Guide · Customer groups import

Customer groups

Customer groups are the buckets you put customers in to give them a discount, or to limit which categories they can see. Import your customers afterwards and you can put them in a group by name.

Commands

Command	Description	Behaviour
NEW	Create a new group.	Fails if a group with the same name already exists.
UPDATE	Update an existing group.	Uses `Group ID` if given, otherwise finds the group by name. Fails if there is none.
MERGE	Create or update.	The default. Updates the group if the name exists, creates it otherwise.
DELETE	Delete a group.	Uses `Group ID` if given, otherwise finds it by name. Customers in it are left without a group.
REPLACE	Refused for groups.	Fails the row. Re-creating a group would give it a new id and move every customer out of it. Use UPDATE.
IGNORE	Skip this row.	Does nothing, and is recorded as skipped rather than as a success.

Category access

Category Access	Means	Category IDs
`all`	The group can see every category. This is the default for a new group.	Leave empty
`specific`	The group can see only the categories you list.	Required
`none`	The group can see no categories at all.	Leave empty

Columns

CSV column	Required	Description
`Command`	Optional	NEW \| MERGE \| UPDATE \| DELETE \| IGNORE. Default MERGE.
`Group ID`	Optional	BigCommerce customer group id. Give it for UPDATE or DELETE and no lookup is needed.
`Group Name`	Required	The group name, which BigCommerce keeps unique. Not required if you give a `Group ID`.
`Is Default`	Optional	true makes this the group new customers join.
`Category Access`	Optional	all \| specific \| none — see the table above.
`Category IDs`	Optional	Comma-separated BigCommerce category ids. Required when `Category Access` is specific.
`Discount Method`	Optional	percent \| price \| fixed. "%" and "percentage" are accepted spellings of percent.
`Discount Amount`	Conditional	The number that goes with the method. Required alongside `Discount Method` — giving one without the other is refused.
`Discount Applies To`	Optional	What the discount covers. Defaults to all.

Example file

Command,Group ID,Group Name,Is Default,Category Access,Category IDs,Discount Method,Discount Amount
MERGE,,Retail,true,all,,,
MERGE,,Wholesale,false,all,,percent,15
MERGE,,Trade Only,false,specific,"18,19",percent,25
UPDATE,5,,,none,,,
DELETE,,Old Group,,,,,

Things worth knowing

One discount per row. A group can hold several discount rules in BigCommerce, but a row describes one. If a group you export has more than one, the export says so in its warning and writes the first — so nothing disappears without you being told.
specific needs its ids. Setting Category Access to specific without Category IDs fails the row rather than quietly hiding every category from the group.
Deleting a group leaves its customers behind. They are not deleted; they simply end up in no group.
Blank cells never overwrite. Leaving Discount Method out keeps whatever discount the group already has — it does not clear it.
A duplicate name names the clash. BigCommerce reports which existing group holds the name, so the failure says which one rather than just refusing.
Amounts come back padded. BigCommerce reports a discount amount as 10.0000; the export trims it, so a round trip does not turn 10 into 10.0000.
Check before you run. The file check flags any column that would be ignored, and a dry run previews every row without writing anything.