The three ways Excel breaks imports
Each of these has broken a real import we have seen:
Common Scenarios:
- Encoding: Save As CSV uses ANSI/GBK/Shift-JIS on regional systems, producing mojibake in Shopify.
- Quotes: Excel rewrites doubled quotes ("") in text fields, breaking fields that contain quotes.
- Cell conversion: text like 001, long SKUs or 19-digit numbers get converted to numbers and lose leading zeros.
Catch Excel damage before the import
ShopTools validates encoding, quote integrity and leading-zero SKUs in one pass - so the damage Excel did during editing is found and repaired before Shopify rejects it.
Features:
- Encoding check: Detects ANSI/GBK/Shift-JIS saves
- Quote integrity: Finds quote damage from Excel re-saves
- SKU preservation: Flags converted SKUs that lost leading zeros
The three rules
- Save as CSV UTF-8 (with BOM) - available in recent Excel versions under Save As > More options.
- Before saving, format SKU and code columns as Text so leading zeros survive.
- After editing, open the file in a text editor and re-check quotes around any field containing commas or quotes.
Before and after
- Before: Save As CSV (ANSI) -> 中文商品名变乱码 After: Save As CSV UTF-8 (BOM) -> 中文正常导入
- Before: SKU: 00123 -> Excel converts to 123 After: SKU column formatted as Text -> 00123 preserved
Who edits CSVs in Excel
- Store owners without dev tools: Excel is the everyday editor - keep it import-safe
- Teams collaborating on CSVs: Shared files get re-saved repeatedly
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Why does my CSV look fine in Excel but break in Shopify?
- Excel saves in the system encoding and rewrites quotes. It looks fine locally but the bytes Shopify reads have changed.
- Which Excel version supports CSV UTF-8?
- Excel 2016 and later offer 'CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)' in Save As. Earlier versions need a workaround.
- How do I keep leading zeros in SKUs?
- Format the SKU column as Text before typing or pasting, or import the CSV via Data > From Text with the column set to Text.
- Can ShopTools fix the damage?
- It detects encoding and quote issues and re-exports a clean UTF-8 file - fixing what Excel broke.