Shopify Admin Hack: See Compare-At Prices & Audit Markdowns Faster

Hey fellow store owners! Let's talk about something that comes up surprisingly often in the Shopify community, especially for those of us juggling thousands of products: managing your pricing, specifically that 'compare-at price' field. You know, the one that tells your customers, “Hey, this used to be X, now it’s Y!”

Recently, a merchant named Thomas from Pearl River Mart – an amazing, iconic Asian emporium – brought up a really valid point in the forums. With a huge catalog ranging from home furnishings to fashion, their retail operations team “lives in Shopify.” What they really needed was a way to see both the selling price and the compare-at price side-by-side right in the main Product List View. Imagine trying to audit markdowns, spot missing retail prices, or just ensure pricing consistency across hundreds or thousands of products without having to click into each one individually. It's a massive time sink, right?

Thomas's request for a configurable column – just like “Status” or “Inventory” – is something I’ve heard echoed many times. It's a solid ask, particularly for stores using compare-at prices for sales or MSRP displays.

The Ideal Scenario: A Persistent Column

Before we dive into solutions, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. The community agreed that a persistent “Retail Price (compare-at price)” column in the main Products list would be incredibly handy. Moeed, another helpful voice in the thread, pointed out that for these kinds of feature requests to actually reach Shopify’s product development team, they need to be posted on community.shopify.dev, not the general merchant forums. So, if you feel this pain point too, make sure your voice is heard there!

Immediate Solutions from the Community: What You Can Do Today

While we wait for potential future updates, the good news is our community came through with some fantastic workarounds and tools you can leverage right now. Let's break them down.

1. Harnessing Shopify’s Built-In Bulk Editor

Vlad_Gerasimchuk offered a brilliant native solution that often gets overlooked: the bulk editor. It’s not a permanent column in your main list, but it gets you most of the way there for auditing and quick fixes. Here’s how:

1. Go to Products: From your Shopify admin, navigate to “Products.”
2. Select Products: Tick the checkboxes next to the products you want to audit. For a large catalog, you might need to work through pages, selecting “all on this page.”
3. Click “Bulk edit”: You’ll see a button for this once products are selected.
4. Add the “Compare-at price” Column: In the bulk editor screen, look for the “Columns” button (usually near the top right). Click it, and under the “Pricing” section, make sure to tick “Compare-at price.”
5. Audit and Edit: Now you’ll see “Price” and “Compare-at price” side-by-side in a grid. You can quickly scan for blanks, check for incorrect markdowns (where the compare-at price might be lower than the selling price!), and fix them right there, inline.
6. Save Your Changes: Once you’re done, hit “Save.”

This method hits Thomas’s key requirements: spotting missing prices, auditing markdowns, and fixing them in place – all without opening each product individually. It’s a huge time-saver compared to single-product edits or CSV round-trips for immediate tasks.

2. Powering Up with Shopify Flow for Automated Audits

DanielAnderson chimed in with another clever, free solution for teams that “live in admin”: Shopify Flow. This is fantastic for automating checks and creating dynamic “needs attention” lists:

1. Set Up a Flow: Configure a Shopify Flow automation to run on a schedule (e.g., daily or weekly).
2. Check Variant Prices: Have the Flow check each product variant’s compare-at price.
3. Tag Problem Products: Set conditions to tag products that are missing a compare-at price or, crucially, where the compare-at price is sitting above the selling price (a common markdown error!).
4. Create Saved Views: Once products are tagged, your retail team can simply filter the main Product List View by these tags. This gives them a saved view of exactly the products that need attention.

This approach is brilliant because it’s automated, free, and keeps your team focused on just the products that require action, rather than manually sifting through everything.

3. The CSV Export/Import Method for Large-Scale Audits

Moeed also suggested the classic CSV export. While it means stepping out of the Shopify admin for a bit, it’s incredibly powerful for truly massive audits or complex data manipulation:

1. Export Products: Go to your Products section and select “Export.” Choose to export all products or specific ones.
2. Open in Spreadsheet: Open the CSV file in your favorite spreadsheet software (Google Sheets, Excel, etc.). You’ll find both “Variant Price” and “Variant Compare At Price” columns.
3. Filter and Sort: Use your spreadsheet’s filtering and sorting capabilities to quickly identify missing compare-at prices, or compare the two columns to audit markdowns.
4. Make Bulk Corrections: Make any necessary corrections directly in the spreadsheet.
5. Re-import: Save your CSV and re-import it back into Shopify. Just be careful to choose the correct import options to update existing products.

This method offers unparalleled flexibility for data analysis and bulk corrections, especially if you’re comfortable with spreadsheets.

4. Considering Third-Party Apps for Advanced Needs

Finally, FranziKa, a seasoned Shopify store owner, highly recommended a third-party app called Ablestar Bulk Product Editor. While Thomas was initially hesitant about adding another paid app , FranziKa insisted it’s a “must-have” that makes “Shopify-Life so much easier.” Apps like Ablestar offer:

• Advanced Filtering: You can filter for complex conditions like “price is smaller / bigger / same as compare-at-price” or “compare-at-price is not set,” combined with other filters like vendor or product status.
• Powerful Bulk Edits: They go beyond Shopify’s native bulk editor, offering more robust options for managing thousands of products efficiently.

If your needs are very complex and the native tools aren't quite cutting it, a dedicated app can be a game-changer, even if it comes with a subscription fee.

So there you have it! While the dream of a permanent, configurable “compare-at price” column in the main product list is still on the horizon, the Shopify community has already figured out some incredibly smart ways to tackle this challenge. Whether you’re leveraging the built-in bulk editor, automating checks with Shopify Flow, diving into CSVs, or exploring powerful third-party apps like Ablestar, you’ve got options to keep your pricing consistent and your operations running smoothly. Keep those feature requests coming on community.shopify.dev, and let’s keep making Shopify even better for all of us!