Import, Export, and Update share the customer and address columns. Send Welcome Email is an additional Import-only column. Use Import to create customers, Export to download the current customer file, and Update to change existing customers from that exported file. Preview checks the file before a job can start, including the address rules for new customers. Existing customer emails are skipped during create imports.
Create imports
Email is required for each new customer. Optional columns include name, phone, marketing consent, tags, note, status, date of birth, and addresses. Those extra columns are not on the Add Customer form. Put additional addresses on following rows with the customer columns blank. See Customer address rules for country, province, postal code, and phone values. Customer ID, Created At, and Address ID are reference columns and are not used to create records.
The Tags column lists all of a customer's tags in one cell, separated by commas, for example VIP, Wholesale. Put a tag that contains a comma or a double quote in double quotes and double any quote inside it, as in VIP,"Wholesale, EU" or "5"" Screen",VIP. This is the text as it appears in the spreadsheet cell. Exports always put the first tag in quotes, for example "VIP",Wholesale. Close every quote you open. A cell with malformed quoting, such as VIP,"Wholesale, EU, is not reported as an error: it is split at every comma and the quote marks are kept, so it becomes the tags VIP, "Wholesale and EU.
Welcome emails in imports
Add the Send Welcome Email column and enter true on the first row of each new customer you want to welcome. Enter false or leave the cell blank to send no welcome email. Leave this column blank on additional address rows. Customers whose email already exists are skipped and receive no new welcome email. A disabled customer cannot be imported with this option set to true. Remove this column from Update files; updating a customer does not send a welcome email.
Updates
Updates identify each customer by Customer ID. Email, phone, Created At, and address columns remain in the file for reference and are not changed by Customer Update. Blank editable cells leave their current values unchanged. Enter CLEAR to clear a supported name, note, date-of-birth, or tag value.
Metafields
Customer metafield values use the Metafield values workflow. They are not mixed into Customer import, export, or update files.
CSV file format
CSV files use UTF-8. Exports start with a byte order mark (BOM) so spreadsheet apps recognize the encoding, and imports accept files with or without one. A file with text that isn't valid UTF-8, such as one saved in another encoding, is rejected with the line of the first problem. Save it as UTF-8 (in Excel, CSV UTF-8) and upload it again.
A value that starts with =, +, @ or %, or with a tab or line break, is exported with an apostrophe in front so spreadsheet apps show it as text instead of running it as a formula. So is a value that starts with -, except a plain number such as -12.50, which stays a number. A value that really starts with an apostrophe is exported with a second one. Importing the file removes the added apostrophe, so these values come back unchanged.
A value that is exactly __CLEAR__ is also exported with an apostrophe in front, and so is none in a column where it clears a value, such as Quantity Pricing. On import it is read as that text, not as an instruction to clear a value. In other columns none is exported as it is.