A supplier spreadsheet is not yet a store update
Your supplier sends a revised price list. You sell only some of those items, your store uses different product names, and a price might be for a case rather than one unit. Before changing Shopify, you need to establish which variant the row describes and what its price means.
Start with one supplier and a small group of variants. Keep a copy of the current store data and the supplier edition you are using. Don't assume that the date you downloaded the file is the date its prices take effect.
1. Match the item before changing the number
Keep supplier codes and barcodes as text so leading zeros survive. Confirm that each code identifies the intended store variant. Duplicated or missing identifiers need a decision; choosing the first spreadsheet match can update the wrong item.
Record the supplier-to-store relationship separately from the product title. A supplier's description does not need to replace the description you wrote for your customers.
2. Turn the supplier price into a comparable cost
Check the currency, tax basis and selling unit. In our fictional example, a case of six glasses changes from $36 to $39, before tax. If your Shopify variant represents one glass, the reference unit cost changes from $6.00 to $6.50.
The order multiple is a separate fact. Being required to order twelve glasses does not make a six-glass case contain twelve units. A list price is also different from the cost of a specific shipment, which may include negotiated discounts or other charges.
3. Use Shopify's manual tools when the job is small
For a small selection, open Shopify's bulk editor and add the relevant cost and price columns. Enter the checked values for the corresponding variants, save, then inspect the results. See Shopify's bulk editing instructions and editable cost fields.
For a CSV workflow, begin with a fresh Shopify export. Its current documentation requires URL handle and Title for updates, plus the option data required by the variant fields you change. Join supplier values onto the correct exported rows; don't upload a supplier file as though it already were a Shopify import. An omitted column and an included empty cell can have different effects. Check dependencies and test a small selection first. Follow the current product CSV reference, rather than an old three-column recipe.
4. Decide separately whether to change the selling price
If that glass sells for $14 before tax, increasing its reference cost from $6.00 to $6.50 changes the simple product margin from 57.14% to 53.57%. This excludes payment fees, shipping, returns and other operating costs; it is not your net profit margin.
A new supplier cost is a reason to review the retail price, not permission to change it automatically. Confirm which fields should change, check for other tools editing them, and verify the store values after applying the update.
When price-list revisions become a recurring job
A spreadsheet may be enough for occasional changes. For repeated revisions, unkrypt Amend lets you keep confirmed product matches and price meanings, compare editions, repair difficult tables beside the original, and approve cost and base selling-price changes separately.
We built Amend, so this is our workflow guide, not an independent comparison. You can watch the fictional Dev-store walkthrough and check the plans and limits. Plans start at $29 USD per 30 days before applicable taxes. The 30-day trial has a total allowance of 10 documents, 10,000 rows and 20 OCR pages, subject to Shopify's eligibility and billing terms.
English interface. Initial availability excludes EEA and UK businesses. Optional external OCR requires a price list with no personal data and permission to send it; review and manual recovery remain part of the workflow. Amend does not update inventory quantities.