Cannot add variants for an existing product through import?

Cannot add variants for an existing product through import?

Argh!! Seriously?  (As Bryan is pulling his hair out.)

As anyone might guess after reading other forum posts of mine, I'm usually very pro-Zoho, I'm a huge fan of Zoho, I think it's a good company with good people and have a good product.

But I really have to rant about this.  And not just this specific issue, but in a more general sense... The fact isthat there are a range of artificial limitations imposed on doing any sort of bulk editing... and it virtually makes my head explode.  Among them are things like...

You can't upload over 1MB at a time in Commerce.  (Why make it take five times as long for me to do something that I have to do?)
You can't overwrite any field with a null value - so you can never clear a value through an import.  Seriously.  You can't.  There are so many reasons you'd want to do this, but you can't.
There are a variety of other gems that also result in imports being virtually useless for performing inventory updates.
And so now you can't add variants for an existing product through an import?

Nearly every time I need to do an import to make corrections, I can't because of an artificially imposed restriction.  Nearly every time.  And I can't be alone in this regard.

There is no need for this.  And it's the case in Commerce, Books, and Inventory - so it's seemingly a systemic policy driven issue that I don't experience with other SaaS providers.  This is unique to Zoho.

If the concern is that someone who doesn't know what they're doing will wipe out their Inventory with the wrong import, I get that.  But we're all adults here.  And for those who know how to manage inventory imports, exports, and updates, there needs to be a range of unrestricted tools that allows more experienced users to not feel like they're being forced to drive 20MPH on a 65MPH road.

But these aren't things limited to the needs of advanced users.  You don't need to be doing anything out of the norm for this to be an issue.  In fact is that the use cases are endless.

Suppose I'm a shoe store and I sell Converse shoes (only the best and most timeless shoe in history) and Converse decides to add a 12th color to their 11 color line of High Top Chuck Taylors... each one being available in no less that 73 different sizes between an infant 1C and an adult Mens 18.  (Perhaps there's some overlap between the Big Kids and Adult sizes, but I digress).  My point is that it becomes a very unnecessarily time-consuming and ends up being a multi-hour project to expand pre-existing product with new variants.  Suppose you wanted to change the name of a color.  Show me a way to do that quickly.  Why is it that the only available option in cases like these is to manually enter new SKUs manually one by one.

And it would be one thing if Commerce was held back by a technical reason for these things... but let's be real here.  There's no technical reason that should inhibit make bulk edits in the system.  These restrictions are, for whatever reason, policy driven. 

Similar to the one megabyte import limitation restriction (which still is just as unfathomable to me as to why that should exists) I'd love to know what logic would dictate that it would be a good idea to put an absolutely unnecessary limitation like this  into Commerce?  There is simply no reason for this to exist, other than to drag out something much longer that any other system would allow you to accomplish in second.  Amazon, Shopify, etc... simply import your data.  They just do.  

Why the unnecessary roadblocks that only serve to slow you down when the system should be designed in every way to optimize save me time, rather than making every inventory update into a project.  

Please please please fix this so that inventory imports can be a useful part of Commerce.  Please.  Manual editing in Commerce has sucked countless hours from my life because of this.  I'm not kidding.  Please fix this so we can actually work with our store inventory efficiently and in a manner that's accommodate by virtually every other available ecommerce solution. 

-Bryan

      • Recent Topics

      • Zoho Books Sandbox environment

        Hello. Is there a free sandbox environment for the developers using Zoho Books API? I am working on the Zoho Books add-on and currently not ready to buy a premium service - maybe later when my add-on will start to bring money. Right now I just need a
      • Multi-currency and Products

        One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support. However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK. However, we maintain different price lists for each. There
      • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

        Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards
      • COQL API in JS Widget only pulling 200 records

        Hello! We've been building a custom homepage widget using the Zoho JS SDK, and it seems that this https://help.zwidgets.com/help/latest/ZOHO.CRM.API.html#.coql only allows 200 records. I thought the limit was 2000 for COQL queries, but am I mistaken?
      • Passing the CRM

        Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when
      • Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

        We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The
      • Do buttons and vba msgbox work on mobile, specifially the iPhone zoho sheets app?

        In Zoho sheets on the web, I inserted a button and assigned a VBA macro to it. It pops up a msgbox with some text. When I go onto the iPhone mobile zoho sheets app, the button is there. When I click on that button, the spinning asterisk appears for a
      • Different form submission results for submitter and internal users

        I'm looking for suggestions on how to show an external submitter a few results while sending internal users all the results from the answers provided by the external user. The final page of our form has a section with detailed results and a section with
      • Column letter from number

        Hello, I am trying to select a cell and i have the column number. How do i do this or is there a way of getting the letter from the number? Thank you
      • Help Desk Services Solution

        I am here looking for Help Desk services solution for organization. I also searched this on many different website and found many solutions. We are bit confused to which one to choose. One of my friend suggest me this platform, and i am hoping i will
      • Facing Issues with Sites Mobile font sizes

        my page renediaz.com is facing issues mobile view, when i try to lower font sizes in home page, instead of changing the size, it changes the line space
      • Remove 'This is an automated mail from Zoho Sign' in footer

        Hi there, Is it possible to remove or change the text under the e-mail templates? I can't figure out how to do that: Would love to hear from you. Kind regards, Tristan
      • Formatting and slow

        Creating campaigns are difficult.  I'm fairly computer literate but some of the way Zoho Campaigns formatting works is painful.  Images fail to upload or are very slow. To top it off, syncing the contacts is a pain as well as temperamental links to create Segments. At this rate I'm afraid we might need to migrate back to Mailchimp.
      • Default Ticket View - Table?

        Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV
      • Boost your Zoho Desk's performance by archiving tickets!

        The longer your help desk operations are, the more likely it is to accumulate tickets that are no longer relevant. For example, ticket records from a year ago are typically less relevant than currently open tickets. Such old tickets may eventually lead
      • Paste emails to create segment

        We are moving over from Mailchimp to ZOHO. However Mailchimp allows me to create a segment by pasting in emails from excel (or importing a .csv) can I do the same in Mailchimp?
      • Getting the Record ID of a form once it is submitted - so that form can be edited later

        In Zoho Forms, where can I access the record ID of a form once the form is submitted? - Record ID is not available in webhook payloads - It is not available to form fields, including in formulas - It is not available as a parameter in a thankyou page
      • Auto-Generate Line Numbers in Item Table Using HTML & CSS Counters (Zoho Books & Zoho Inventory Custom Templates)

        <div> <style> /* Start counter from 0 inside tbody */ tbody#lineitem { counter-reset: rowNumber; } /* Increment counter for each row */ tbody#lineitem tr { counter-increment: rowNumber; } /* Show counter value in first column */ tbody#lineitem tr td:first-child::before
      • Possible to define default font and size in Zoho Campaigns?

        Is it possible to define a default font (font, size and colour) for the text, H1 and H2 in Zoho Campaigns? For example: In a campaign, I add a text block, and the text is automatically century gothic, size 11, grey (6f6f6e) by default? Thank you!
      • Zoho Sites - General Feedback

        Hi Everyone-- Quick question for discussion: is it me or is working with Zoho Sites like entering the Twilight Zone? I've built many sites over the years, but this platform seems impossible. I've spent an entire day and a half trying to get a simple one-color
      • File Upload field not showing in workflow

        Hi, I have added a field on Zoho CRM. I want to use it in a workflow where that particular field is updated based on another field, however it is not showing up in the field list to select it in the workflow. Why is this please?
      • You cannot send this email campaign as it doesn't have any eligible contacts in the selected mailing list. You can try adding contacts or choose other mailing lists.

        please help
      • Strengthening the capabilities of CommandCenter in Zoho CRM Plus

        When you look at the prospect-to-customer journey in most businesses 10 to 15 years ago, it was relatively straightforward. Many of us remember walking into a store, sharing our requirements with a sales associate, reviewing a few options, and making
      • World date & time format

        Hello, Is there a timeline to get the worldwide used date and time format ? I mean not the american one... I mean day month year, and 24 hours clock. Regards
      • How can Data Enrichment be automatically triggered when a new Lead is created in Zoho CRM?

        Hi, I have a pipeline where a Lead is created automatically through the Zoho API and I've been trying to look for a way to automatically apply Data Enrichment on this created lead. 1) I did not find any way to do this through the Zoho API; it seems like
      • Announcing Kiosk 1.1 - Customize screen titles, configure new fields & actions, use values from your Kiosk to update fields, and more.

        Hello all We are back again with more enhancements to Kiosk. So what's new? Enhancements made to the Components Add titles for your Kiosk screens and adjust its width to suit your viewing preferences. Three new fields can be added to your screen: Percentage,
      • Any recommendations for Australian Telephony Integration providers?

        HI,  I am looking for some advice on phone providers as we are looking to upgrade our phone system, does anybody have experience with any of the Australian providers that integrate with CRM Telephony? So far we are looking at RingCentral and Amazon Connect, and would love to hear feedback on any of the other providers you might have tried.  Thank you
      • CRM Cadences recognise auto-responses

        I have leads in a Cadence. I get an auto-responder reply "I'm out of the office..." Normally Cadences seems to know that isn't a real reply and keeps the lead enrolled in the cadence. However, today, Cadences has UNENROLLED a Lead who sent an auto-reponse
      • Zoho Campaigns Workspaces

        Hi, I’m currently working on a Zoho CRM + Zoho Campaigns setup for a franchisee-based organization, where each franchise must only see and use its own contacts. At the moment, franchisees cannot properly access their contact lists in Zoho Campaigns unless
      • Limited System because of Limited Number of Fields for Car Dealership

        Dear Zoho Support, we want to have all the information about a car inside of a car record. We want to have Zoho CRM as our single source of truth for our data, but the limited number of fields are not allowing that. The data consist of: technical data
      • Automatically Update Form Attachment Service with Newly added Fields

        Hi, When I have a Form Setup and connected to a 3rd Party Service such as OneDrive for Form Attachments, when I later add a new Upload Field I have to remove and redo the entire 3rd Party Setup from scratch. This needs to be improved, such as when new
      • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

        Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
      • Newsletter in multiple languages

        Hi We are planning on starting to use Zoho Campaigns for our newsletters. Since we send our newsletters in three languages, I would need the "unsubscribe page" and other pages related to the NL (Thank you page and so on) to be available in different languages
      • Fixed assets in Zoho One?

        Hi, We use Zoho Books and have the fixed asset option in it. I started a trial for Zoho One and I do not see that as an option. Is the books that is part of zoho one equivalent to Zoho Books Elite subscription or is it a lesser version? Thanks, Matt
      • Set Default Status of Assembly to "Assembled" When Entered in UI

        I've just discovered the new "confirmed" status of Assemblies within Inventory. While I understand the intent of this (allowing for manufacturing planning and raw material stock allocation), it was initially confusing to me when manually entering some
      • I need to Record Vatable amount and non vatable amount separately in zoho books in a single line

        I need to Record Vatable amount and non vatable amount separately in zoho books in a single line give me the customisation option and in invoice copy to customer the total amount should be inclusive 5%vat and no need to show the vatable and non vatable
      • Sort Legend & stacked bar chart by value

        I'd love to see an option added to sort the legend of graphs by the value that is being represented. This way the items with the largest value in the graph are displayed top down in the legend. For example, let's say I have a large sales team and I create
      • Scanned Doc - selecting Item overwrites Rate

        I have a Vendor Invoice which was uploaded to Documents. I select Add To > New Bill. The OCR is actually quite good, but it is reading an Item Description instead of an Item Number. I remove the description and select the correct Item Number... and it
      • Timesheet invalid data error

        Getting the "Invalid Date" error when trying to add a time sheet to an appointment in a work order. I initially though the work order was corrupt or something so I deleted the work order and recreated it. I added the first time sheet to the AP and saved
      • Convert invoice from zoho to xml with all details

        How to convert an Invoice to XML format with all details
      • Next Page