Turn an Order Export Into a Pack List With Gemini in Sheets

What This Does

A raw order export from Shopify, Etsy, or Amazon is built for the platform's records, not for someone standing at a packing table. Gemini in Google Sheets can take that export and group it by SKU, flag orders that need custom packaging, or build a clean pack list in a few minutes instead of you sorting rows by hand every shipping day.

Before You Start

• Gemini in Sheets requires a paid Google AI subscription (Google One AI Premium, sometimes branded Google AI Plus) or a Google Workspace Business plan with the Gemini add-on. A free personal Gmail account does not include it, so check whether your Google account already has one of these before you start
• You have an order export downloaded as a CSV or already pasted into a Sheet, with columns like order number, SKU, product name, and quantity
• Clean up obvious junk in the export first (blank rows, duplicate headers). Gemini's summaries get noticeably less reliable on messy data

Steps

1. Open your order export in Sheets

Paste or import your export into a new sheet. Make sure each column has a clear header (SKU, Product Name, Quantity, Order Number) since Gemini reads those headers to figure out what each column means.

2. Open the Gemini side panel

Look for the sparkle icon in the top-right corner of the toolbar, near the Share button. Click it to open the Gemini panel on the right side of the screen.

What you should see: A chat-style panel where you can type a plain-language request about your active sheet.

3. Ask it to summarize by SKU

Type a request describing what you need: "summarize the quantity of each SKU in this order export, and flag any rows where the quantity is more than 3 since those probably need a bigger box." Gemini reads your data and either responds with a summary or offers to insert a new table directly into the sheet.

What you should see: A summarized table, usually grouped by SKU, with quantities totaled, that you can insert with one click.

4. Spot-check before you start packing

Add up a sample of orders by hand, or compare the total unit count against your platform's own order count, before relying on the summary to pack from. Gemini performs well on categorization and reformatting tasks, but a messy export or a mislabeled column can produce a summary that's confidently wrong.

Real Example

Scenario: It's a Tuesday morning with 34 orders to pack, spanning 12 different SKUs, some of them multi-item orders that need a bigger box.

What you type: "Group this order export by SKU, show total quantity per SKU, and list any order with 2 or more line items separately so I know which ones need extra packaging."

What you get: A grouped table showing how many of each SKU to pull, plus a short list of multi-item orders to prep differently, in place of manually scrolling through 34 rows.

Tips

• Be specific in your prompt. "Summarize this data" gets a generic response; naming the exact grouping and flag condition you want gets something you can actually pack from
• If your export includes customer names, addresses, or phone numbers, strip or hide those columns before running an AI summary you don't need them for. There's no reason to route customer contact details through an AI feature when a SKU and quantity export answers the packing question just as well
• Save a copy of the cleaned, AI-summarized sheet as your day's pack list, and re-run the same prompt each shipping day rather than rebuilding it from scratch

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.