How to map supplier CSV columns to Shopify safely

Supplier files rarely use Shopify's column names. "Item No", "Art. Nr", "EAN", "RRP", "SOH" and "Free Stock" all mean something specific. A safe mapping needs:

Your store field	Typical supplier headers	Watch out for
SKU (to match products)	SKU, Item No, Article No, Part Number, MPN, Ref	Leading/trailing spaces; the supplier's code may differ from your SKU
Barcode (to match products)	EAN, UPC, GTIN, Barcode	Excel turns long barcodes into scientific notation (5.01E+12), which loses digits
Price	RRP, MSRP, Retail Price, Selling Price, Price	Don't confuse with Cost/Wholesale/Trade/Net
Compare-at price	Was Price, Original Price, Regular Price	Optional
Stock	Qty, Stock, Available, On Hand, SOH, Free Stock	Text like "In stock" is not a number

Rules of thumb

Match on one key you trust (SKU or barcode). If one code matches several variants in your store, don't guess.
Never map one column to two fields.
If the file only has a cost column, you'll need a markup to turn it into a price.
Save a copy of the file's header row. If it changes later, re-check the mapping before importing.

How Fieldwork Supplier Feed Sync handles mapping

It suggests a mapping from the header names, checks sample values (it flags a price column whose values aren't prices, or a stock column with text like "In stock"), and may add an AI suggestion from the headers and 5 sample rows. You confirm the mapping before any run can write.
It matches by SKU, barcode, or SKU then barcode. Barcodes are normalised so UPC and EAN forms of the same code match, and barcodes in scientific notation are treated as unusable rather than guessed.
If a code matches more than one variant in your store, that row is skipped and reported, not guessed. If two rows in the file point at the same variant, neither is applied.
You can set a markup (%) on the feed price and round to .99 or .95.
If the headers change later, runs are held until you re-confirm the mapping.

Fieldwork Supplier Feed Sync is coming soon to the Shopify App Store.

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