“Inventory quantity is not a number” (and “can’t be blank”): fixing stock in a Shopify CSV

What the messages mean

Common causes

• Supplier availability text like “In stock”, “On request” or “Low” copied into the quantity column.
• Numbers stored with formatting, such as 1,200 or trailing spaces.
• Tracking turned on without data: the template has shopify in Inventory tracker but you don’t know stock levels yet.

How to fix it

1. Replace text with whole numbers. Use 0 where you have no stock.
2. Remove thousands separators and decimals.
3. If you don’t track inventory for these products yet, leave Inventory tracker empty and remove the quantity values.
4. Note that the quantity column in a product CSV sets stock for one location. For several locations, use Shopify’s separate inventory CSV.
5. Save as CSV UTF-8 and import again.

Supplier stock is a moving target

Supplier price lists rarely carry reliable stock numbers, so many stores import new products without inventory and set stock once goods arrive. Sheet2Store’s Shopify export follows that approach: it doesn’t write inventory columns, so this error can’t come from its files. How to add supplier products to Shopify.