The supplier file imports before you're awake. Every week, without anyone doing it.
Scheduled Imports pulls product data from wherever your suppliers put it — a file URL, an FTP server, an S3 bucket, a Google Sheet — on a schedule you set, using the column mapping you saved the first time. The Monday ritual of downloading, reformatting and uploading disappears, and so does the failure mode where it simply does not happen because the person who does it is on holiday.
What automation removes
The weekly supplier file, measured honestly.
The supplier file is a single point of failure
Every ops team has one person who "does the supplier file", and everyone knows what happens when they are away.
How supplier data arrives today
What Scheduled Imports does
It arrives as an email attachment
The supplier emails a spreadsheet every Monday. Someone downloads it, opens it, fixes the columns, saves it as CSV and uploads it. It is forty minutes of work that produces nothing new.
The import runs on a schedule
Point Apimio at the URL, FTP path, S3 bucket or Google Sheet once. It fetches and imports on the cadence you set — overnight, weekly, whatever matches how the supplier publishes.
It stops when one person is away
If the person who does the file is on holiday, the catalog is simply a week out of date. Prices are wrong, stock is wrong, and nobody notices until a customer does.
It does not need a person
The run happens whether anyone is at a desk or not. Holidays, weekends and sick days stop being catalog-freshness events.
Every supplier sends a different shape
One uses "Item No", another "SKU", a third puts price and currency in the same cell. The reformatting is remembered rather than recorded, so it has to be redone every time.
Mapping is saved per supplier
The first import is where you match their columns to your fields, with AI suggesting the mapping. That template is saved and reused, so every subsequent run needs no reformatting at all.
Nobody knows what the last import did
When something looks wrong in the catalog, there is no record of which import touched it, what it changed, or whether part of it failed silently.
Every run is on the record
The run history shows each import: when it ran, which products were created or updated, and what failed. Failures notify you rather than passing silently.
Five sources, one saved mapping, a full run history
Built for teams onboarding supplier brands whose data arrives in whatever shape the supplier felt like sending.
Import from a file URL
Point Apimio at a URL where the supplier publishes their current file. It fetches on schedule — no download, no re-upload, no attachment to chase.
- Any publicly reachable CSV or Excel URL
- Fetched fresh on every scheduled run
- Useful when the supplier keeps one canonical file
Import over FTP
Connect to a supplier's FTP server and pull whatever they have dropped since the last run. The pattern most established distributors already use.
- FTP credentials stored per source
- Scheduled pull from a directory path
- Suits distributors with an existing FTP workflow
Import from an S3 bucket
Read from an S3 bucket where a supplier or an internal system deposits files, so a data pipeline your own team runs can feed the catalog directly.
- S3 bucket and prefix per source
- Works with internally generated exports
- No middle step between pipeline and catalog
Import from Google Sheets
Read directly from a Google Sheet, which is often how smaller suppliers and internal teams actually maintain product data. Edit the sheet; the catalog follows on the next run.
- Read a named Google Sheet on schedule
- Suits suppliers who live in a shared sheet
- The most demonstrable source — change a cell, watch it arrive
Saved mapping templates
Map a supplier's columns to your fields once, with AI suggesting matches on the first import. The template is reused on every subsequent run, per supplier.
- AI column mapping on first import
- One saved template per supplier
- Formulas and transformations preserved between runs
Run history and notifications
A shared panel showing every run: when it happened, what changed, what failed. Failures notify you rather than being discovered later by a customer.
- What ran, when, and what it changed
- Failure notifications
- Import actions: new and update, update only, or new only
- Runs pause rather than break if a subscription lapses
Four steps, then it runs itself
The work is front-loaded into the first import. Everything after that is unattended.
Point Apimio at the source
Give Apimio the file URL, FTP path, S3 bucket or Google Sheet where this supplier publishes. Credentials are stored against the source.
Map their columns once
Apimio AI suggests how their columns map to your fields — "Item No" to SKU, "RRP" to price — and you confirm or correct. The mapping is saved as a template for this supplier.
Set the schedule and the action
Choose the cadence, then choose what the run may do: create and update, update only, or create only. Update-only means a supplier file can never quietly add products you did not approve.
Watch the run history
From then on it runs unattended. The run history records each import and what it changed; failures notify you. Quality Guard scores whatever arrives, so bad supplier data surfaces as a fix list rather than a live listing.
Why teams onboard more suppliers after this
The constraint on how many supplier brands you can carry is usually the manual work, not the commercial relationship.
No single point of failure
The catalog stops depending on one person being at a desk on a Monday morning.
More suppliers become viable
When onboarding a supplier costs one mapping session instead of a recurring weekly job, carrying ten brands stops being ten times the work.
The catalog is current by default
Prices and stock reflect what the supplier published, not what someone had time to upload.
Bad data does not go live
Quality Guard scores imported products, and the publish gate can hold below-bar products as drafts rather than pushing a broken listing to your storefront.
Every change is traceable
When a price looks wrong, the run history shows which import set it and when.
It pauses, it does not punish
If a subscription lapses, scheduled runs pause and resume when you reactivate. Nothing is deleted and no configuration is lost.
Manual CSV vs Shopify import vs Scheduled Imports
The difference is not speed of a single import. It is whether an import needs a person at all.
Manual CSV upload | Shopify product import | Unattended Apimio Scheduled Imports | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs without a person | |||
| Pulls from FTP, S3 or Google Sheets | |||
| Saved column mapping per supplier | |||
| AI suggests the column mapping | |||
| Run history of what changed | |||
| Control whether a run may create products | |||
| Imported data scored for quality | |||
| Live vendor API integration | |||
Imports are the front door to the catalog
What arrives on a schedule still has to be correct before it reaches a storefront.
Supplier Bridge
The AI column mapping and saved templates that make an unattended import possible in the first place.
See Supplier BridgeQuality Guard
Scores whatever a supplier sends and holds below-bar products as drafts, so an automated import cannot publish a broken listing.
See Quality GuardBulk Edit
Clean up whatever arrives — fill gaps, normalize product types, fix pricing — across the whole import at once.
See Bulk EditAutomated product imports — the common questions
Point Apimio at wherever the product data lives — a file URL, an FTP server, an S3 bucket or a Google Sheet — and set a schedule. On the first import you map the supplier's columns to your fields, with AI suggesting the matches, and that mapping is saved. Every run after that fetches the current file, applies the saved mapping and updates your catalog, then syncs the result to your Shopify stores. Nobody downloads or uploads anything.
Yes, Google Sheets is one of the five supported sources. It is the one most teams find easiest to demonstrate: change a cell in the sheet, wait for the next scheduled run, and see the change in the catalog and then in Shopify. It suits smaller suppliers and internal teams who genuinely maintain their product data in a shared sheet rather than a system.
CSV and Excel files, from five source types: a file URL, an FTP server, an S3 bucket, a Google Sheet, or a supplier feed. What is not supported is EDI, and there are no live vendor API integrations — imports are file and feed based. We would rather state that plainly than let it be assumed.
No. The mapping is saved as a template against that supplier. You map once — with AI suggesting how their columns match your fields — and every subsequent run reuses it. That is what makes onboarding an additional supplier brand a one-off task instead of a recurring weekly one.
Only if you allow it. Each schedule carries an import action: create and update, update only, or create only. Setting a supplier feed to update-only means it can refresh prices and stock on products you already carry but cannot introduce new ones. That is usually the right setting for an established supplier.
The run history records it and you are notified. Each run shows what it fetched, which products it created or updated, and which rows failed and why — so a partial failure is visible rather than being discovered weeks later by a customer looking at a wrong price.
Scheduled runs pause. They are not deleted, and neither is your mapping or your data. Reactivate and they resume on their existing schedule. Automations pausing rather than breaking is deliberate — a billing gap should not cost you a supplier configuration you spent time building.
Advanced PIM and Enterprise PIM. Basic PIM includes CSV import with column mapping and formulas, so you can import supplier files manually — but unattended scheduled runs and saved per-supplier templates are on Advanced and above, alongside Product Feeds, Sale Scheduler and the public API.
Onboard a supplier once. Their catalog stays current forever.
Install Apimio from the Shopify App Store, map your first supplier file, and let the next one arrive on its own.