Stop Rebuilding Shopify CSVs: Why Your Import Preview Is Probably Lying

When bulk importing products to Shopify, blank category fields in the preview screen trigger panic and unnecessary file rewrites—but the preview often lies. This guide introduces a methodical testing workflow that isolates whether your CSV is genuinely broken or whether you're simply hitting a preview display limitation. For commerce teams managing hundreds of SKUs, this distinction is the difference between confident validation and hours of wasted rework.