your store has more than one location, use Inventory Available: [Location Name] (for example, Inventory Available: East Coast Warehouse) so Altera knows exactly which location to update. Add one column per location you want to update.

The only required column is Variant SKU [ID] - beyond that, you can include any other product or variant column in the same file, for example Vendor, Tags, or Variant Compare At Price. Altera only updates the columns present in your file; everything else on the product is left untouched.

Warning: Only include columns you actually want to change, and make sure every included column has values. A blank cell doesn't mean "skip" - it tells Altera to set that field to empty, which can delete existing data. If you don't want to change a column, delete it from the file entirely.

Save the file with a new name, such as products-sku-update.xlsx.

In Altera, click New Import and upload your file. The app analyzes it and detects it as a Products import, showing that all your columns matched.

Click Start Import. Altera finds each variant by its SKU and applies the new values.

Note: The item count may be lower than the number of rows in your file. Each row is one SKU, and a product can have several SKUs, so four rows can update three (or fewer) products.

When the import finishes, the results screen lists the updated products - click any product to open it and confirm the new prices and inventory quantities.

If a SKU in your file doesn't exist in the store, the row fails with an error like "The product you intend to update could not be found". This is normal with supplier files - suppliers often list products you don't stock. Those rows are safely skipped, and no other rows are affected. If you expected the SKU to match, check it for typos or create the product in your store.

If the same SKU exists on more than one product in your store, the row also fails, with the error "More than one product matches - identify by ID or Handle" (IMP006). Altera won't guess which product you meant, so nothing is changed for that row. To update those products, either remove the duplicate SKUs in Shopify or use the ID or Handle column to identify them instead.

The results screen shows the first several successes and errors at a glance. For the complete list, click Download Output to get the import results file - it contains your original rows plus extra columns showing the matched Handle and the Import Result for every row, which makes it easy to find and fix failed rows in large files.

Every variant whose SKU matched has its new price and inventory level applied in Shopify, and any other columns you included are updated too. Products and fields not referenced in your file are unchanged.