How to import your Instagram or existing store

If you already sell somewhere, you don't have to start from scratch. Go to sitesplaced.com/import, point the Importer at your Instagram handle, your existing website or a PDF catalog, pick a template, and it builds a store — name, logo, colours, copy and products — and publishes it in one click. You then tidy prices, photos and settings from the dashboard. The whole thing takes a few minutes and is free.

Step 1 — Run the importer

1. 1Open sitesplaced.com/import and pick where your content lives: Instagram (enter your handle without the @), Website / Shopify (enter the store link, like yourstore.com), PDF / Doc (upload a catalog or price list — PDF or DOCX), or one of the other source tiles. Click Continue.
2. 2Choose what to build. For a shop pick Online store — Sell products: cart, checkout, orders (it is pre-selected for product-shaped sources).
3. 3Pick a template from the gallery, or leave it on Let AI pick so the importer chooses a fitting one. Click Build my online store.
4. 4Wait while it reads your profile, pulls your content, writes the copy and lays it out — usually under a minute.
5. 5You land on a preview titled Your store is ready. Check the products and branding, then click Sign up & publish (new account) or Publish my store (already signed in).

What gets imported

• Instagram — your bio and profile picture, plus recent image posts turned into products with the caption as the description. Prices are read from captions only when they are clearly stated; otherwise the product is created at ₹0 for you to fill in. The profile must be public.
• Website / Shopify — product names, prices, original prices, photos, categories and (where the site exposes them) sizes and stock, plus your logo and colours.
• PDF / Doc — every product the catalog lists, with prices where printed. Image-only PDFs import names and prices but rarely photos.
• Photos are copied onto SitesPlaced hosting so they keep working if the original source goes offline. A product whose images can't be fetched is skipped rather than published blank — so the product count may be lower than your source.

Step 2 — Review your products

• Open your store from the dashboard and go to Products. Check each item's Product name, Price and Photos — anything at ₹0 needs a real price before you share the link.
• Delete posts that aren't products (giveaways, memes, reposts) — the importer keeps what looks like an item, but Instagram captions are ambiguous.
• Set up options if you sell sizes/colours — see How to sell sizes & colours. Do this before editing many products, because the catalog model changes the product form.
• Tidy your categories under Settings → Categories — the importer may create rough ones or none. Every product can then be re-tagged from its Categories picker.
• Decide your stock approach in Catalog & fields — imported products start with unlimited stock unless the source carried counts.

Step 3 — Finish the setup

• Set how you get paid — the importer doesn't connect Razorpay or fill in your UPI details.
• Confirm your WhatsApp number under Settings → Store details (with the country code) and your Store link — the importer chooses a slug from your brand name, and you can change it once before sharing.
• Check your menu & navigation, branding and the About text the importer wrote — it's a good draft, not gospel.
• Run the go-live checklist, place a test order, and share the link.

Importing into a store you already have

The importer on sitesplaced.com/import always builds a new store. To add products to a store that already exists — one you set up by hand, or one you want to load a second catalogue into — use the Import button on the Products page instead.

1. 1Open your store from the dashboard and go to Products. Click Import, next to Add Product (on a store with no products yet it is the Import from PDF or website button).
2. 2Pick where the products are: PDF / Photo (a catalogue, a price list, or a photo of your menu board — PDF, DOCX, JPG, PNG or HEIC, up to 10MB), Website / Shopify, Instagram, DM2Buy or Shopexer. Enter the link or handle, or choose the file, and click Find products.
3. 3Wait 10–30 seconds. You get a list of everything it found, with the name, price and photo of each product. Untick anything you don't want. Products with the same name as one already in your store start unticked and are marked Already in store, so importing an updated catalogue adds what is new without doubling what you have.
4. 4Click Add N products. Photos are copied onto your store, and the new products appear at the top of your list — edit any of them as usual.

• Your store's name, template, colours, pages and existing products are not touched. Only products are added.
• The products count towards your plan's product limit. If you tick more than there is room for, the first ones are added and the rest are left out — the button tells you how many fit.
• A product listed without a price is added at 0 so it cannot be sold for the wrong amount. Fix those before sharing your link.
• From a PDF or a photo the products come without pictures (a placeholder shows). Add photos from each product's page.
• You can run the import as many times as you like, from different files or sites.

Good to know

• The preview expires after an hour. If you see Preview Expired, run the import again — it only takes a minute.
• Running sitesplaced.com/import again creates a second store, it doesn't update the first. To add products to a store you already have, use Products → Import inside that store (see above). The free plan allows up to 5 sites, so delete any store you don't want from the dashboard.
• Instagram import failed? Try again in a few minutes, or use the Website / Shopify tile with your link-in-bio shop instead.
• The template is fixed once the store is created. The Active template card under Settings → Branding shows which one you are on. To try a different one, run the import again and pick it — you get a second store, so delete the one you do not want. Colours, fonts, text and sections stay editable on any template.
• Editor looks emptier than the live preview? If a section's editor looks blank while the live page shows content, open and re-save that section — it backfills from your imported content. Still odd after that? Contact support.

Want to see what an imported Instagram store looks like before you start? Browse the templates or read Instagram to website. If you are moving a large catalog and would rather someone else did the cleanup, the Growth plan includes a setup person — see Pricing.