Draft or active? Status and publishing in a Shopify CSV
An import can put products in front of customers immediately. According to Shopify’s CSV reference, products import as active when the Status column is absent, and online-store publishing defaults to true. A supplier file with a wrong price can therefore go live before anyone checks it.
By FeedNeat · Reviewed October 27, 2026
What the columns control
Status accepts active, draft or archived. If the column is present, each row needs a value. The online-store published column accepts true or false. Draft products stay in your admin for review and are not available to customers.
What FeedNeat writes
Every exported row is a draft and not published to the online store. This is mandatory in the current version and cannot be switched off in the workspace. It gives you a review step between the supplier’s data and your storefront.
Watch for missing prices
Shopify’s reference says a blank price defaults to 0.00. FeedNeat flags a missing price as a warning rather than blocking it, because you may plan to add prices in the store. Resolve those warnings before any product leaves draft.
Review, then publish
After a small test import, filter your product list to drafts and spot-check titles, prices, SKUs and vendors against the original supplier file. Change status to active only after that check. Keep the FeedNeat change report with the import so each correction can be traced later.
Worked example
FeedNeat export: Status=draft, Published=FALSE → review in admin first Status column absent in another file → imports as active, per Shopify’s reference Blank price → may import as 0.00; warning shown before export
Related guidance
- Complete pre-import checklist
- Keep leading zeros in CSV SKUs and barcodes
- Fix ambiguous prices in a supplier CSV
- Understand repeated handles in a Shopify CSV
- Map supplier CSV columns to Shopify product fields
- Fix CSV encoding and delimiter problems before a Shopify import
- Common Shopify CSV import errors and how to avoid them
For the destination format and field dependencies, consult the official Shopify CSV reference. FeedNeat is independent software and supports a limited subset.