Shopify vs Amazon CSV: Why They Don’t Match (And How to Fix It)
Published 2026-05-08
If you’ve ever tried to import an Amazon product listing CSV into Shopify, you’ve hit the wall: the files look similar but they’re completely incompatible. Here’s why — and how to fix it without spending an hour in Excel.
The core problem: row models are opposite
Shopify’s product CSV is variant-centric. Each row is one variant. A product with 3 sizes has 3 rows. The first row has all the product-level data; subsequent rows repeat only the shared fields and add the variant-specific ones.
Amazon’s flat file is product-centric with a parent/child structure. The parent row carries the product identity; child rows carry each variation. The column names are completely different — Amazon uses item_name, Shopify uses Title. Amazon uses bullet_point1 through bullet_point5; Shopify has no bullet-point concept at all.
The specific column mismatches
| Amazon flat-file column | Shopify CSV equivalent | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| item_name | Title | Direct rename |
| product_description | Body (HTML) | Amazon: plain text; Shopify: accepts HTML |
| bullet_point1–bullet_point5 | No direct equivalent | Typically collapsed into Body or metafields |
| main_image_url | Image Src | Amazon: single field; Shopify: up to 10 Image Src columns |
| item_weight | Weight | Amazon in lb, Shopify in kg — unit conversion required |
| color_name | Option1 Value | Variant attribute name differs |
| size_name | Option2 Value | Same |
| standard_price | Variant Price | Amazon has list + sale price; Shopify has one price + compare_at |
There are typically 80–200 columns in an Amazon flat file; a Shopify product CSV has around 30. The rest get dropped, renamed, or restructured.
The image problem
Amazon gives you one main_image_url and up to 8 other_image_url1–other_image_url8 columns. Shopify wants one row per image (each subsequent image row repeats the Handle and leaves everything else blank). Converting a product with 5 images means creating 5 rows in Shopify, not 1.
The weight unit problem
Amazon stores weight in pounds by default. Shopify stores weight in kilograms. A 1-lb product is 0.454 kg in Shopify. If you copy the weight column without converting, your products will have wrong weights and shipping rates will be wrong.
The solution
csvtocsv.com/amazon-to-shopify handles all of this automatically: renames columns, restructures images into separate rows, converts lb → kg, and outputs a clean Shopify-ready CSV. Free 5-row preview with no account required.